Beijing Normal University
Foundation of Educational Research:
Methodology, Epistemology and Ontology
Topic 5
The Ontological Foundations of Educational Research
A. Bring the Ontological Foundation Back into the Research of EAP
1. The Critical Realist declarations:
a. “Since Descartes (1596-1650), it has been customary first to ask how we can
know, and only afterwards what it is that we can know. But this Cartesian ordering
has been a contributory factor to prevalence of epistemic fallacy: it is easy to let
the question how we can know determine our conception of what there is. And if
in a certain respect the epistemic question does seem prior, in another it is
secondary to the ontological one.” (Collier, 1993, P. 137)
b. “I shall concentrate first on the ontological question of the properties that societies
possess, before shift to the epistemological question of these properties make
them possible objects of knowledge for use. This is not an arbitrary order of
development. It reflects the condition that …it is the nature of objects that
determines their cognitive possibilities for us.” (Bhaskar, 1989)
2. Objectivism vs. Constructivism: Impasses in ontological perspectives:
Centuries of controversies among social researchers over epistemological and
methodological perspectives have created two deeply divided definitions of the
reality of the social world. They can generally characterized as objectivism versus
constructivism
a. Objectivism: Under the domination of the logical-positivism and
analytical-empirical science, the prevailing social ontology, which has been
characterized as objectivism, stipulates the social world as an objectively fixed
and given reality similar or even identical to the reality of the natural world. In this
ontological perspective, social reality is stipulated as analytical and empirical in
form, that is, the social world is conceived as a composition of particles or
elements, the structures and operations of which are observable by human
senses. Moreover, the social reality has also been stipulated as nomological and
causal in structure, i.e. the constitutive particles of social reality are presumed to
be structured in causal laws. The law-like structures of the social world can further
be defined in terms of their degree of universality and permanence. Accordingly,
the “strong” stance within the objectivism would argue that the law-like structures
of social realities are universal across locations and permanent over time. Such
an ontological stance could be characterized as “objective absolutism”. On the
other hand, the “weak” stance of objectivism would assume that the laws
governing the social world are only probabilistic laws and their universality and
permanence are limited in particular social and historical contexts.
b. Constructivism: In opposite to objectivism and more specifically in response to the
domination and even assault from the empirical positivists, the social scientists in
the historical-hermeneutic tradition have turned to interpretivism and
constructivism for havens. By interpretivism, it refers to the research approach
which emphasizes on the meaning-laden and value-laden nature of the social
world. Accordingly, this group of social scientists focuses on the interpretive (i.e.
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meaning attributing) features embedded in social reality and stresses the
uniqueness of each interpretive communities involved as well as the meanings
they imputed to the social reality concerned. Moreover, some of these
interpretativists would even advocate that the social reality is “a matter of
interpretation” and its features and structures are “open to interpretation” as well.
By constructivism, it refers to the research orientation which underlines the
essential roles of human ideas, believes, and efforts in the constitution of the
social world and more specifically its social institutions. Accordingly, it is assumed
that realities of the social world are subject to construction by different interpretive
communities according to their own ideas, believes or even vested interests. As a
result, social realities are conceived to be relative in nature, i.e. relative to the
subjectivities and intersubjectivities of the interpretive communities that have
power over the respective social realities in point. Such a research approach can
be characterized as “constructive relativism”.
The “paradigm war” between these two perspectives in social ontology, especially
the “dog fights” between extremists of “objective absolutism” and those of
“constructive relativism” have left the field of social ontology in complete disarrays if
not chaos for decades. On the one hand, there are advocates holding the
ontological perspective of “structural determinism”, which insists on the definitude of
causal laws at work in social structures. And accordingly human relationship and
activities found in these social structures are conceived to be deterministic in nature.
On the other hand, there are proponents promoting the ontological perspective of
“constructive voluntarism”, which emphasizes the intersubjectivity and forgeability at
work in social reality. Caught between the crossfire of these two camps, most of the
students in social research are helpless at lost in these ontological, epistemological
and methodological labyrinth.
3. The Critical-Realist Movement
a. Since the second half of the 1970s, Roy Bhaskar, a British philosopher, has
produced a series of work on philosophy of science and social sciences (1975,
1979, 1986, 1989). His work has motivated a line of academic work in varieties of
disciplines. As a result, they have together triggered an intellectual movement
now known as Critical Realism.
b. In the past three decades Critical Realism has gained significant recognition and
development in social-science researches; for examples economics (Lawson,
1997), social psychology (Greenwood, 1994), sociology (Archer, 1995;
Danermark et al., 2002), geography (Sayer, 2000), management and
organizational studies (Ackroyd and Fleetwood, 2000), social research
methods (Sayer, 1992), policy studies (Henry, et al. 1998; Pawson, 2006, 2013;
Mark et al., 2000), and education (in particular sociology of education (Maton,
2014; Maton & Moore, 2010; Muller, 2000; Moore, 2007, 2009; Scott, 2010;
Shipway, 2012; Wheelahan, 2010; Young, 2008a, 2008b).
4. What is critical realism?
a. Realism as doctrine in philosophy or more specifically in the philosophy of
science “belief that there is a world existing independently of our knowledge of it.”
(Sayer, 2000, P. 2). It assumes that the objects of study in science “is
ontologically independent of human mind.” (Niiniluoto, 1990, P. 10)
b. Critical realism as a theoretical branch within realism makes several specific
theoretical claims: (Collier, 1994, P.6-7)
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Objectivity: It refers to the ontological stance that “what is known would be
real whether or not it was known. Something may be real without appearing at
all.” (P. 6)
ii. Fallibility: It refers to the epistemological stance that knowledge claims made
by critical realists are “not about some supposedly infallible or corrigible data
of appearance.” Instead, they “are always open to refutation by further
information.” (P. 6) Therefore, social researchers must also be vigilant and
critical to their research results and knowledge claims.
iii. Transphenomenality (going beyond appearance): It indicates that
“knowledge may be not only of what appears, but of underlying structures,
which endure longer than those appearances, and generate them or make
them possible.” (P. 6)
iv. Counter-phenomenality: It refers to the epistemological stance which claims
that “knowledge of the deep structure of something may not just go beyond,
and not just explain, but also contradict appears. …It is precisely the capacity
of science for counter-phenomenality which made it necessary: without the
contradiction between appearance and reality, science would be redundant,
and we could go by appearance.” (P.7)
i.
