Comments on Shulman, Golde, Bueschel, and Garabedian: Existing Practice Is Not the Template

Abstract

In the April 2006 issue of Educational Researcher, Shulman, Golde, Bueschel, and Garabedian offered their response to the recent outpouring of criticism calling for reform of doctoral education degrees in the United States. The centerpiece of their proposal was the development of a new practitioner-oriented doctoral degree to replace the Ed.D. This article critiques the conceptual validity of the proposal—especially the idea that existing practice can be the driving force for the proposed curriculum reforms. The author argues for a fuller and more complex form of practice as praxis, in contrast with Shulman et al.’s implied preference for concrete existing practice—what might be called the actuality of practice—as the template for future practice.