The Epistemic Discourse of Teachers:

An Ethnographic Study

R. E. Young*

Despite i t s obvious relevance and importance, the nature o f teachers’ images

o f knowledge, their ‘epistemologies’, has not been extensively studied. In
particular, there appears to exist no ethnographic study which attempts to
discover the nature o f these views. Through semantic taxonomy interviews,
written replies to questions, a classification (or category formation) task a n d
participant observation, the epistemologies o f several groups o f secondary
teachers were explored. Analysis a n d interpretation o f the data so obtained in-
dicated that teachers’ epistemologies were complex and diverse but that the
major issues for the majority o f teachers centered around whether science in
its logical-empirical or positivist guise was the epitome of human knowledge
or whether some more personal, intuitive access to knowledge was as im-
portant or even more important. Teachers’ discourse about knowledge could
be described in terms o f the nature o f the set of epistemological rules which
they expressed a n d a model which appeared to allow further analysis o f these
rules was developed and applied to the data. EPISTEMOLOGY; TEACHER
IDEOLOGY; EDUCATION; RULES; SEMANTIC TAXONOMY.

We wish . . . to substitute for the enigmatic treasure of things anterior to dis-

course, the regular formation of objects that emerge only in discourse.To de-
fine these objects without reference to the ground, the foundation of things,
but by relating them to the body of rules that enable them to form as objects of
a discourse and thus constitute the conditions of their historical appearance.
Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, p. 47

According t o Foucault, and t o Husserl, every category we employ arises

from the goals that we pursue (Paci 1972:19). The “enigmatic treasure” of
things anterior t o discourse is soon lost t o us as, in order t o live publicly and
because we live publicly, we interreflect on our experiences. Thus, “knowl-
edge itself” becomes “a prerogative that transforms . . . things into things
that become representable-into things that become phenomena” (Paci
1972:45). The study of epistemologies (as opposed to the study of episte-
mology) is the study of the ways i n which experience i s transformed, of the
different styles whereby knowledge i s constituted, and the anchorage of such
styles i n the existential projects and intentionality of members of particular
social formations.

*Department of Education
The University of Sydney
Sydney, Australia

Copyright 1981 by the Council on Anthropology and Education. All rights reserved.
 Anthropology & Education Quarterly 123

Epistemological differences appear to be implicated in different styles of

doing sociological work (Merton 1970; Dawe 1970).The critique of positivism
in the social sciences has unearthed considerable evidence that episte-
mological commitments emerge at the level of substantive findings (Fried-
richs 1969; Fay 1975; Merton 1970). The sociology of science has also
uncovered a link between theories of knowledge and scientific practice
(Fontaine 1944; Kowalewski 1974; Dolby 1972; Barnes 1970; Hill 1978).
Epistemological questions also lie at the center of much of the current
controversy about the role of science and technology in human affairs.
Modern technological societies are characterized by the increasing impor-
tance of knowledge-based professional activity and of the knowledge
industries (Sklair 1973; Cosin 1972). I f the way i n which knowledge is defined
and constituted were ever an important object of sociological study, it is
important now.
Most relatively stable human societies create symbolic systems that
purport to represent reality and that are capable of monopoly. The authority
of individuals rests upon the attribution to them of rare or scarce qualities,
such as a privileged access to the symbolic systems that are seen as important
sources of competence i n dealing with problems or goals that are considered
to be crucial for the collectivity. The maintenance of such systems of
domination requires that control be exerted over two vital processes: (1)
cultural reproduction, which preserves the categories, beliefs, and values that
underpin the dominant frameworks of attribution and structures of rele-
vance; and (2)social reproduction, the intergenerational replacement of the
occupants of status positions by new occupants (Bordieu 1973).
Along with the media and scientific research institutions, the schooling
system plays a key role i n the maintenance of social order i n modern,
technological societies, for schooling (including tertiary schooling) i s deeply
involved in the passing on of the content of culture to new members of
society, and with the process whereby individuals are selected to occupy the
higher occupational positions (Coleman 1968; Bowles and Gintis 1976).
Secondary education is a crucial stage in this process, because it i s at the
secondary level that the major decisions are made about the educational path
that students will be permitted to pursue (e.g., terminate at year 10 or not,
achieve university entrance or not). The study of the epistemologies of
secondary teachers (and students) would thus appear to be an important
prerequisite for an understanding of the construction of knowledge in
schooling and of the relationship between the way knowledge i s defined and
the way in which it i s stratified and distributed (Young 1971;Jenkset al. 1977).

Empirical Studies of Epistemologies

There have been few empirical studies of epistemologiesoutside the tradition
of the history of ideas or methodological critique in the social sciences. Most
of the studies that have been done are hybrid studies that draw their
conceptual orientation from a certain kind of philosophy of education and
their methods from behavioral psychology. All these are North American in
origin.
124 Volume XII. Number 2

