LAWSON,TONY ON CRITICAL REALISM - WHATS TEACHING GOT TO DO WITH IT

In this article we explore the implications of Tony Lawson's critical realism for teaching. Rather than offering a critique of Lawson's pers pective, we use his ideas as they appear to relate to our experience a s educators in our respective disciplines. In this sense we hope to su ggest a way of integrating disciplinary scholarship and reflection on teaching. Therefore, we emphasize the aspects of Lawson's work which a re most meaningful to us, namely his attempt to develop a combination of epistemological relativism and ontological realism and his emphasis on the relationship between social structure and human agency.