History and Experience: E. P. Thompson´s contributions to educational research

Abstract

The aim of this article is to discuss some theoretical and methodological issues that challenge educational research nowadays. It examines the circumstances that constrain teaching experience to the intrinsic negativity of the principle of the “learning by doing” of pedagogical practices and restrain educational research to the apprehension of empirical functional relationships. The arguments stand in opposition to the current epistemological skepticism and within this framework put forward the ideas of the British historian E. P. Thompson and his preoccupation in finding the most adequate and reliable procedures to relate theory and practice. The text underpins two of his most important concepts: the ontomethodological basis, the logic of History, and the category of experience articulated with that of culture. The article argues that those concepts are of deep importance to educational research, which is essentially social and historical, and that educational experience can only attain intelligibility if articulated to its concrete determinations.