Classroom research aims at analyzing a complex of social practices which take place within a situation called a “lesson” and which are targeted at well-known (but precarious) goals like “learning”, “understanding” or “education”. The social reality classroom researchers are dealing with is without doubt shaped by normativity – there is probably agreement on this point. The more difficult discussion arises when it comes to the question, how the normativity of the social practice of teaching and learning affects our research on this practice. This question demands careful methodological consideration, and the answers provided to the problem of the (possible) normativity of the research itself seem to differ across the distinct traditions of classroom research.

The symposium aims at the epistemological and methodological issues around normativity within the empirical analysis that is carried out in classrooms: How do we deal with the normativity of the observed practice? In how far is our research itself affected by normativity? And if so, where do these norms come from? Of which kind is the relationship with the theoretical framework used? These questions are not very often addressed explicitly they mostly stay implicit within our presentation of methods and findings. Perhaps because normativity is a sensitive and tenuous topic within research methodology? To be “normative” is a serious reproach to empirical research because this diagnosis implies the problem of being biased, of being not distanced and objective enough. The symposium does not aim at a general or philosophical discussion on the possibility or necessity or impossibility of being normative when conducting empirical research, but it wants to address as concrete as possible the topic of normativity within classroom research and within our own research practices.

The symposium presents three different standpoints or perspectives coming out of three different research traditions and methodologies within classroom research: the observation and rating of teaching and learning practices within the quantitative paradigm, the classroom research evolving from didactic theory and especially from JATD, and the ethnomethodological tradition of classroom research. The three positions will be explicated in short presentations and commented by Christina Huf (Münster). Then there will be time for a more general discussion on the topic of normativity within classroom research within the audience.

a)      Kristi Klette & Marte Blikstad-Balas (Oslo): The Normativity of Rating Manuals in Classroom Research

 b)      Florence Ligozat & Anne Monnier (Geneve): The Descriptive-Normative Tension in the Didactic Analysis of Classroom Practices: Perspectives from Comparative Didactics

 c)       Georg Breidenstein & Tanya Tyagunova (Halle): “Ethnomethodological Indifference” and Normativity in Classroom Research

see below