B. Conceptual constituents of Transcendental Realism of Natural Sciences
Roy Basher starts his buildup of critical realism first with the analysis of the work and
enterprise of natural sciences. One of his initial points of departure is to criticize the
validity of empirical realism, which was the dominant approach in scientific research.
Instead Bhaskar proposes to replace empirical realism with what he called
transcendental realism. It means that the reality of the natural world is not confine its
appearances or to what we could have experienced. He claims that there are deeper
layers of mechanism and system at work than the mere appearances that we could
sensorily experience. (Collier, 1994, Pp. 25-29)
1. Concept of Depth Realism: The first conception of Bhaskar’s Critical Realism is his
distinction of reality into three domains:
a. Empirical domain: It refers to the aspect of reality which we have experienced
with our senses.
b. Actual domain: It refers to events which have occurred without our noticing, while
we can infer from their effects.
c. Real domain: It refers to the properties within entities, which are able to triggers
events to take place or to constraint them from occurring.
Domain of Real
✓
Mechanism
✓
Events
✓
Experiences
Source: Bhaskar, 1978, P. 13
Domain of Actual
Domain of Empirical
✓
✓
✓
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2. Features of the domain of the Real: Bhaskar has further differentiated the features of
the reality into levels:
a. Power and liability: Powers or emergent power, in Bhaskar’s term, refers to the
potentials which are able trigger events to take place; while liability are properties
which can prevent or constraint events from happening.
b. Mechanism: It refers to a set of powers working inter-connectively to set off the
occurrence an event or a chain of events.
c. Structure of the system: It refers to the interconnections among operative
mechanisms, which constitute the underlying structure against which events are
taking places.
d. Open/closed system: It refers the openness or closure (i.e. boundary) of a given
system. According to Critical Realist conception, “no system in our universe is
ever perfectly closed.” (Collier, 1994, P. 33) And accordingly both our natural and
social world are by definition open systems.
3. Stratification of causation: Taking together these conceptions of the natural world
stipulated by the Critical Realists, theories and models of causal explanations
formulated by scientists can be categorized into several strata
a. Cause-effect explanation
b. Explanatory mechanism
c. Explanatory structure
i. Structure of closed system: Nomological/law-like explanations
ii. Structure of open system: Theories of tendency or emergency
4. The work of science: Given all these specifications of the operations of the natural
world, Critical Realists contend that the work of natural science is in no way close to
the conceptions of experimental work stipulated by empiricism (based solely on
sensory observation) and positivism (aimed solely at verifying nomological
explanations). Instead, Critical Realists specify the features of the work of
experimental science as follows:
a. Science as work: Science in essence “is work, not contemplation, not observation,
not taking up of some kind of scientific attitude.” “It is an active intervention into
nature, made by people with acquired scientific skills, usually using special
equipment.” (Collier, 1993, P. 50) And “the ‘product’ is not the new arrangement
of matter brought about by the experiment. …It is the deepened knowledge of
some mechanism of nature.” (P.52)
b. Dr = Da = De coincide: Deepening of knowledge of nature means to penetrate the
empirical world and the actual events and to obtain the mechanism and structure
underlying all human experiences. It is through scientific experiment, “we can set
up a situation in which three domains (Dr, Da, De) coincide — in which a
mechanism is actualized, i.e. isolated from its usual codeterminants, so that it can
operate as a closed system, and to manifested as an event exemplifying the law
to which it corresponds.” (Collier, 1994, P. 45)
c. Experiment as closure: “What the experiment does …is to isolate one mechanism
of nature from the effect of others, to see what that mechanism does on its own.”
(Collier, 1994, P. 33) It is “an attempt to trigger or unleash a single kind of
mechanism or process in relative isolation, free from the interfering flux of the
open world, so as to observe its details workings or record its characteristic mode
of effect and/or to test some hypothesis about them.” (Bhashar, 1986, P. 35;
quoted in Collier, 1994, P. 33)
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d. Theory-led endeavor: “The classical sequence of experimental science is…: first
we construct a theory, then we design an experiment to test it, then we receive
nature’s answer to our question.” (Collier, 1994, P. 40) This indicates that
experimental practice cannot replace theoretical thinking in the work of science.
Power of abstraction and theoretical synthesizing is not only the initial point of
departure for formulation of problems but also the guiding signposts throughout
the path of scientific enquiry.
5. The hierarchy of science:
a. In view of the distinct domains, levels and strata specified by Critical Realists so
far, the enterprise of science itself can then be further differentiated into “distinct
sciences — physics, chemistry, biology, economics etc. — which are mutually
irreducible, but which are ordered. Physics is in this sense more basic than
chemistry, which is more basic than biology, which is more basic than the human
sciences.” (Collier, 1994, P. 107)
b. For example, Benton and Craib proposed a hierarchy of sciences as follows.
