Abstract

The dissertation makes a case for and deals with the common rejection by the academy and academics of the importance, validity, and/or usefulness of knowledge made and used outside the academy, even while appropriating that knowledge. ;The dissertation argues that academic ways of knowing not only cannot but should not be fundamentally reformed. Instead, it advocates that the limitations of such knowing be embraced as part of academic particularism---i.e., what gives academic knowledges their unique importance in Western industrialized society. ;The dissertation develops what it calls an "ecology of knowledge" for use in studying educational institutions based on the "ecology of practices" of Isabelle Stengers, philosopher of science at the Free University of Brussels . It applies this ecological framework to a case study of Berea College and reflection on doing ethical research within the ecological framework