Studies in the “philosophical” tradition attempt to test philosophical

“theories” about teacher epistemologies. Typically, they identify four major
types of ideology by means of “conceptual” analysis: realism, idealism,
pragmatism, and existentialism. Items are then written to construct check lists,
such as the Ross Epistemology Inventory (Ross 1970), and the instruments are
administered to teachers to see i f their epistemological beliefs are consiktent
with other educational beliefs measured by similar instruments (e.g., Abbas
1949; Erlich 1963; Tesconi 1965; Thomas 1968; Ross 1970; Smith 1971; Starkey
and Barr 1972).
A common finding i s that the degree of consistency i n teachers’
epistemologiesi s low; they typically select items from checkliststhat represent
several of the four different types of epistemology. The pattern of correla-
tions that results is difficult to interpret, and there appears to be only a limited
relationship between “epistemologies” measured in this way and other areas
of teachers’ philosophy. An alternative explanation for the pattern of findings
is that the categories used in instrument construction are not very useful
categories for describing teacher epistemologies, and that there are other
differences between teachers about epistemological questions that might be
more important than those identified by conceptual analysis of philosophical
viewpoints.
The implicit assumption of most of this research, of a simple congruence
between one set of beliefs and another, or between beliefs and actions, does
not advance our understanding of the complex, situated nature of the
relationship between beliefs and behavior. An approach of this kind also
ignores several decades of research into the relationship between attitudes
and actions.
When one steps outside the “philosophical” tradition of research just
discussed, only a few isolated empirical studies remain. Silvan Tomkins, a
psychologist, included a number of epistemological items in a 57-item scale
for measuring what he believed to be basic polar orientations in Western
thought (1962, 1965). Basing his item content on the history of ideas, he
created items to measure beliefs about mathematics, philosophy of science,
metaphysics, epistemology, political ideology, jurisprudence, and art.
While Tomkins’s results, which showed a weak but consistent pattern in
answers to items, are suggestive of the possible existenceof global ideological
preferences or styles, the level of generality of the items and the method of
derivation of them do not allow us to rule out the alternative hypothesis that
the weak pattern of correlations found may be an artifact of the respondents’
capacities to adopt a response set due to a recognition of indexical cues in the
item content.
A more systematic attempt to produce a theory and measure of
epistemological style was made by Royce (1959,1964). After interviews, Royce
identified, by “impressionistic” interpretation, four distinct epistemological
emphases: “rationalism-thinking,’’ “empiricism-sensing,” “intuitionism-
feeling,” and “authoritarianism-believing.’’ Thus Royce’s work i s at least
based on an attempt to discover the epistemological beliefs that respondents
actually possess. However, the four postulated ways of approaching reality
were not distinct and separate emphases. Royce had his students and experts
 Anthropology L? Educatron Quarterly 125

write items reflecting these four ways. The items were then presented to
samples of respondents in a Likert format. Respondents, as in earlier
“philosophical” research, tended to display a mixed response. Again, in the
procrustean style of previous research, Royce switched to a rank-order
method by which respondents were forced to assign statements to one of four
ranks, instead of questioning the appropriatenessand mutual exclusiveness of
his categories. A weak scale was produced, but in the procL-: the
authoritarianism dimension was dropped. Studies of the scale construct-
validity and reliability were not encouraging (Jones1963).
There was no room in the scale for respondents to adopt a mixed view,
such as logical-empiricism, a view that many writers, such as Radnitsky, believe
to be c6aracteristrc of much of Western thought (ttadnitsky 1969; Schutz
1973:229=250;Habermas 1974).For instance, under a forced ranking system, a
response in which rank 1 was given to Rationalism, 2 to Empiricism, and 3 to
Intuitionism, and so on, could represent a view of knowledge in which both
rationality and empirical evidence were considered to be very important and
in which intuition was seen to be much less important indeed.
The development of an adequate technique for identifying particular
epistemoloCiPs would appear to require a more careful study of the nature of
the epistemolo,:-a1 beliefs, values and attitudes of the group concerned.
Similarly, the development of a useful theory of the role of different
epistemologies would appear to be likely to be facilitated if an ethnographic
exploration of these epistemologies were undertaken.

Method
In this study several theoretical, epistemological, and methodological as-
sumptions were made. It was expected, for instance, that teachers’ episte-
mologies might manifest themselves as “surface rules” concerning epistemic
judgments (Wittgenstein 1963; Cicourel 1973; Habermas 1974).In addition, a
review of theoretical literature suggested that among the epistemological
views that might appear would be views associated with the idea that science
has a special status as knowledge or with older, nonscientific, classical or
humanistic views (Weber 1947; Ellul 1965; Habermas 1971; Radnitsky 1969).
The following points summarize the methodological strategy adopted in
this study:
The study had to answer five questions about teachers’ epistemologies:
(1) Do teachers have systematicviewsof the nature of human knowledge?(2)I s
i t useful to describe these views in terms of systems of rules? (3) How
consciously held or taken for granted are such views?(4) What typologies and
categories do teachers employ to characterize kinds of knowledge?(5) What
vocabulary and constructs do teachers employ to discuss knowledge?
The method adopted to answer these questions had to have six charac-
teristics. (1)It had to allow for the elicitation of different kinds and levels of
rules, for instance, rules about evidence, kinds of knowers, methods, and so
on. This problem was tackled by devising three different but complementary
methods of eliciting data, each designed to explore slightly different aspects of
the general domain. Two of the methods involved written tasks and the third
126 Volume XII. Number 2