(Benton & Craib, 2011, P. 127)
social sciences
psychology
physiology/anatomy
organic chemistry/biological chemistry
physical chemistry
physics
c. Andrew Collier posposes another hierarchy, which he calls “tree of science”
(Collier, 1994, P. 132)
?
psychological and semiological sciences
social sciences
biological sciences
Molecular sciences
?
d. “This way of ordering the sciences could be justified in terms of the mechanisms
characteristic of each level are explicable in terms of those of the nest one below
it. This corresponds to a view of science as explaining wholes in terms of the
parts of which they are composed.” (Benton and Craib, 2011, Pp. 126-127)
However, it must be underlined that the causal flows can be construed in both
directions, that is, “causality can flow down the hierarchy as well as up it.” (P. 128)
6. Intransitive and transitive dimensions of science:
a. Intransitive dimension of science: According to the basic tenet of Critical Realism,
the natural world exists independently of human minds and knowledge. Hence,
this object of science studies — the natural world and with all its substances,
mechanisms and structures — constitute the intransitive dimension of the work of
science.
b. Transitive dimension of science: Scientists, with their concepts and theories, their
skills and practices, as well as their communities, associations and rival schools
of thought, they constitute the transitive dimension of science. What scientists do
is to strive to deepen the existing scientific knowledge of the nature world.
c. Accordingly, “the ‘results’ of scientific inquiry at any time are a set of theories
about the nature of the world, which are presumably our best approximation to
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truth about the world….However much science deepens its knowledge of its
intransitive object, its product remains a transitive object.” (Collier, 1994, P. 51)
d. In light of these distinctions between intransitive and transitive dimensions in
science, we can see that Critical Realists take on different stances for their
ontological and epistemological foundations. Ontologically, Critical Realists
assume its objects of their enquiry are intransitive and real and the products of
their enquiry could be truth. However, epistemological, Critical Realists admit that
their scientific work and practice at any given in time are only relative to the
material, social as well as theoretical configuration of the scientific enterprise, in
which they find themselves.
D. Distinction between the Natural and the Social Sciences: Conceptual Constituents of
Critical Naturalism
1. The debate between the natural and the social sciences has been raging on since
the nineteenth century around the issue of the unity of scientific method. Recently
Roy Bhaskar reformulates the issue at the beginning of his book The Possibility of
Naturalism as follows. “To what extent can society be studied in the way as nature?”
(Bhaskar, 1998, P. 1) Two conventional answers to this issue are
a. Naturalism: The positive answer to the issue can be summarized under the
doctrine, which Bhaskar called naturalism. By naturalism, it refers to the doctrine
which asserts that there “is (or can be) an essential unity of method between the
natural and the social sciences.” (Bhaskar, 1998, P. 2) With this naturalist camp,
subdivisions can further be differentiated
i. Reductionism, which claims that “there is an actual identity of subject matter”
between the two sciences.” (Bhaskar, 1998, P. 2)
ii. Scientism, which “denies that there are any significant differences in the
methods appropriate to studying social and natural subject.” (Bhaskar, 1998, P.
2) That appropriate method is of course the scientific method.
iii. Positivism, which claims that the products of studies in both the natural and
social sciences are the same, that is, to verify causal laws, which can account
for the events under study to the full. (Bhaskar, 1998; Collier, 1994, P.
102-102)
b. Hermeneutics and interpretive theory: In opposite to the naturalists affirmative
answer to the issue, social scientists in hermeneutic and interpretive tradition
insist that it is impossible to study society in the way as nature! They have argued
for centuries that human and social sciences are essentially distinct from natural
sciences in terms of their methodology and epistemology, but most importantly in
their ontological foundation.
2. Critical Realists’ stance on the issue of the possibility of naturalism of social science:
a. Critical Realists have distanced themselves from the epistemological arguments
between positivism and hermeneutics and the methodological arguments
between quantitative and qualitative research practitioners; they have chosen a
different approach to the issue, by looking into the ontological differences
between the natural world and the social reality. They have synthesized a series
of concepts, which attempt to build a conceptual framework of social ontology of
critical realism.
b. Human agents and their agency: Critical Realists assert that one of the major
differences between nature and society is that society is made up of human
agents, who would not act or behave mechanically to antecedent causes or
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c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
stimulus. Human beings are “meaning making animals”, who forge ideas, hold
believes, adhere identities, plan intentional actions, and carry out projects and
agencies. As a result, in accounting for social events, social scientists could not
simply look for antecedent causes, in the form of necessary and/or sufficient
conditions. They must dig deep into social reality and look for “reasons”. In fact,
Critical Realists have argued at length that reasons, which include beliefs, desires,
ideas, intentions, should belong to the causal orders in accounting for social
events. (Bhaskar, 1998, Pp.80-119; Collier, 1994, Pp. 151-156)
Activity-dependent structure and Transformational Model of Social Activity
(TMSA): One of the fundamental differences between structures of society and
nature is that “social structures are maintained in existence only through the
activities of agents (activity-dependence), whereas this is not true of structures of
nature.” (Benton & Craib, 2011, P. 135) More specifically, the continuity and
consistency of a given social structure depends mainly on the willingness and
capacity of its members to participate and carry out the obligations and duties
prescribed to their specific positions within the structure. Therefore, the
endurance of a social structure rely on the efficacies of its institutions of
production, socialization, social control and reproduction.
Bhaskar has named this characteristic of social structure as Transformational
Model of Social Activity (TMAS). That is, social structures are more likely to
transform than structures of nature and their endurance are only relative in
nature.
Concept-dependence and the cultural dimension of social structure: Since the
reproduction of social structures are subject to human agents’ participations and
actions, they are therefore more fundamentally depending on members’
impressions, perceptions, beliefs, and conception about the respective structures.
As a result, social structures are not only built on their material grounds same as
the structures of nature, but are also based on their cultural resources, such as
linguistic, cultural and social capitals.
Space-time-dependent and context specific: Unlike the structure of entities found
in nature, which are universal across both time and space; social structures
constituted by human agents are heavily embedded in the specific contexts, in
which particular groups of human agents found themselves. These contexts
include historical contexts, socio-cultural contexts, geo-political contexts,
natural-ecological contexts, etc.
