Mendive. Journal on Education, 22(3), e3789

Translated from the original in Spanish

Review article

The object of study from the perspective of educational researchers

El objeto de estudio desde la perspectiva de investigadores e investigadoras en educación

O objeto de estudo da perspectiva dos pesquisadores da educação

Gabriel Alejandro Álvarez Hernández¹ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6809-8321

¹Institute of Higher Studies of Mexico City "Rosario Castellanos". México. gabo.alvarezh@gmail.com

Received: February 27, 2024
Accepted: June 22, 2024

ABSTRACT

This manuscript presents findings from a research that was carried out with researchers in the educational field. Here an approach is recovered that frames its conceptualization of the Object of Study, with the purpose of understanding it from the perspective of each informant. The method used was the biographical-narrative, from a hermeneutic phenomenological epistemology; The results shown here reveal that the concept of Object of Study, which in each case accompanies the researchers in their investigative action, is developed from their training, experience and knowledge. It is concluded that each concept proposes a perspective, a particular vision of the investigative task and opens paths of reflection for the action of the investigation.

Keywords: education; investigation; object of study.

RESUMEN

El presente manuscrito expone hallazgos de una investigación que se realizó con investigadores en el campo educativo. Aquí se recupera un acercamiento que enmarca su conceptualización del Objeto de Estudio, con el propósito de comprenderlo desde la perspectiva de cada informante. El método utilizado fue el biográfico-narrativo, desde una epistemología fenomenológica hermenéutica; los resultados que aquí se muestran revelan que el concepto de Objeto de Estudio, que en cada caso acompaña a los y las investigadoras en su acción investigativa, se elabora desde su formación, experiencia y saber. Se concluye que cada concepto propone una perspectiva, una visión particular del quehacer investigativo y abre veredas de reflexión para la acción de la investigación.

Palabras clave: educación; investigación; objeto de estudio.

RESUMO

Este manuscrito apresenta os resultados de uma pesquisa realizada com pesquisadores da área de educação. Aqui recuperamos uma abordagem que enquadra a conceitualização do Objeto de Estudo, com o propósito de compreendê-lo a partir da perspectiva de cada informante. O método utilizado foi o biográfico-narrativo, a partir de uma epistemologia fenomenológica hermenêutica; os resultados aqui apresentados revelam que o conceito do Objeto de Estudo, que em cada caso acompanha os pesquisadores em sua ação de pesquisa, é elaborado a partir de sua formação, experiência e conhecimento. Conclui-se que cada conceito propõe uma perspectiva, uma visão particular da tarefa de pesquisa e abre caminhos de reflexão para a ação de pesquisa.

Palavras-chave: educação; pesquisa; objeto de estudo.

INTRODUCTION

Who still wonders what value a science can have, which devours its creatures like a vampire?

Friedrich Nietzsche

In 2018, a study was carried out by the person signing this manuscript, in which the processes of construction and reconstruction of the Object of Study in educational research were explored conceptually. It began with a review of the concept of science from philosophical traditions. These were the Galilean, whose fundamental purpose is Explanation (Erklaren), for which it relies on positivism, pragmatism and classical empiricism; in addition to concepts such as objectivity, hypothetico-deductive logic and variables among others. The other tradition is the Aristotelian, whose goal is understanding (Verstehen) and is nourished by phenomenology and hermeneutics, incorporating concepts such as: meaning and meaning, lived experience, subjectivity, culture, society, history, etc.

In the same study, the concept of paradigm was recovered as one that considers theories, methods and standards accepted by a scientific community at a specific historical moment. Based on this concept, three major paradigms that were consolidated in the 20th century and that are still in force were reviewed: the positivist (analytical empirical), the interpretive (historical-hermeneutical) and the sociocritical. Subsequently, and based on the approaches of Guba and Lincoln (1990), they were analyzed by taking as a basis three key questions whose answers promote a certain way of constructing the Object of Study. The first is the ontological: what is the form and nature of reality and, therefore, what can we know about it?; the epistemological: what is the nature of the relationship between who knows or seeks to know and what can be known? and methodological: how can the researcher (the one who seeks to know) manage to find out if what he or she believes can be known? In this study, it was concluded, among other things, that the subjective attribute of the researcher is key to the construction and reconstruction of the Object of Study (Álvarez, 2019).