an interview. These are described further later. (2) The choice of different
methods was also made with reference t o the general problem of validity and
reliability i n sociological studies of any kind. Three types of data offer some
degree of triangulation (Claser and Strauss 1967; Denzin 1970b; Webb 1970).
(3) One of the methods of data collection was designed t o involve some of the
characteristics of a “projective” measure. The aim of this was to attempt to
elicit more taken-for-granted criteria. This task involved respondents i n the
classification of 14 “subject” or “disciplinary” names. The 14 names (e.g.,
physics, psychology) could be grouped freely i n as many ways as respondents
wished; the rule was that members of the same group should “belong
together” i n some way. Respondents were then asked to give a written
description of the characteristics each group had in common. (4) The
researcher spent an average of more than three days per week for three
months i n the participating schools. This “participant observation” was aimed
at two specific, limited objectives: by informal, “spontaneous” group and
individual discussion, observation, and participation in various activities, to
form a judgment (a) concerning the way the research was being perceived by
the teachers and (b) concerning the nature of more informal teacher
discourse about knowledge.
Finally, two goals of sampling were aimed at, ( 5 ) to sample from the range
of different types of teachers and secondary schools and thus to provide a
manageable body of data that could be subject to reasonably exhaustive
rather than selective analysis, and (6) at the same time, t o preserve some claim
t o representativeness. It was important to be reasonably sure that no
proportionately important type of teacher view was omitted from the study
while s t i l l restricting the quantity of data elicited t o a level where the whole
body of data could be subject t o analysis and not just selected parts of it (Cook
1973; Mehan 1973,1974; Robinson 1974).
Accordingly, five different types of secondary school from urban Mel-
bourne were selected. Teachers were then selected from staff lists and
randomly assigned t o two groups by Monte Carlo methods.
The final sample of approximately 20 percent of the teachers from the five
schools was roughly evenly divided between men and women, science and
nonscience teachers, and junior and senior teachers (see Table I ). One group
completed the classification task already described and, i n addition, answered
several epistemological questions i n writing. The other group was inter-
viewed.

Data Analysis

The analysis of the data was complex and, for reasons of space, is presented
illustratively here rather than i n full. The data and their analysis are presented
in two parts: first, the qualitative analysis of teachers’ epistemic category
systems and vocabulary, and second, a quantitative content analysis of apart of
the data. The qualitative analysis consists of analysis of data generated by the
three complementary methods of eliciting data mentioned previously: (1)
semantic taxonomy interviews, (2) written answers to epistemological ques-
tions, and (3) results of the classification of 14 subject names (described
previously) and analysis of other data derived from participant observation.
 Anthropology & Education Quarterly 127

Table 1. Sample of Teachers and Schools

School
Type School Climate* School System

Co-ed Progressive-traditional State

Co-ed Traditional State
Co-ed Progressive State
Co-ed Progressive Private secular
All-girl Progressive-traditional Catholic

Teachers Paper and Pencil Tasks Interview Total

Science 10 18
57
Nonscience 13 16
Male 12 24
57
Female 11 10
*As judged (by reputation) in terms of the well-known progressive-traditional
distinction.

Qualitative Results

Semantic Taxonomy Interviews’

Five types of taxonomy could be discerned in the results of interviews,
representing five different emphases in the description of human knowledge:
“expressive,” “forms of knowledge,” “practical empiricism,” “scientism,”
and a group that could be called “noncategorizers.”
1. The exprc?ssiveview of knowledge i s represented by taxonomies, often
dichotomous in structure, that contrast expressive, personal, intuitive
kinds of knowledge with more impersonal, objective sorts of knowl-
edge, but that tend to value expressive knowledge more highly than i t s
alternative. For example,
Know,ledge
I I
Intellective Intuitive

1 I
128 Volume XII. Number 2

.
behavior. . . Historical knowledge would be the study of past social struc-
tures. . . . Spiritual knowledge I would have to say is a personal knowledge, it
could probably not be taught, it could only be experienced from your inner feel-
ings.

3. Practical empiricism, in which the emphasis of the taxonomy was upon

a contrast between “practical,” “useful” ways of knowing and mere
“theoretical,” “abstract” ways of knowing. Here the emphasis was
upon the value and superiority of practical knowledge, but on closer
examination this was practical knowledge of a distinctly empirical kind,
rather than the practical knowledge of self that might be stressed in,
say, a self-actualization approach (e.g., Maslow 1954). For example,

Knowledge

Broad, General Thebry

Knowledge

There’s pretty high-falutin theoretical knowledge like atomic theory. . . . There’s

possibly a broad general knowledge . . . which I consider myself more im-
portant. . . ,

4. Scientism: in this type of taxonomy, the taxonomy i s organized around

the physical sciences as the epitome of knowledge. For example,
Knowledge

Social Science
 Anthropology & Education Quarterly 129

These themes were analyzed as a cultural repertoire independently of their

employment by individual respondents in various ways (e.g., to argue for or
against a particular view of knowledge), although the type of taxonomy in
which each group of themes appeared to be employed, to characterize the
kind of knowledge viewed as superior, i s also indicated. These themes are
listed next, grouped into four broad categories.
Group 7. These themes were dominant in the Scientism, type 4 taxonomy.
Objectivity (versus personal opinion)
Reliable (versus unreliable and the like)
Based on experiment and research rationality
Rationality
Logical
Measurable
Facts, factual (versus opinion, intuition, theory)
Physical, physical-scientific (N = 5) (as contrasted with sbcial, aesthetic,
etc.)
Public agreement, not personal opinion
Set of explicit statements (versus intuitive)

Group 2. These themes were dominant in the Practical Empiricism, type 3

taxonomy.
Practical, useful (not theoretical, not abstract)
Real experience (not verbal)
Basic useful skills (not theory)
Broad general and practical (not theoretical)

Group 3. These themes were dominant in the Expressive, type 1, and the
Noncategorizer, type 5 taxonomies.
Personal opinion
Personal experience
To do with people not things
Mystery
Nonlogical
More intuitive, direct knowing
Not measurable
Social, emotional aspects
Opinions
Moral
Heart and soul, not head
Self-knowledge
Knowledge for growth and development
Intuitive (N= 2 )
Experience that makes up your self
Interactional-social
Awareness
Humanities, philosophy (versus science)
Awareness of social relationships

Group 4
Institutionalized
130 Volume XII, Number 2

School knowledge
Ability to recall
Qualities (not facts)

This list of themes will be compared with later themes from written
answers and the classification task. i n the clear expression of preference
elicited in interviews, it i s possible to discern the operation of normlike or
rulelike elements in respondents’ approaches to knowledge. For example,
Knowledge should become part of a person’s makeup. . ..