Impossibility of experimental closure: Incomparable to natural scientists, social
scientists are practical impossible to isolate any fragments of social reality and to
design an experimental closure, in which they can test their hypothesis about
specific causal relations found in society. In fact the openness of the social
system is so immense that it is basically unable to control and/or randomize all
the other co-determinants confounding the specific cause-effect explanatory
models that social scientists are supposed to verify.
Unsustainability of intransitive-transitive division in knowledge of social science:
Unlike knowledge of natural science, in which the distinction between the
intransitivity of the natural world and the transitivity of the knowledge produced by
particular groups of natural scientists is empirically definitive; the division is
practically indistinct. It is because social reality is transitive in nature. They are
subject to change with the beliefs and ideas of human agents. Furthermore, they
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may even transform themselves according to findings and theories produced by
social scientists.
3. Critical Realists’ conception of social reality:
Given these essential distinctions between natural and social reality, Critical Realists’
conception of social reality may be summarized as follows:
a. Relational model of society: Bhaskar suggests that “society does not consist of
individuals (or we might add, groups), but expresses the sum of relations within
which individuals (and groups) stand.” (Bhaskar, 1998, P. 26)
b. Studying the persistence and endurance of relations: Bhaskar further indicates
that social sciences in general and sociology in particular are “concerned…with
the persist relations between individuals (and groups) and with relations between
these relations (and between such relation and nature and the products of such
relations).” (Bhaskar, 1998, P. 28-29; my emphasis)
c. Duality of objectivity and subjectivity in social structure:
i. Durkheimian objective-factual conception of social structure
ii. Weberian subjective-meaningful conception of social structure
iii. Critical Realist synthesis: TMSA and M/M approach
d. Duality of individualism and collectivism in social structure:
i. Atomic reductionism and methodological individualism
ii. Structuralism and methodological collectivism
iii. Critical realist synthesis: SEPM and M/M/ Approach
e. Duality of stability and change in social structure
i. Conception of relativity of persistence and Morphostasis
ii. Conception of Morphogenesis
E. Margaret S. Archer’s Morphogenetic/Morphostatic Approach
1. Morphogenetic Approach
a. Meaning of morphogenesis:
i. The prefix ‘morpho’ refers to ‘of or pertaining to form’ and ‘genesis’ refers
‘mode of formation’. Hence, morphogenesis is commonly in biology to mean
formation of the structure biological organisms, while in physical geography it
refers formation of landscapes or landforms. (Oxford English Dictionary)
ii. Margaret Archer uses the word in morphogenetic approach to connote that “the
‘morpho’ element is an acknowledgement that society has no pre-set form or
preferred state; the ‘genetic’ part is a recognition that it takes its shape from,
and is formed by, agents, originating from the intended and unintended
consequences of the activities.” (Archer, 1995, p. 5)
iii. The approach can then be construed as an echo of the TMSA in Critical
Realism in sociological analysis. It emphasizes both the possibility of
transforming the social structure through social actions of the agents, and at
the same time underline the relative endurance and resilience of social
structures and their conditioning (not determining) effects on the social actions
of human agents.
b. Morphogenetic approach in structure-agency debate in sociology: Archer
allocates her morphogenetic approach against the longstanding structure-agent
in the debate on social ontology in sociology. Archer asserts that her approach
can address three common “conflations” found in the debate. They are
i. The downwards conflation: It refer to those theoretical stances which put
special emphasis on the determinacy of the social structure over the agents
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and their plans of actions (i.e. agencies). They includes “any uncompromising
version of technological determinism, economism, structuralism or normative
functionalism.” (Archer, 1995, P. 81) As a result, these theoretical stances
constitute a kind of “downwards conflation where structure and agency are
conflated because action is treated as fundamentally epiphenomenal has
many variants….The bottom line is always that actors may be indispensable
for energizing the social system.” (Archer, 1995, P. 81) The methodological
ground grown out the social ontology of structuralism is commonly known as
methodological collectivism.
ii. The upwards conflation: It refers to the theoretical stances which is argued for
“the primacy of the agent” and underlines that structure is but the creation of
agency. Social structural are hence reduced to “a series of intersubjectively
negotiated constructs”. (Archer, 1995, P. 84) The methodological ground
generated from such social ontology is called the methodological individualism.
iii. Central conflation: It is “an approach based upon the putative mutual
constitution of structure and agency and finds its most sophisticated
expression in modern ‘structuration theory’.” (Archer, 1995, P. 87) The
structuration theory is called made well-known by the work of Anthony Giddens.
However, Archer argues that what has been suppressed (or conflated) in this
mutually constituting activity is the historical-temporal thickness of society,
more specifically, the enduring institutional practices sedimented over time. In
Archer’s own words, “structural properties (defined reductively as rules and
resources) are held to be outside time, having a ‘virtual existence’ only when
instantiated by actions. In exact parallel, when actors produce social practices
they necessarily draw upon rules and resources and the inevitable invoke the
whole matrix of structural properties at that instance.” (Archer, 1995, P. 87)
Archer therefore criticizes that Giddens has not given adequate treatment to
the temporal dimension in the structuration theory.
c. Taking time to link structure an agency: In rectifying these conflations found in
the structure-agency debate, Archer formulated her theory of morphogenesis
by injecting a time dimension into the framework. She underlines that “the
distinctive feature of the morphogenetic approach is its time dimension,
through which and in which structure and agency shape one another.” (1995, P.
92)
i. Three-part cycles of the morphogenesis: “Morphogenetic analysis, in
contrast to the three foregoing approaches, accords time a central place in
social theory. By working in terms od its three-part cycles composed of (a)
structural conditioning, (b) social interaction and (c) structure elaboration,
time is incorporated as sequential tract and phases rather than simply as a
medium through which events take place.” (Archer, 1995, P. 89)
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Source, Archer, 1995, p. 76.
ii. As a result, Archer claims that her analytical framework has rectified the
three prevailing approaches to structure-agency debates in sociological
theory.
