On Research Methods of the History of Educational Concepts

The study of the history of educational concepts is generally based on a mind-body dualism that views educational concepts as mirrors of nature with historical coherence. The cultural turn in the research methodology of the history of educational concepts challenges the presupposition of the relationship between traditional conceptions and nature, and suggests two possible directions for the methodological turn of the history of educational conceptions. The first is to draw on linguistic analysis to return to the original contexts of educational ideas, to uncover the problems within the contexts, and to focus on and study educational metaphors. The second is to draw on discourse analysis to consider educational ideas as the product of the discursive actions of specific discursive communities within a discursive power structure. In addition, the new materialist research methodology complements the cultural turn by providing an ontological perspective of cultural-biological monism. In this light, the study of the history of educational ideas can revisit the relationship between body, matter and spirit in education.