Written Answers
Respondents wrote one-paragraph written answers to a number of questions
concerning knowledge, truth, objectivity, evidence, and usefulness.* The
analysis presented here i s again an analysis of the criteria employed3 in written
answers, grouped together as a cultural repertoire. (Later content analysis of
total responses examined each respondent’s answers in terms of their overall
emphasis.)
The first question concerned the meaning of the word “know.” Analysis
of this question provided a useful touchstone for interpretation of other
samples of informants’ discourse in which knowing and knowledge were
spoken of. The following i s a list of the “key vocabulary” employed by
respondents in their knowledge criteria, grouped to indicate what appeared
to be the most common general concept of knowledge among respondents.
Knowledge I s a State of Mind . . .
What knowledge is:
Learning, gaining a concept
Remembering, recalling
Understanding, comprehending
Being aware of, awareness of, being acquainted with
Recognizing, containing (sic), absorbing

Concerning a Fairly Strong Belief. . .

Strength of belief:
Believing, believe to be true
Believing beyond doubt
Proving objectivity, proven
Convinced of truth
Personal conviction
To be unaware of evidence to the contrary
Well-informed opinion
Assured of
Firmly held belief
Irrefutable evidence of
About an Object of Belief. . .
Objects of knowledge:
Truth (N=5)
Reality
 Anthropology & Education Quarterly 131

Something ( N = 9)
I nf or mat io n
Facts (N = 5)
Problems
Life
People-orientated knowing (versus thing orientated?)
Someone
Right and wrong
A subject or area
Based on Some Sort of Evidence.
Source of belief:
Reason, deductive and inductive logic
Personal experience
Factual proof, facts
Hearsay
Empirical evidence, irrefutable evidence
interaction with other people
Revelation or faith
Secondhand experience of a fact
Experience of experts, expertise
Told by someone you trust
Direct personal observation
Scientific research
Study
Intuition, inner meaning
intuitive revelation
Proving objectively independently of individuals
Several other. themes were noted:
Levels of knowledge:
Academic, abstract, theoretical
Practical, skills, practice
The results of the preceding make the picture a little clearer. For most
respondents the idea of knowledge would appear to involve a combination of
elements. Although not all respondents mentioned all identified elements, a
composite picture i s attempted. Knowledge is a state of mind concerning a
fairly s t r o n g belief about an object of belief based on some sort of evidence.
The potential for disagreement begins, and this is evident to some degree
from the various themes themselves, when it comes to a discussion of the
nature of the objects of belief and the kind of evidence that is acceptable
concerning them. Here, for instance, “empirical evidence” contrasts strongly
with “intuition, inner meaning.” The results of answers to the remaining
epistemological questions were essentially similar.
The assertion made earlier concerning the dominance in our culture of a
rational-technological view of knowledge i s not weakened by results of this
kind, especially considering that the sample of teachers i s probably strongly
biased toward teachers who might be considered more likely to possess a
132 Volume XII, Number 2

“pr6gressive” educational ideology and, hence, associated countercultural

viewpoints. The themes that dealt with strength of belief were regrouped to
indicate the range of themes:
Strength of belief in rank order (verbatim but edited):
Proven
Irrefutable evidence of
Believing beyond doubt
Convinced of truth
Firmly held belief
Assured of
Believing, believe to be true
To be unaware of evidence to the contra,ry
Personal conviction
Well-informed opinion
Although one could quarrel with the placement of any individual phrase,
the overall rank order seems relatively clear. It can be seen that only two of the
themes concerning strength of belief incorporated what might be called a
classical position: when you say YOU know something, you mean that your
knowledge i s actually i n correspondence with the true state of affairs, not
merely a strongly held belief. The remainder implied only the view that what is
involved in knowledge i s a question of degree of belief. The proportion of
themes indicating various degrees of belief are not, of course, a reliable guide
to proportions of respondents holding such views in the sample, but they do
serve to indicate the potential existence of a range of views about the meaning
of the word “know”:
Proof, irrefutable evidence
versus
Personal conviction, well-informed opinion

Sources of belief regrouped (verbatim but edited):

1. Reason, deductive and inductive logic
Factual proof, facts
Empir ical evidence
Irrefutable evidence
Scientific research
Proving objectively, independent of individuals
Direct personal observation
2. Secondhand experience of a fact
Experience of experts4
Hearsay
Study
3. Told by someone you trust5
Interaction with other people
4. Revelation or faith
Intuitive revelation (action of the Holy Spirit)
5. Intuition
Inner meaning
 Anthropology & Education Quarterly 133

Here the range of themes is much clearer. There i s a marked contrast

between “objective,” rational criteria and more intuitive and nonempirical
criteria. Some responses are clearly oriented to an image of natural science
characterized in terms of logic, sensory observation, and objective, “scien-
tific” methods. Others are clearly oriented to some other image of knowledge
in which a different kind of access to knowledge, mostly involving a personal
capacity of knowing, seems to be involved.

Classification Task
Sentences written by respondents describing the basis of the classification
they had made yielded a range of criteria of classification similar to those
derived from semantic taxonomy interviews and written answers,
In all, 323 criteria were employed by respondents in the classification task,
of which 216 refer to the nature of the kind of experience of reality, or typeof
understanding of reality, that characterized the subjects or disciplines
concerned. The remaining 107 criteria referred to other issues not directly
epistemological in character, such as the form in which the knowledge was
applied or the difficulty one might have acquiring it. Of the 216 criteria that
reflected on epistemological questions, 89 percent appeared to imply an idea
of knowledge in which science was contrastedwith other forms of knowledge
in terms of words such as “verified,” “factual,” ‘‘logical,’’ “scientific” as
against “personal,” “subjective,” “involves emotions,” or “creative.”
An analysis of the pattern of groupings made by the 34 respondents who
completed this task i s presented in Table 2. While the number of respondents
linking the various human studies with each other was on the order of 15,and
the links within the science technology group on the order of 20, and, tinally,
the links within the aesthetic studies were on the order of 25, these three areas
of subjects were quite strongly separated from each other.