Source, Archer, 1995, P. 82.
d. Structural condition: This part of the cycle represents the structural properties
accumulated and passed on from past agencies. It also signifies that this
structural property could in fact assert “causal influences upon subsequent
interaction.” These influences are working through facilitating the some types of
interactions but at the same time constraining some others. In Critical Realists’
terms they impose selectively either “powers” or “liabilities” on human interactions.
By focusing mainly if not solely on this part of the morphogenetic process,
structuralists are of course confident to endorse the dominance of the structure
on the agency and as a result have committed the downwards conflation that
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Archer has aptly highlighted.
e. Social interaction: This tract of the cycle indicates that the causal influences of
structural properties on agencies are never deterministic but only conditional and
interactive in nature. It is because Critical Realists presume that “agents possess
their own irreducible emergent power”. Hence, structural properties and agencies
are engaging in mutually “structurating” and “destructurating” interactions. This is
the point in time where Giddens theory of structuration comes in.
f. Structural elaboration: After the social interactions between the structure and
agent in each generation have played out, an elaborated structure-agency
relation will emerge. Analytically, this may take one of the following outcomes:
i. Morphostasis: It refers to the outcome where the new generation of human
agents in a social system are socialized and incorporated into the existing
structure as well as culture. And the system has practically “reproduced”
itself.
ii. Morphogenesis: It refers to the outcome where the prevailing structure and
culture of a given social system has been elaborated, transformed and to the
greatest extent revolted.
2. The integration of Morphogenetic approach into the conceptions of Critical Realism:
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Source: Archer, 1995, P. 160.
3. The illustration of Morphostatic/Morphogenetic approach into educational research
a. Margaret Archer has used one of her research work, Social Origins of
Educational Systems (1979; 2014) to illustrate the operation of her
morphostatic/morphogenetic approach..
b. In the study, Archer traces the historical paths of developments of modern
educational systems in four European countries in two pairs, namely
i. England and Denmark representing Substitutive Model
ii. France and Russia representing Restrictive Model
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F. Ray Pawson’s Theory of Complexity in Critical Realist Perspective
1. Ray Pawson, in his recent works Evidence-Based Policy: A Realist Perspective
(2006); and The Science of Evaluation: A Realist Manifesto (2013), has
demonstrated how the Critical-Realist perspective can be applied in the field of
policy studies and more specifically policy evaluation. He has formulated the
theory of complexity in policy reality
2. He has asserted that public policy and its programs is complex entity, which can
be summarized by two conceptions:
a. The Context, Mechanism, Outcome configurations (CMOc): The conception
stipulates that policy reality, more specifically policy process and policy system,
is not a closed system based on law-like causation with definite measurable
output. Instead, Pawson asserts that policy reality is
i. Context-dependent open system: The contributing factors on the policy
outcomes are inexhaustible and they vary from different temporal, spatial
and socio-cultural contexts.
ii. Multi-level causation: The policy system is operated not according to a
single-level causal law, but subject to multiple levels of causations, such as
cause-effect, mechanism, structure and system levels.
iii. Multiple outcomes: The outcomes of the policy are not definitely confined
to those designed and expected outputs. There may be unexpected
outcomes or even counterfactual consequences. Furthermore, even the
designated output could still have been interpreted by various stakeholders
in many different ways.
b. A complexity checklist: Pawson further elaborates the policy reality with seven
characteristics, which he summarizes as with an acronym ─ VICTORE
i. Volition
ii. Implementation
iii. Contexts
iv. Time
v. Outcomes
vi. Rivalry
vii. Emergence
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Source: Pawson, 2013, Box 3.1
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B. In Search of a Solid Footing in the Complex and Transformational Social World: The
New Institutionalism
Confronted with these ontological complexity, it is apparent that practitioners in social
and educational research are assigned with a difficult task. They badly need a solid
footing to formulate their research questions and set off their enquiries.
1. New institutionalism: As a theoretical perspective emerged in different disciplines in
fields of social sciences since the 1980s, new institutionalists have rendered a
system of conceptual and theoretical apparatuses, which seem to have laid a
promising ground for researchers to search for regularities in complex and
transformational social world.
2. “The external merge with the internal”─Durkheim’s legacy in institutional studies:
The academic origin of new institutionalism can be traced to the work of Emile
Durkheim, more specifically, work The Rules of Sociological Method (1895/1982).
a. In the book, he defines the disciple of sociology as follow:
“Without doing violence to the meaning of the word, one may term an institution
all the beliefs and modes of behaviour instituted by the collectivity; sociology
can then be defined as the science of institutions, their genesis and their
functioning. (1982, P. 45)
b. He then stipulates the first rule of sociological method as “The first and most
basic rule is to consider social facts as things.” (1982, P. 60)
c. By “social fact”, Durkheim specifies it the following typical realist terms:
“A social fact is any way of acting, whether fixed or not, capable of exerting
over the individual an external constraint;
or:
which is general over the whole of a given society whilst having an existence of
ïts own, independent of its individual manifestations.” (1982, P. 59)
d. By “as things”, Durkheim provides us with the following typical realist
specification. The debates around Durkheim’s assertion about “studying social
fact as thing” have troubled so many generations of social researchers that it si
really worth to quote it at length as following:
“Social phenomena must therefore be considered in themselves, detached
from the conscious beings who form their own mental representations of them.