In the aforementioned study, authors who contribute to the discussion on the Object of Study were reviewed. Due to the above, the questions were raised: what does a specific researcher understand by Object of Study? Are there coincidences and/or substantial differences regarding the respective definitions? Alejandro Navarro Yáñez (2014) mentions that "Although scientists often like to think that their work is totally objective, they are still people with a specific personality and ideology, which leads them to position themselves with respect to reality." political and social of his time" (p. 49).

In 2020, a research project began that deals with the life stories of researchers in the educational field and its general purpose is to understand the training and practice of research from the experience of those who carry out this activity in the educational field; It is a phenomenological-hermeneutical study (Van Manen, 2002) and with a biographical-narrative perspective and method (Bolívar et al., 2001). The project compiles life stories about their training and experience in research; which is achieved through stories based on specific moments in their trajectories. As part of the conclusion of each narrative, each participant responded to the question: In educational research, what is the Object of Study? This work is prepared from the answers provided by each participant to this question.

The narrative in this writing has a central role, since it offered references to recover the experience, especially in its link with education (Bolívar et al., 2001), since in its postulates a deep interest in apprehending educational scenarios is manifested. from the experience of those who carry out educational activity on a daily basis, where experience gives guidance to educational practice. For the purposes of this manuscript, each researcher who gave their concept of the Object of Study, did so from their experience, their formative path in research, responding to their interests, their concerns and the influence on their research praxis.

For its part, talking about experience in the field of hermeneutic phenomenology is, in principle, accepting that experience is not limited to what the senses can or cannot perceive, but rather deeply includes everything that is consciously experienced by the person. It is a way of relating to the world and ourselves. Essentially, the author states that experience dynamically and irremediably entails intentionality; so that experience is always directed towards something, it may well be an object, a subject, ideas, thoughts, etc. For the purposes of this work, experiences intentionally incorporate what is consciously conceived of the Object of Study and its respective conceptualization.

Experience is not what happens, but what happens to us. It is not only about the information we receive from the environment, but about what is significant and meaningful to us. Thus, in this writing, each concept of Object of Study surpasses the strictly conceptual, transcends to a way of living the task of research. Knowledge is a central component of experience; Thus, when giving reasons about the Object of Study, he revealed knowledge part of the experience.

DEVELOPMENT

To prepare the manuscript, hermeneutic phenomenology was used as a reference and perspective on which it is based; One of its contributions highlights the interpretation and understanding of meaning in human experience and proposes that understanding is a fundamental process in the relationship between the individual and the world. In this order of ideas, each participant collaborated from their experience in research practice and their training and practice. Their stories show research praxis, a meditated and lived activity. It is in the milestones of their personal history where the keys to understanding them are found.

A central component of relevance is found in hermeneutic phenomenology, since it makes fundamental reference to the fact that experience is an intentional activity, endowed with senses and meanings and that maintains each participant in a relationship of involvement and praxis with their investigative work. In general, each life story, story and its conceptualization of the Object of Study are essentially filled with what each person manages to be as a researcher.

In the present, the vital preeminence of narrative in the understanding and configuration of action was highlighted. It is argued here that narrative plays a fundamental role in the construction of identity and in the way in which people give meaning to their existences. Thus, in this writing what is exposed has essentially a relationship with the existence of the person; In this way, being a researcher is a vital and profound activity for those who carry it out. According to the Object of Study, it is not only as a definition, but as an essential component of each person.

Max Van Manen (2002) exerted a nodal influence on this work, as he recovers hermeneutic phenomenology and links it with the world of life in the educational field, both theoretically and methodologically, since for him […] phenomenology describes the way in which each individual orients himself toward lived experience; Hermeneutics refers to how each individual interprets the "texts" of life (p. 22). This, being an interpretive epistemology, sets the goal of describing, interpreting and exposing linguistically and narratively the lived experiences, here what each researcher expresses about the Object of Study.