Summary of Qualitative Results

The analysis of results is presented i n five parts, each corresponding to one of
the five questions to which the research addressed itself.
7. D o teachers have epistemological “beliefs,” “attitudes,” “va/ues,”and
the like; that is, do they employ typifications that might potentially guide their
approach to knowledge and knowing?
It is quite clear from the foregoing presentation of results that many
teachers do possess very general views concerning knowledge, which may
play a role in organizing more concrete beliefs and decisions about knowl-
edge in the teaching and learning process. Although the sampling procedure
adopted does not allow reliable generalization of proportions in the sample to
any wider population of secondary teachers, it does provide grounds for
confidence that i t i s unlikely that the views of some significant minority of
secondary teachers have been omitted from the study. It seems safe to say,
then, that the majority of secondary teachers are likely to have episte-
mological views of some kind. Moreover, these views are not the kind of views
134 Volume XII, Number 2

Table 2. Areas of Nonassociation CrouDed

1. Incommensurabilityof Human Studies and Aesthetic Studies

Anthropology
Psychology
Art, Crafts, Music*
Ethics
Biology
*Anthropology was grouped with music by only 2 of our 34 respondents. The other
associations were zero.

2. Incommensurability of Science Technology Group and Aesthetic Studies

Physics 1
Mathematics
Music,* Literature,* Art
Engineering
Biology
..
*No link by more than two respondents; art had zero associations.

3. Near Incommensurabilityof Physical Sciences and Human Studies

1
Physics
Mathematics
Engineering Psychology, Anthropology, Ethics
Number of links among 34 respondents:
Psych. Anthrop. Ethics
Physics 2 8 -
Maths 1 5 3
Engineering 2 5 -
In addition, the subjects carpentry and salesmanship tended to have a minimum
number of links with other subjects. Carpentry was linked onlywith engineering on the
one hand and crafts on the other. Salesmanship was linked only with psychology.

that the “philosophical tradition” o f research i n t o epistemologies assumed

teachers possessed. They seem to reflect a more popular level of debateabout
knowledge, rather than the problems w i t h which professional epistemologists
might deal.
2. Is it useful to conceptualize these views as “rules”?
The notion of rule may embody three elements, although n o t a l l may be
present in the rule statement itself: (1) the identification of the objects t o
which the rule applies, (2) the identification of the domain o r t y p e o f situation
t o which the r u l e applies, and (3) some presumption concerning action in that
situation. In the case of epistemological rules, the object concerned may be
propositions, beliefs, statements, or higher-order groupings of these, such as
theories, paradigms, or bodies of knowledge (forms, disciplines, etc.). The
domain t o which a rule applies might be thegeneral domain of “knowledge,”
in the sense of explanatory knowledge, or a subdomain of it, such as reliability,
validity, or accuracy. Finally, the prescriptive element in the rule may provide
for a recommendation of procedures, logical properties, types of evidence,
and so on, that provide some absolute or relative guarantee of validity.
Although the discourse of teachers i s not always cast in the f o r m of rule
statements, i t is characterized by a consistent programmatic or prescriptive
 Anthropology & Education Quarterly 135

quality. In semantic taxonomy interviews, ostensibly concerned with identify-

ing and describing the “kinds of knowledge” respondents had experienced,
the majority of taxonomies were not neutral typologies of kinds of knowledge,
but were contrastive devices of which one of the major purposes was to make
some kind of normative point, to display a preference for some kind of
knowledge. Similarly, in written paragraphs concerning the meaning of the
words “know” and “truth,” there was a strong prescriptive element. Re-
spondents took the opportunity to present their views about what they
regarded as an adequate way of knowing, frequently by explicit or implicit
contrast with a way of knowing they regarded as inadequate.
The overall tone of the discourse was not one of judicial balancing of
different views, but resembled the kind of discourse one experiences in
school staffrooms when the issues of party politics are raised. This i s somewhat
surprising when it i s considered that teachers generally did not display a great
deal of interest in the idea of research about knowledge. Again, from informal
staffroom discussions, it appears to be an area where there are strong views
and partisan positions, but which many teachers generally perceive as remote
from the practical problems of education.
Although it cannot be said that teachers possess clear-cut, integrated
systems of explicit rules, it does appear from the lists of themes elicited that
they possess preferences about forms of knowledge, that these are related to
specific domains of the knowledge question, such as those indicated by words
like “measurable,” “logical steps,” and “usefulness,” and that they identify
epistemological objects like “facts, theories, and opinions,” “beliefs,” and
“statements.”
In addition, something like the operation of quite strong rules may be
referred from the high level of consistency that occurred in the classification
task, in which there were a considerable number of subjects that were either
very rarely linked together or not linked at all by any of the 34 respondents.
3. To what degree are teachers conscious of these views a n d to what
extent are they taken for granted?
There i s a considerable difference in the degree to which teachers are
aware of the knowledge rules they possess. Some teachers have explicit and
well-developed accounts of these rules and their social and political implica-
tions. Others found it difficult to articulate their views a t all. In general,
though, the location of such rules appears to be close to the hazy borderline
between the taken for granted and the theoretic. For most respondents, some
sort of an account of these rules i s retrievable, even if with dificulty. The
following quotations illustrate the range from virtually completely taken-for-
granted rules, only discoverable by inference from, say, a teacher’s ability to
complete the classification task without apparent difficulty, through border-
line, retrievable awareness, to explicit theoretic awareness:
Knowledge i s remembering or recalling certain facts. . . . I don’t see a distinction
between different academic fields. . . . I mean, anyone who can remember and
recall the dates from years gone by in History and who can recall 500 chemical
equations makes no difference to me in their knowledge ability.
I find it a very ditficult question to answer. . ..
136 Volume X I I , Number 2

I don’t think I can put a definition to it . . . . I guess there is a sort of factual

knowledge. . . . I guess I tend to look at theory as the sort of highest level.