They must be studied from the outside, as external things, because it is in this
guise that they present themselves to us. If this quality of externality proves to
be only apparent, the illusion will be dissipated as the science progresses and
we will see, so to speak, the external merge with the internal. But the
outcome cannot be anticipated, and even if in the end social phenomena may
not have all the features intrinsic to things, they must at first be dealt with as if
they had. This rule is therefore applicable to the whole of social reality and
there is no reason for any exceptions to be made. Even those phenomena
which give the greatest appearance of being artificial in their arrangement
should be considered from this viewpoint. The conventional character of a
practice or an institution should never be assumed in advance. If, moreover,
we are allowed to invoke personal experience, we believe we can state with
confidence that by following this procedure one will often have the satisfaction
of seeing the apparently most arbitrary facts, after more attentive observation,
display features of constancy and regularity symptomatic of their objectivity. In
general, moreover, what has been previously stated about the distinctive
features of the social fact gives us sufficient reassurance about the nature of
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this objectivity to demonstrate that it is not illusory. A thing is principally
recognisable by virtue of not being capable of modification through a mere act
of the will. This is not because it is intractable to all modification. But to effect
change the will is not sufficient; it needs a degree of arduous effort because of
the strength of the resistance it offers, which even then cannot always be
overcome. We have seen that social facts possess this property of resistance.
Far from their being a product of our will, they determine it from without. They
are like moulds into which we are forced to cast our actions. The necessity is
often ineluctable. But even when we succeed in triumphing, the opposition we
have encountered suffices to alert us that we are faced with something
independent of ourselves. Thus in considering facts as things we shall be
merely conforming to their nature.” (1982, P. 70)
Taken together Durkheim’s assertions, institution, which has been identified by
Durkheim as the primary object of study for sociology, is in essence an
embodiment of both internal subjectivity and will of individual human and external
constraints with objective constancy and resistance. And the main task of
sociological research is exactly to map out this very “genesis”, in which “the
external merge with the internal”, in other words, the process of institutionalization.
3. What is institutionalization and how?─The social phenomenologists’ contributions:
In the 1960s, Alfred Schutz’s The Phenomenology of the Social World was
translated and published in English (1967, the German edition was published in
1933) and Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann also published their work The
Construction of Reality (1966). These two works has elaborated the conceptions of
institution and institutionalization significantly.
a. The concept of institutionalization: Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann follow
Schutz’s conceptions has defines that “institutionalization occurs whenever
there is a reciprocal typiifcation of habitualized actions by types of actors. Put
differently, any such typification is an institution. What must be stressed is the
reciprocity of institutional typifications and the typicality of not only the actions
but the actors in institution. The typifications of habitualized actions that
constitute institutions are always shared ones. They are available to all
members of the particular social group in question, and the institution itself
typifies individual actors as well as individual actions.” (Berger and Luckmann,
1966, p. 72)
b. Externalization and objectivities of social institutions: These typified and
habitualized social actions in the forms of social routines among specific
human groups will in time be externalized and objectivated into “social facts”.
They will in turn impose social constraints upon the subjectivities and agencies
of individual, which were once the “geneses” of the objective social facts. As a
result, social institutions gain their objectivity and become the main parts of the
social world.
c. Formalization and regularization of social structure: These objective social
facts, in the forms of social constraints, will in time be formalized and
regularized into social structure. They may be conceived as social
organizations, institutions, system, etc. These objectively existing social
structures will constitute the main bloc of the social world.
d. Internalization of the social structure: The objective social world with its social
structure will in turn be internalized by new members of the respective human
aggregates, by means of socialization, formal education and social control.
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e. Reproduction of the social structure: The objectivity of the social structure will
gain its continuity and consistence unless it can successfully reproduce itself to
the coming generations. In Berger and luckmann’s own world, "One may
further add that only with the transmission of the social world to a new
generation … does the fundamental social dialectic appear in its totality. To
repeat, only with the appearance of the new generation can one properly
speak of a social world." (Berger and Luckmann, 1966, p. 79)
f. Legitimation: Apart from the formal structural aspect of the institution and
institutionalization, Berger and Luckmann have also analyzed the normative
base of social institution. Berger and Luckmann build this normative base on
the conception of legitimation. Accroding to Berger and Luckmann’s
conceptualization, legitimation is “best described as a ’second-order’
objectivation of meaning.” (1967, p. 110) That is, if meanings are externalized,
objectivated and typified through continuous human interactions and practices
in the first place, they further need the “second” round of meaning-endowing
efforts in order to formally institutionalized within a given society. Berger and
Luckmann suggests that there are mainly two way to establish legitimation in
institutional context:
i. Explanation of cognitive validity: “Legitimation ‘explains’ the institutional
order by ascribing cognitive validity to its objectivated meaning. …It always
implies ‘knowledge’. ” (1967, p. 111)
ii. Justification of normative dignity: “Legitimation justifies the institutional
order by given normative dignity to its practical imperatives. ….Legitimation
is …a matter of ‘value’.” (1967, p. 111)
g. Sedimentation: The cultural legitimation constituted with social institutions will
accumulate its validity and dignity over time. Berger and Luckmann has called
the process sedimentation.
C. Conceptual Apparatuses of New Institutionalism: Accounting for Institutional
Endurance: Since the 1980s, researchers from different disciplines in social sciences
have put forth numbers of conceptual tools to account for the institutional features of
regularity, continuity, persistence, resilience, and endurance found in the social world.
Taking together, they can provide a useful conceptual framework in guiding social and
educational research. For examples:
1. Concept of institutional order: It was in 1984, James G. March and Johan P. Olsen
published an article entitled “The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in
Political Life” in The American Political Science Review that the term new
institutionalism was coined. These two political scientists have yet injected into the
conceptual building of the framework of social institution the dimension of “order”.