On the other hand, as a methodological note, knowledge has a direct relationship with what is experienced, it is central to each person, so the Object of Study in each researcher is essentially in a dimension of reality that corresponds to the Lived experience. For this reason, this work does not attempt to reach a general concept; On the contrary, it falls into conceptual irreducibility, especially because it underlies the social and human field, in which changes and transformations are constant and where the subjective component plays a key role. Thus, the concepts presented here are not intended to be taken to the "heaven of objectivity"; The reader is recommended to keep them in the realm of the lived and subjective.

Juan Manuel Piña Osorio

The first of the researchers to join here is Juan Manuel Piña Osorio. He is a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) at the Institute for Research on University and Education (IISUE); sociologist from the same institution and member of the National System of Researchers (SNII) Level 2 of the National Council of Humanities, Science and Technology (CONAHCYT). To his credit is a research training that goes through many moments, of which he highlights those that have been key at the Autonomous University of Chapingo, to which he expresses respect and affection. Also, he himself emphasizes that he had a profound influence from Ricardo Sánchez Puentes, of whom he expresses affection. Juan tells us about the Object of Study:

Paraphrasing Bourdieu and Passeron (2009, p. 76): "The object of study is constructed against the illusion of immediate knowledge"; One thing is empirical knowledge, what we see empirically, and another is the object of study. The Object of Study is constructed theoretically, it exists in the mind of the researcher or researchers, it does not exist empirically; That is, for example, I can study political culture in high school students, but the student does not know what political culture is. Another example is what we are working on at this moment: professional ethics in high school teachers, from what the students tell us we derive what professional ethics is; The teacher does not know if he acts ethically, but he knows what he has to do, either because of tradition or because he considers that it is fair. If you remember, a long time ago it was legitimized to do things outside the law, it was even said "This is cultural", "People have always done it". For example, we are in a research project on citizenship and a teacher from the FES-Zaragoza came saying "Look, I am a union member and something happened there that had not happened: the workers were used to going to request orthopedic shoes, when the son He didn't require it, and they sold them, but everyone agreed and gave them to them"; However, he adds, now that cannot be done, but a person did it and now he is already in a legal process, they accuse him of theft, because from there they began to discuss and say: "No, but the thing is that if before back then they should have let him do it" and others "No!", then a teacher says, "No, well, that should never have been allowed" and they answered: "No, but you live in Mexico and the culture!", and others: "It's poorly done! You do not get it?! It's poorly done! Even if you don't understand it, it's done wrong!" Well, if we realize the teacher acts ethically, with responsibility, the others, well, no, they started more from "usages and customs"; They don't know it, but that's how they acted, on the other hand, the teacher doesn't know that she is acting ethically, but she does it. That is, whoever investigates ethics understands ethical actions, but the actor who performs them does not have this clarity. The object is constructed against the illusion of immediate knowledge, in this case "usages and customs."

There is another phrase, this is taken up by many for the object, which is from Marx (2008, pp. 9-48). When Marx speaks in Chapter One and sees what the commodity is, Marx says: "The commodity, what is the commodity?", he says: "All people handle commodities, a merchant handles commodities, but he does not know, nor does he have why know what merchandise is" for him it is a product, the merchandise that goes to the market and is exchanged for money and then with this he buys other merchandise. That is to say, merchandise-money-merchandise, a worker has a commodity that is the labor force and exchanges it for money and with that he buys other merchandise and so on continuously; However, there are others who have money, buy merchandise and then go to obtain additional money, this is called surplus value, well, this is what merchandise is. Marx says another very interesting thing, in the critique of political economy (2008, pp. 43-102): "When we study a society we generally begin by studying the context, that is, the rivers, the topography, the agriculture and then We already arrive at the town and in the town we also see the general, then we arrive at what we want to investigate", that is, deductive method and it is the wrong method. Then he points out that what we have to study is the concrete, and the concrete is concrete because it is a synthesis of multiple determinations, therefore, the unity of the diverse. What does this refer to? For example, concrete: a house that has earthenware, concrete, castles and what does concrete contain?: concrete contains cement, sand, gravel, water, rod, wire rod, yes? The concrete is concrete because it is a synthesis of multiple determinations, therefore, the unity of the diverse. In Marx there was also another phrase, real concrete and concrete of thought: concrete of thought is the unity of the diverse, the real concrete is the rod, the sand and all that, well the construction of an Object of Study is to reach the concrete of thought, to the unity of the diverse and when you don't do it, then you stay with what you assume happens, it is common sense.