Toward the end of the interview:

I’m still thinking about it, I s t i l l don’t have a very good idea of what i s meant by
knowledge.

There’s things here we try to. . . we’reconcerned why they’re here, I think, rather
than how they work (pause) I’m s t i l l confused I think. . , .

Yet earlier this respondent had produced a “scale” in which percentages were
assigned t o forms of knowledge in respect of their degree of “reliability.”

We may beableto putup hypothesesinScienceandprovethem, but I thinkpoetry,

literature, and language have been just as important in forming human ideas and
human progress as have the natural sciences.

Theframesof reference of knowledge relatetoman’sperceptionof knowledgeand

the less he develops his awareness the more basic and unsophisticatedwill be his
knowledge; hence he will tend to put a lot of credence into measurement, into
such things as can be handled,touched and seen,possessed, in other words; there-
fore, he will become interested in factual matters,science, geography. And then he
may move on to be interested in fellow creatures. . . .

4. What typologies a n d categories d o teachers use t o talk about knowl-

edge?
From the results presented, it can be seen that teachers’ discourse about
knowledge i s complex and involves many issues. However, the contrast
between science-centered or scientistic views of knowledge and others i s the
most salientsingleissuetoemergefrom thedata. M u c h ofthediscourseiscast i n
the form of a debate w i t h science. M a n y o f thetaxonomiesareorganizedeither
as dichotomies displaying an opposition between some personal, intuitive kind
of knowledge and science, or in the f o r m of science-centered continua. A
similar opposition occurred in the classification task. Even the “practical
empiricists” conceive of knowledge mainly in terms of the productsof science,
in terms of material technology.
M u c h of the terminology employed involves either a n explicit or implicit
comparison between the perceived characteristics of science and some other
m o r e personal or intuitive way o f knowing: measurable-personal; subjective-
objective; empirical, verified-subjective value judgment; tangible evidence-
intuitive revelation; and so on.
A n examination of the lists of themes shows that they are theoretically
divisible i n t o t w o hypothetical domains (with a small residue). In the first
domain w o u l d fall references t o “clear-cut ideas,” “logic,” “tangible evi-
dence,‘’ “objectivity,” and so on. in the second w o u l d fall references t o
“personal,” “intuitive,” “inner awareness,” and so on. The first domain
involves the exclusion or epoch6 of the personal, inward, and subjective di-
mension. It i s consistent w i t h Schutz’s account of the epoch6 of the scientific
attitude (1973). The second involves the exclusion of external, objective, im-
personal criteria.6 It involves an epoch6 of the nonpersonal, nonintuitive, or
objective moment in the human knowledgedialogue. This may becalled, in i t s
 Anthropology & Education Quarterly 137

pure form, the hermeneutic attitude, an attitude that focuses on human pur-
poses and their expression and interpretation and implies an innate capacity
for knowledge-the subjective moment in the human knowledgedialogue. Of
course, as later analysiswiIIshow,thesetwoepochCsare notalwaysfound in this
pure form. It i s often a question of emphasis rather than complete exclusion of
one or the other:
I think poetry, literature, and language have been just as important

I think the social sciences are demonstrating our disappointment with natural
science. . . .
Truth to me is very much an intuitivething.

Later content analysis of written answers in termsof thecontrast betweena

scientific and a “hermeneutic” emphasis showed that responses could be
divided into three roughly equal groups: (1) responses that employed only
scientific themes or emphasized them; (2) responses that employed a mixture
of scientific and hermeneutic themes, which were either without a clear
emphasis one way o r the other, were explicitly neutral or eclectic, or were
ambiguous; and (3) responses that employed only hermeneutic themes or
emphasized them.
In the results of the classification task, teachers showed a less mixed, more
clear-cut awareness of the contrast between the two7 knowledge domains.
Both those who emphasizethe hermeneuticapproach to knowledgeand those
who emphasize the scientistic recognize a separation, but those who em-
phasize the scientistic tend to feel that hermeneutic thought is not really
knowledge or i s less reliable, less valid by comparison with the scientific.
A reasonable inference that can be drawn from the nature of the pool of
themes taken as a whole and the vocabulary in which they are couched isthat
teachers are not really equipped to carry on any other kind of discourseabout
knowledge than that implied in the foregoing analysis. The cultural “equip-
ment,” in theformofvocabularyandcategories, islargelylinkedtothatwhich is
required for a debate about the place of scientific knowledge i n the overall
domain of human knowledge. I f the center of gravity of the discourse of
teachers were elsewhere, one would expect the total pool of themes to reflect
this. When it is considered that the techniques employed in elicitation either
did not mention “science” or any particular sciencesor, as in the classification
task, did not stress these forms over others, the fact that thesingle most salient
issue for teachers is a debate abou: the place of the sciences gains added
significance.
5. What basic contexts and vocabularies occur i n teachers’ discourse?
What are the dimensions of the linguisticand categorical manifestationsof the
knowfedge language game?
The preceding analysis illustrates the major epistemological issues that
were evidenced in teacher talk and writing about knowledge. The major
context of this talk was one i n which knowledge was characterized as a set of
statements about which one could raise questions of validity. But there was
evidence of another context. Some of those who refused to categorize in
semantic taxonomy interviews appeared to talk about knowledge inadifferent
138 Volume X I I , Number 2

