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Good Intentions Gone Awry: Education Policy And Paradox Of Consequences In Rural Ethnic China, Jinting Wu
Good Intentions Gone Awry: Education Policy And Paradox Of Consequences In Rural Ethnic China, Jinting Wu
Journal of Educational Controversy
This paper provides a situated critique of how evidence-based, “best practices”-oriented research can result in unanticipated consequences and perpetuate a self-fulfilling prophesy at the expense of deeper understanding of educational problems. I structure the paper along two analytical steps. First, I explore the sociology of unintended consequences through German Sociologist Max Weber and his contemporary critic Mohamed Cherkaoui. Second, I draw from an ethnographic study in rural ethnic communities of Southwest China to illustrate how best intentions at providing free compulsory education go awry, and how the controversial policy both fails and succeeds in fabricating its intended outcome. The ethnographic …
Introduction To The Special Issue Of The Journal Of Educational Controversy, John G. Richardson
Introduction To The Special Issue Of The Journal Of Educational Controversy, John G. Richardson
Journal of Educational Controversy
This issue addresses the uneasy relation between 'best practices' in educational research and the consequences that often follow from efforts to implement practices deemed best. This relation is often complicated by the social phenomenon long recognized as "unintended consequences". It is proposed that controversies in education, as well as practices advanced as best, are shaped as the consequences -subsequently revealed as the very product of the good intentions that underlie prevailing theory and methods.