March and Olsen attribute the enduring patterns of human practices found in social
institution to its institutional orders. Accordingly, they categorize them into:
(March & Olsen, 1984)
a. Symbolic orders: They refer to the patterns and ordering of productions,
circulations and consumptions of meanings, ideas, concepts, symbols, rituals,
ceremonies, stories and drama in social life.
b. Normative orders: They refer to the organizations and practices of rights,
duties, obligations, roles, rules, norms and regulations in social life.
c. Endogenous orders: They signify the internal mechanism and processes,
which affect things like the power distribution, distribution, the distribution of
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preferences, or the management of control” within an institutions.
d. Historical orders: They refer to the essential concept of “the efficiency of
historical processes” in new institutionalism. By efficiency of historical efficiency,
it refers to the way in which history moves quickly and inexorably to a unique
outcome, normally in some sense an optimum.” (March and Olsen, 1984, p.
743) Accordingly, the internal order of an institution will be constrained by the
particular period in history and its condition of optimum within which the
institution operates.
2. Concept of pillars of institution: Richard Scott, professor of sociology in Stanford
university, has published one of the most popular text on social institutions. The
book has extended to its fourth edition since 1995 (1995; 2014) One of the most
oft-quoted conception is the three pillars of institution. The concept has provided a
framework to account for the enduring order constituted in institutional context.
a. Scott defines institution that “Institutions consist of cognitive, normative, and
regulative structures and activities that provide stability and meaning to social
behavior. Institutions are transported by various carries ── cultures, structures,
and routines ── and they operate at multiple levels of jurisdiction.” (Scott, 1995,
p.33)
b. Scott has summarized the differences between these pillars as follows.
3. Concept of path dependence: Apart from the features of endurance, institutionalists
have also rendered explanation for the continuity of institutional features over time.
Paul Pierson has put forth the concept of path dependence
a. Path dependence indicates that “once a country or region has started down a
track, the costs of reversal are very high. There will be other choice points, but
the entrenchments of certain institutional arrangements obstruct an easy
reversal of the initial choice. Perhaps the better metaphor is a tree, rather than
a path. From the same trunk, there are many different branches and smaller
branches. Although it is possible to turn around or to clamber from one to the
other ─ and essential if the chosen branch dies ─ the branch on which a
climber begins is the one she tends to follow. (Levi, 1997; quoted in Pierson,
2004, p. 20)
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b. Simply put, path dependence refers “to social possesses that exhibit positive
feedback and thus generate branching patterns of historical development.”
(ibid, p.21)
c. Accounting for path dependence (ibid, p. 24)
i. Large set-up or fixed cost: “When setup or fixed costs are high, individuals
and organizations have a strong incentive identify and stick with a single
option.”
ii. Learning effects: “Knowledge gained in the operation of complex systems
also leads to higher returns from continuing use.”
iii. Coordination effects: “These occur when the benefits an individual receives
from a particular activity increase as other adopt the option. If technologies
embody positive network externalities, a given technology will become
more attractive as more people use it. Coordination effects are especially
significant when a technology has to be compatible with an infrastructure
(e.g. software with hardware, automobiles with an infrastructure of roads,
repair facilities and fueling stations).”
iv. Adaptive expectations: “It derives from the self-fulfilling character of
expectations. Projections about future aggregate use pattern lead
individuals to adapt their actions in way that help to make those
expectations come true.”
4. The concept of isomorphism: Apart from accounting for the feature of endurance
and continuity, institutionalists has also provided explanatory account for the
institutional features of community, and to a less extent standardization and
formalization among organizations in the same institutional context.
a. Concept of isomorphism: New institutionalists stipulate that organizations in
modern rational institutional environment and/or organizational field tend to
develop similar structures, procedures and practices (organizational elements in
Meyer & Rowan's terminology). They term this process of homogenization of
organization isomorphism. "Isomorphism is a constraining process that forces
one unit in a population to resemble other units that face the same set of
environmental conditions." (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991, p.66)
b. Distinction between competitive and institutional isomorphism: DiMaggio &
Powell (1991) and Meyer & Rowan (1991) have made similar distinctions
between competitive and institutional isomorphism.
i. By competitive isomorphism, it refers to the process of homogenization of
organizations taken place in "those field which free and open competition
exists." (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991, p.66) Organizations in these fields
usually possess "clearly defined technologies to produce outputs" and
therefore those "outputs can be easily evaluated" (Meyer & Rowan, 1991, p.
54) As a result, development of common organizational elements, i.e.
isomorphism, can be attained through market competition, competitive niche,
standardized output performance and organizational efficiency. (DiMaggio &
Powell, 1991, p. 66)
ii. By institutional isomorphism, it refers to the process of homogenization of
organizations invoked in the context of "collective organized society" (Meyer
& Rowan, 1991, p. 49) in which institutional environment of modern
bureaucratic states have replaced market mechanism to act as institutional
rules of the field. As a result, in institutional organizations, the development
of common organizational elements can not be attain by market competition
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and internal efficiency, instead "they incorporate elements which are
legitimated externally" and "they employ external or ceremonial assessment
criteria to define the value of structural elements." (Meyer & Rowan, 1991, p.
49)
"For example, American schools have evolved from producing rather
specific training that was evaluate according to strict criteria of efficiency to
producing ambiguously defined services that are evaluated according to
criteria of certification." (Meyer & Rowan, 1991, p. 55)
c. Mechanism of institutional isomorphism
DiMaggio & Powell identify three mechanism through which institutional
isomorphism are achieved, maintained or changed. The thesis can be taken as
analysis apparatus to study how schools, as institutional organization, adopt to
education policy changes.
i. Coercive isomorphism: "Coercive isomorphism results from both formal and
informal pressures exerted on organizations by other organizations upon
which they are dependent and by cultural expectations in the society within
which organizations function. Such pressures may be felt as force, as
persuasion, or as invitations to join in collusion." (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991,
p. 67)
Organizational restructures undertaken by HK schools in response to
Quality-Assurance Inspection, School Self Evaluation, External School
Review, Senior-Secondary Curriculum reform, School-based Management
and Incorporated Management Committee, etc. may be analyze in light of
the concept of coercive isomorphism.