way. This alternative approach to knowledge was evident in a small minority of

written answers, too. Whatever else these respondents may have felt about
knowledge, they appeared to see it as a tool that individuals used to orient
themselves in life, rather than as a set of true or false propositions that could in
some way be tested. This might be called an orientationalcontext. It was often
accompanied by a sense of truth being a matter of moral or political choice,
rather than evidence, an idea that appeared to be associated by some with
various theories about the relationship between truth and praxis-somesort of
critical theory.
If the analysis from this point i s restricted to the symbolic, rather than the
orientational, context of discourse and to epistemological rather than practical
questions, a list of the most important, widely salient issues can be drawn up. In
descending order of salience for participants, these would appear to be the
issue of “objectivity or truth,”the issueof“rationalityorsty1eof reasoning,”the
issue of “kinds of evidence or epistemic experience,” and the issue of “degree
of awareness of alternative formulations or distance from any particular
for mulatio n.”
The results of this study might be summarized in terms of a model of the
relationship of symbolic systems to experience, at least as far as the dominant
context of talk about knowledge i s concerned. There appear to be rules for
defining symbols in the system (e.g., “clear ideas,” “measurability” versus
“poetic,” “incommunicable”), rules for defining the “syntax” of propositions
employing these ideas (e.g., “logic,” “mathematics” versus “metaphor,”
“intuitive links”), rules for defining acceptable relationshipsbetween proposi-
tions and experience (e.g., “empirical testing,” “senses” versus “inward
insight,” “intuition”), and, finally, rules governing a general attitude toward
knowledge formulations on the basis of thewaysinwhichtheyareperceivedto
approximate these criteria. What would appear to be involved here, then, is a
distinction between a formal, existentially referential symbolic system and a
series of departures from such a well-articulated system.

Quantitative Results

Answers to questions (iii)to (vi) (see Table 3) were recoded in terms of the
notational-nonnotational system model. A science-centered view of knowl-
edge was one that stressed rules concerning logic, step-by-step reasoning, and
so on, in conjunction with an emphasis on sensory experience and an
“objective” final result. Views that stress personal, inward, and unique
knowledge, poetry and metaphor rather than logic, and that express a view in
which doubt i s cast on the objectivity of human knowledgesystemswerecalled
hermeneutic views. A three-point scale8 was set up as follows:
1. Science-centered (notational)
2. Intermediate, different forms of knowledge each with i t s own validity
3. Hermeneutic (nonnotational)
The responses were coded by the researcher in terms of this coding
schema. A second coder also coded the answers, and a product-moment
correlation coefficient between the two sets of codings was calculated. The
 Anthropology & Education Quarterly 139

average correlation was r = 0.90, indicating a high level of intercoder

agreement.

Epistemology and a “Good Education”

A general question concerning “education” was also included in the study. It
allows an examination of the relationship between epistemological rules and
other educational preferences.
Question (vii) concerned the respondents’interpretation ofwhat gettinga
good education meant. The aim was to generate very general statements of
values by respondents:
(vii) You often hear people speak of “getting a good education.” What in your
opinion is the single most important thing an individual should acquire in a
“good education”?Why is this important?

The results were coded employing the following coding principle? When
knowledge and learning are treated as an external-to-the-knower, subject-
centered process, a good education is likely to be seen in terms of the
acquisition of an existing body of objective, definitive knowledge and skills.
When knowledge is seen as growing outward through the expressive process,
the self-development and needs of the individual are likely to assume a more
important place than the acquisition of knowledge andskillsin theconceptofa
“good education.” This distinction i s based on the distinction between
“visible” and “invisible” pedagogy made by Bernstein (1975).
A three-point scale was employed:
1. External: emphasis on acquisition, mastery of knowledge, and skills.
2. Intermediate, ambiguous.
3. Internal: knowledge as an expression of inner processes; therefore,
an emphasis on self-development.

Again, a check on intercoder reliability was carried out and a product-

moment correlation coefficient of 0.92between coders was calculatedfor the
34 written answers to question (vii).
Since product-moment correlation i s fairly robust under changes in the

Table 3. Intercorrelation Analysis for Correlation Matrix Questions (iii) through (vii)*

Truth Reality Use Evidence Good Education

Q. (iii) Q. (iv) Q. (v) Q* (4 Q. (vii)

Q. (iii) 1.0000 0.3258t 0.3472t 0.4575% 0.5432%

Q. (iv) 1.0000 0.1974 0.6337% 0.2450
Q. (v) 1.0000 0.5024$ 0.4215t
Q. (vi) 1.oooo 0.3886t
Q. (vii) 1.moo
*Questions (i) and (ii) were omitted because they dealt primarily with matters af
definition.
Wgnificant at the 0.05 level.
$Significant at the 0.01 level.
140 Volume X I I , Number 2

basis of the underlying interval scale and resists disturbances of the underly-
ing distributions (Nunnally 1964), the procedure of adopting interval weights
for category scores was felt t o be justified since it appeared reasonable t o
assume that responses could be assigned t o categories with a high degree of
confidence in the rank-order of the assigned responses.
The pattern of intercorrelations obtained provides further, if qualified,
support for the view that the rules employed by teachers form systematic sets
organized around a science centered-hermeneutir dimension. It has proved
possible t o construct a consistent coding scheme based on this dimension. I n
addition, within this coding scheme there appears t o be a clear relationship
between teachers’ epistemological views and their general orientation to
education, presaging the possibility that teacher epistemologies may play an
important part i n teacher ideology and praxis.

