In praise of academic dust-ups
| Date | 18 December 2017 |
| Published date | 18 December 2017 |
| Pages | 221-223 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JCS-11-2017-0047 |
| Author | Nick Axford |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Vulnerable groups,Children's services,Sociology,Sociology of the family,Children/youth,Parents,Education,Early childhood education,Home culture,Social/physical development |
Nick Axford
In praise of academic dust-ups
When this journal was launched 12 years ago, we hoped that it would include some robust
debates about salient issues, with exchanges between contributors that generated useful
insights. In the event, this has barely happened.
Indeed, until now the single example was an (invited) exchange in 2011-2012 over the relative
merits of randomised controlled trials in children’s services. Sarah Stewart-Brown and her
colleagues queried their value, Donald Forrester and Gary Ritter critiqued those arguments, and
then Stewart-Brown responded to the critique (Stewart-Brown et al., 2011; Forrester, 2012;
Ritter, 2012; Stewart-Brown, 2012). Two interesting footnotes to that discussion: a couple of
academics admonished us for publishing the original article, arguing that such a perspective
should not be given airtime; and when the original article is cited, the responses tend not to
be (perhaps the fear of those who ticked us off).
Leaving that (still live) debate aside, it is gratifying to publish an article, by Keith Goldstein and
colleagues, in this edition (my final as an Editor) that responds to an earlier article on the value or
otherwise for academic results of interventions that seek to enhance parents’involvement in their
children’s education (See and Gorard, 2015). Without commenting in any way on either of these
articles, I hope that the authors of the original one will take the opportunity to reply.
It got me thinking ab out the nature and value of such deb ates in our field. Personally I li ke them.
I suspect this is par tly the thrill –relatively speaking –of watc hing an academic dus t-up,
but also because exposing points of agreement and difference is helpful and may even
generate new insig hts. At a personal leve l, it is useful to hear ot her people’s perspe ctives on
things that I am interested in, especially when they differ to mine, and I find that engaging with
them helps me to shar pen or clarify my own th oughts. Sometime s it makes me change my
mind, or gives me ide as for new studies, or helps me to de velop my thinking in new and, to me
at least, interes ting ways.
There are different types of debate, of course, and all have their place: those that are essentially
technical, focused on method and the interpretation of results (such as the one in this edition,
or the one between Dennis Gorman on the one hand, and Gilbert Botvin, Kenneth Griffin,
David Hawkins and Rico Catalano on the other, about trials of substance abuse prevention
programmes: Gorman, 2005a, b; Botvin and Griffin, 2005; Hawkins and Catalano, 2005); those
that are more philosophical, concerned with epistemological and ontological approaches
(notably the spat between Stephen Webb and Brian Sheldon on evidence-based practice in
social work: Webb, 2001; Sheldon, 2001); and those that are fundamentally about ideology
(evident, in part, in recent critiques of early intervention as a neoliberal enterprise, including the
exchange between Brid Featherstone and colleagues and Vashti Berry and yours truly:
Featherstone et al., 2014; Axford and Berry, 2017).
None of these types of debate are mutually exclusive, indeed I suspect that often what presents as
one type is partially about the others. In a subject areasuchasdomesticviolence,forinstance,where
ideological differences have driven research and led to different findings about cause and treatment,
it is difficult for the academics involved to cross the ideological bridge between the feminist and family
violence perspectives, regardless of the empirical evidence presented by the other “side”.
But if debates in our field are to be more than ill-tempered fisticuffs there are probably some basic
rules of exchange that extend beyond basic courtesy and a focus on the work not the people
involved.
DOI 10.1108/JCS-11-2017-0047 VOL. 12 NO. 4 2017, pp. 221-223, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1746-6660
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JOURNAL OF CHILDREN'S SERVICES
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