The Object of Study is built against the illusion of immediate knowledge is a triggering phrase for Juan Manuel Piña. Based on their reflections, they open the possibility of recognizing that each researcher faces the challenge of working with experiences that incorporate knowledge and practices of which sometimes there is no epistemic clarity on the part of those who are the protagonists. Thus, the investigative task in the construction of the Object of Study implies having to recover, systematize and orient to a conceptual space what the informants experience and share in stories, opinions, points of view, etc.; Therefore, constructing the Object of Study is overcoming immediate knowledge that responds to multiple determinations: cultural, social, personal, usage and custom, etc., and of which people sometimes do not have disciplinary control. The researcher is specialized in certain topics, from which the approach to the universe of work is given, the path of their research and its consequent Object of Study is traced; confronts the illusion of people's immediate knowledge.

In another order of ideas linked to the above, Juan gives elements of analysis for the construction of the Object of Study from apprehending it as something that is made up of multiple determinations, against a deductivist tradition of positivist and empirical analytical research. In this way, the Object of Study leads to the reflection of appropriating it as a confection that is made from recognizing the complexity of social reality and each component that is centrally part of its configuration.

José Antonio Serrano Castañeda

José Antonio Serrano is an academic at the National Pedagogical University (UPN) in Mexico, at the Ajusco Unit. He does not identify himself as a researcher because his contractual status does not mark him as such. He is a member of the SNII and part of the consolidated academic body Institutional Practices and Constitution of the Subject in Education (PICSE-UPN), founding partner of the Mexican Council for Educational Research (COMIE), Master of Science from the Department of Educational Research of the Center for Research and of Advanced Studies from the IPN (DIE-CINVESTAV), Doctor in Pedagogy from the University of Barcelona. Regarding the Object of Study, he comments:

As if you asked me the difference between chilaquiles and enchiladas; That is, both are tortillas, both are sauce, they have cream, onion, cheese and the sauce is to taste. So, - it is a bit general, but it helps me think about the matter - the object of education, in general, is practical and there is no doubt about that. They are specific practices that we can see from two perspectives: either practices linked to institutional projects or practices that are developed under another type of modality and influence. Educational practice is a practice with influence [and about that there is a very nice text by Hameli on the processes that are influenced, (1981, pp. 86-112), it is quite interesting]: they are practices. The educational aspect, as the object of study of a discipline, is the practices. These practices are interested in several things that are in the very substance of practical doing: it involves knowledge and a current technology - current technology is not technical -; All practices are carried out with certain types of instruments, proposals (some things are mechanical, others are not); and with certain types of language that is related to that practice. For example, in the kitchen, you are not going to use the same verbs as when changing tires, nor the same technology or the same body disposition. So, practice is a doing that involves the being as a whole and produces a certain type of knowledge based on knowledge that one already has about things. The practice is carried out with certain types of specific technical procedures. That is, to move an egg you have several ways, you can do it, like a specialist or like that, but you are not going to put a cross key to move an egg. So, you are going to use certain types of verbs. Every practice has knowledge, a specific bodily disposition to carry out that practice, that is: we are biomass. There is a basic principle: stardust that performs a human activity, that fulfills a human activity of some kind of bodily matter. Another example, to dance tango, to dance rock, to dance cumbia, your body knows; and there is no way to explain it. That is to say, there is a basic bodily condition - and I learned that from Bourdieu -: the specific material condition to carry out a practice. There is knowledge at stake, you know if you have built knowledge about something with prior knowledge that sometimes does not come directly from the action you are going to do, but is there available for practice and implies a technology and a type of knowledge and issues. normative and aesthetic learned in relation to others. There are norms and values embedded in the practice and there is an aesthetic condition of the realization of the practice. Education does not exist for me if it is not through the analysis of practices.

