Situated in education policy analysis, this book is at the cutting edge of major debates across the social sciences regarding the nature of science, qualitative/quantitative tensions, post-foundational possibilities, and the research/policy nexus. Located between «the aftermath of poststructuralism» and the «new scientism» afoot in neoliberal audit culture, the book posits an engaged social science that is accountable to complexity and the political value of not being so sure. Its insistence is to put deconstruction to work in the midst of messiness, contingency, and ambiguity. The book will be useful in courses on education, feminist policy analysis, and qualitative research across disciplines.

The Author: Patti Lather received her Ph.D. from Indiana University in curriculum, research methodology, and women’s studies. She is a professor in the Cultural Foundations in Education Program at the School of Educational Policy and Leadership at Ohio State University, where she teaches qualitative research, feminist methodology, and gender and education. She is the author of three books, Getting Smart: Feminist Research and Pedagogy With/in the Postmodern (1991 Critics Choice Award); Troubling the Angels: Women Living with HIV/AIDS, co-authored with Chris Smithies (1998 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title); and Getting Lost: Feminist Efforts Toward a Double(d) Science (2008 Critics Choice Award). Her interests include (post)critical methodology, feminist ethnography, and poststructuralism. She is a 2009 inductee of the American Educational Research Association Fellows.

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