Final Remarks
This study indicates that teachers do possess views about knowledge and that
these views are likely t o be related to teachers’views about other educational
and pedagogical issues. The epistemological views of teachers do not,
however, appear to be of the kind that previous research has assumed to exist.
The epistemic discourse of the majority of teachers i n this study could be
characterized i n terms of the position individual teachers adopted on the
overall problem concerning the nature of scientific knowledge. It is now
necessary t o explore the degree t o which the results of this study might be
generalized t o other modern, industrial societies, and t o explore the ways in
which teacher epistemologies and the epistemologies of other professional
groups might be implicated in professional ideologies and different styles of
professional practice. Further exploration of other less dominant charac-
teristics of teacher discourse about knowledge i s also likely t o produce
interesting results; the possible difference between practical empiricists and
“science-centered” teachers should be further explored, as should the role of
the small minority who frequently spoke of knowledge as an orientational
rather than a symbolic system.
The category systems and terminology employed by teachers in this study
may be used as a lexicon for the identification and coding of other content
responses in wider studies or in the construction of questionnaire or interview
schedules for further quantitative exploration of the implications of teachers’
epistemologies.
The major dimension of teacher epistemologies identified here may be
theorized in terms of the relation between a science-centered or scientistic
view of knowledge and what Basil Bernstein calls the adoption of a “well-
articulated Grammar” as they both find expression in a teachers’ conception
of the preparation, transmission, and acquisition of knowledge i n classrooms;
but that i s another story (Young 1980).

Endnotes

1. The interview technique was a nondirectivesemantictaxonomytechnique (Spradley

and McCurdie 1972; Pelto 1970). In this technique the interviewer controls the
semantic input to the situation, eliciting respondents’ category schema by means of
 Anthropology & Education Quarterly 141

structural questions (e.g., Can you give me some examples of X?) and attribute
questions (e.g., How is X different from Y?), where all the X’s and Y’s are provided by
the respondent, not the researcher. A list of themes can also be derived from
answers to attribute questions.
2. These questions were the following:
(i) I f you were arguing with someoneand he madeastatement that you said seemed
difficult to believe, and he replied that although it was difficult to believe he
knew it t o be the case, what d o you think he would mean by the word “knew”?
(ii) What other meanings of the word “know” are there?What is the central or most
important meaning?
(iii) What is the most important or central idea that in your opinion is conveyed by
the word ‘truth”?
(iv) Some people believe that we can never know reality, others that we can some-
times get pretty close to an accurate knowledge of it. Is this sort of knowledge
possible?What kinds of knowledge, if any, do you think come closest to pro-
viding this sort of knowledge?
(v) Of the different kinds of knowledge you can think of, which would you say, if
any, is more useful than the rest? tn what way is this kind of knowledge more
useful?
(vi) When new ideas or explanations are produced, they are not always accepted
straightaway. How would you tell whether or not new ideas could be accepted
as an addilion to your knowledge?What sort of “evidence” would you look for?
3. This involved an editing process, similar to the well-known school exercise called
“making a precis.” In general, amplification, connecting words, examples, some
subordinate clauses, and phrases performing similar functions were discarded and
the central indicative mood statements retained. Of course, an editing process of this
kind relies heavily on the researcher’s own perceptions and competence as a
speaker of English. In addition, interpretation of edited themes was carried out with
constant reference back to complete written answers.
4. At first sight the appearance of a reference to experts appears to involve the notion
that authority can be a source of validation of new ideas, but an examination of
answers to question (vi) by these respondents indicates that they would expect
experts or authorities, in their turn, to base their knowledge on evidence of some
kind, not on authority.
5. See Note 3.
6. Of course, in *idopting a dichotomous approach, it is necessary to gloss over what
may be important differences between nonscientistic points of view. By treating
them a l l in terms of their contrast with science, important differences between dif-
ferent nonobjective, personal knowledge criteria tend to be obscured (e.g., Zen-
Buddhism knowledge of self versus revelation). It can only be said in justification of
this procedure that an opposition to a perceived-as-dominant scientific view of the
world was an explicit aspect of many diverse nonscientific views. These views, how-
ever diverse, tended to be defined not in their own terms but in terms of a contrast
with science and, finally, at a relatively high level of abstraction, and many of these
views emphasized personal, unique paths to knowledge as opposed to knowledge
gained through public, collective application of a method of some kind. Perhaps a
better characterization of the distinction is a concentric model with the science-
centered view being represented by the center of a circle and various nonscientific
views radiating from it toward different parts of the circumference, along a
continuum of differences.
7. In speaking of “two” knowledge domains, we have assimilated the aesthetic-
expressive group of subjects and the human studies in terms of their contrast with
the science-technology group. There was some feeling among respondents that the
expressive group did not constitute Knowledge i n the same sense as the human
142 Volume XI&, Number 2

studies, not having an explanatory intention. The sharp distinction between this
group and the human studies probably rests upon this distinction.
8. The scale was treated asan interval scale for measurementpurposes. Thecoding rules
employed were based on the various areas of closure possible in symbolic systems,
as outlined briefly previously. Questions (i)and (ii)were omitted because they dealt
with general meanings, not respondents’ own views.
9. It seemed reasonable to conjecture that teachers with a science-centered view
would be more likely to emphasize clear-cut, well-defined subjects and the use of
objective criteria in deciding on curriculum content (see Bernstein 1975).

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