ii. Mimetic isomorphism: Apart from coercive authority, "uncertainty is also a
powerful force that encourages imitation. When organizational technologies
are poorly understood, when goals are ambiguous, or when the environment
creates symbolic uncertainty, organizations may model themselves on other
organization." (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991, p. 69)
Confronted by collective puzzlement in policy implementation, such as those
initiated by Senior-Secondary curriculum reform or more specifically the
teaching of Liberal Studies, or School-Self Evaluation, most HK schools
could only imitate, model or simply copy from other schools.
iii. Normative isomorphism: Instead of compliance with modern institutional
environments of competitive market or bureaucratic-rational state,
isomorphism may take the form of professionalization. Organizations and
their operations, which are predominately identified with a profession, such
as hospitals with doctors and schools with teachers, can incorporate
cognitive, normative and regulative bases of that profession into their
organizations and apply them as criteria in assessing the performance as
well and legitimation bases of their organization.
5. How can social choice be possible? The contributions of the economists:
a. One of the classical scenarios in rational-choice theory in economics is the
tragedy of the common, which stipulate that there will be detrimental effect for all
if every participants pursue their “rent-seeking” project” and maximize that gains
at the expenses of the “common”. New-institutionalists in economics have
rendered a resolution, which Ostrom characterizes “the governance of the
commons” or the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) model.
b. Definition of institution: For economists in new-institutionalist perspective, if the
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rules of the game have been adequately stipulated the rent-seeking actions and
the tragedy of the commons could be resolved. Accordingly, they define the rule
of the game as institution.
i. Douglas North, the Nobel Laureate in Economic Science in 1993, writes,
“institutions are rules of the game in a society or more formally, are the
humanly devised constraint that shape human interaction. In consequence
they structure incentives in human exchange, whether political, social or
economic.” (North, 1990, p. 3)
ii. Elinor Ostrom, the Nobel Laureate in Economic Science in 2009, also
suggests, “Broadly defined, institutions are the prescriptions that humans
use to organize all forms of repetitive and structured interactions including
those within families, neighborhoods, markets, firms, sports leagues,
churches, private associations, and government at all scales. Individuals
interacting within rule-structured situations face choices regarding the
actions and strategies they take, leading to consequences for themselves
and for others." (Ostrom, 2005, P.3)
iii. Accordingly, one of the primary focuses of institutional analysis and
development is to design and implement the adequate kind of “rule
configuration”, which generally consists of seven types of rules governing
seven aspects of the IAD model.
c. Taking together the economists contributions, they have rendered yet another
explanatory account for the constitution of institutions in competitive situations
among rational actors or even rent seekers.
6. Conception of levels of institutional analysis: Apart from the analysis of the
substances of institutional features such as persistence, continuity, commonality
etc. new institutionalists have also differentiated the manifests of institutional
features into various levels. “Institutional arrangements (i.e. elements) can be
found at a variety of levels in social system – in societies, in organizational fields, in
individual organizations, and in primary and small groups” (Rowan & Miskel, 1999,
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p. 359; Scott, 1995, p. 55-60)
a System level – The conception of Institutional environment
i. Institutional environment: “Institutional environments are, by definition, those
characterized by the elaboration of rules and requirements to which
individual organizations must conform if they are to receive support and
legitimacy” (Scott and Meyer, 1991, p.123)
ii. Two of the most prominent institutional environments in modern society are
the nation-state and market, both of which share one of the most salient
features of modernity, namely, rationality.
b. Sector level – The conception of organizational fields
i
Organizational field: It refers to “a community of organizations that partakes
of a common meanings system and whose participants interact more
frequently and fatefully with one another than with actors outside of the field.”
Hence, “fields are defined in terms of shared cognitive or normative
frameworks or a common regulative system.” (Scott, 1995, p. 56)
ii. Isomorphism: Organizations in an a organization field tends to become
homogenous in terms of cognitive, normative and regulative aspects of the
organizations. The concept best captures this process is isomorphism.
“Isomorphism is a constraining process that forces one unit in a population
to resemble other units that face the same set of environmental conditions.”
(DiMaggio and Powell, 1991, p. 66)
iii. Two of the forces at work in modern society are efficiency and legitimacy.
The former is more likely to be related to the competitiveness of the market,
while the latter to the state.
c Organization level – The formal structure of the organization
i. To comply with the isomorphic constraints of the organizational field and
institutional environment, individual organizations have to structure
themselves in regulative, normative and cognitive aspects to meet with the
institutional elements of the filed and environment.
ii. As a result, two of the ideal types of formal structure of the organizations
have constituted in modern society, the firm and the bureaucracy of
government agencies.
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d. Human interaction level – “reciprocal typifications and interpretations of
habitualized actions”
i. Members of an individual organization, organizational field, or institutional
environment will share many commonalities in meanings, interpretations,
and typifications, i.e. common cognitive elements.
ii. They will institutionalize common languages, interacting and communicating
patterns, and routines in practices.
iii. They will also institute common “logic of appropriateness and normative
elements.
iv. Their inactions are also subjected to the regulative elements of the
institution in which they find themselves.
e. Individual level - Internalization and Identity
i. In reaction to rational choice theory, new institutionalism perceives
individuals not simply as actors governed by rational calculus of preferences
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ii.
and self-interest, i.e. logic of consequences (James, 1994, p.3) but as agent
having internalized set of norms, values and rules and their agency is
governed by the logic of appropriateness of particular institutional settings.
When individuals and organizations fulfill identities, they follow rules or
procedures that they see as appropriate to the situation in which they find
themselves. Neither preference as they are normally conceived nor
expectations of future consequences enter directly into the calculus.”
(March, 1994, p. 57)
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