Validity and Self-Reflexivity Meet Poststructuralism: Scientific Ethos and the Transgressive Self

Abstract

he field of educational research is currently a fertile site for the proliferation of new forms of and new approaches to inquiry. In the struggles for legitimacy of these new forms, the idea of what constitutes valid work has gone through many changes (See, for example, Alcoff, 1989, 1991; Cherryholmes, 1988; Clifford, 1983; Gordon, 1990; Guba & Lincoln, 1989; Kvale, 1989; Lather, 1986a, 1986b, 1991a, 1993; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; and Mishler, 1990). That is not to say that there is a coherent, linear progression of the validity discussion in which old forms are discarded in favor of new ones. Traditional validity criteria, in fact, coexist with newer criteria, depending on researchers' ontological, epistemological, and political leanings and assumptions, as well as their situational requirements. It is not my purpose to reproduce that discussion here.