What Antonio has explained opens the horizon of reflection on the Object of Study, from recognizing the education composed of: knowledge, a language and its respective verbs, a technology, a technique, an institutional framework and an action emanating from people who live educational activity according to their role and position in the school they live in; Incorporating all these components as a constitutive part of the construction of the Object of Study takes the researcher to an analytical and comprehensive space that allows him or her to move meaningfully and oriented in the work universe.

Carlos Angel Hoyos Medina

Carlos Ángel Hoyos is attached to the IISUE of the UNAM, a person with a free spirit and enthusiastic about existentialism, especially in its Sartrean version. Also and, consequently, existential phenomenology is glimpsed in its epistemic horizon (Laing, 1978). He is a pedagogue and his line is Epistemology, hermeneutics and method. To the question he answers:

It is a delimitation that we make to highlight a significant structure, or a signifier of knowledge interest.

To approach the object of interest in social and educational research, various theoretical-methodological forms have been delimited for its formalization, of which two are shown to be predominant in the academic field: inductivism, on the one hand, referenced to the generation of scientific knowledge, and, on the other, interpretation, referenced to the field of human sciences, which calls for a non-tautological inferential approach.

Both forms of approach, within their theoretical constitution, contain a categorical and conceptual scaffolding of sufficiency to be able to account for the attributes of their object. However, formalization has installed an institutionalized regulation that prioritizes inductive forms of construction and treatment of the object under a protocol support that unfolds from the particular to the general. This regulation operates above the possibility of a reading supported by a non-constructionist inferential approach. This, under the argument awarded to inductivism of supporting criteria of objectivity and certainty: "The objectivity of inductivist science derives from the fact that both observation and inductive reasoning are objectives in themselves. No personal, subjective element is allowed to interfere" (Chalmers, 1988: 23), resulting in a separation of the two forms of approach, and projecting them not only as different and opposite (repugnanz, in Kant's sense), but also hierarchical in terms of validity and justification, delegating to interpretation a subsidiary inferential character, of eminently subjective elaboration and validity.

The inductivist argument is based on the apparent a priori validity that empirical expression gives it. Through observation and experience, the conformation of the singular to the general seems to leave no room for doubt about the validity of the process, and the consequent results. By starting from the formation of observational statements and deriving from the universal, the inductive construction is carried out under the assumptions of exclusion of subjective elements, such as ethics and axiologies: "lack of cognitive meaning of value judgments" is awarded. What is interesting is not so much expanding knowledge of the world, but rather the consistency of the statements; and this is guaranteed by the exclusion of the subject carrying out the research, which eliminates, or at least drastically reduces, the possible inferential activity that subjectively alters the inductive constructionist process. At this point, even though by different paths, a great difference is not generated between the two epistemological conceptions that revolve around the inductive process: positivist verificationism, and falsificationism, which, although it assumes the possibility of fallibility, by accepting a continuum of conjectures and refutations, remains within the canons of the scientific version of formalized induction.

In this aspect, in the Theoretical sense, which for me is theory in motion, the Object of Study is not given, nor does it remain identical to itself in its treatment. In a different way from inductivism, it is constructed, but within the framework of its historicity and context. The object is a construction that we do processually, in a dialogic co-implication: "the SELF does not directly experience the experience of another. If we admit that no one experiences my experience, we are admitting that we rely on our communications to provide us with our clues about how or what we are thinking or feeling" (Laing, 1978, p. 25). The internalization of the other within the framework of the subject-vis-a-vis-subject interrelation allows for a shared inference regarding a meaning of reality.

And this process unfolds within the framework of a praxis. The object is enhanced, outlined subjectively and objectively under a conception of interaction and dialectical interrelation by the researcher. Praxis indicates where we want to go, but that going towards generates a process, and then the object is constituted in the same process, it is delimited, because if there is a delimitation, it is not an extreme relativism.

The Object of Study in the reflections of Carlos Ángel Hoyos contemplates, from the beginning, that for the Object of Study it is necessary to establish and formalize several theoretical and methodological approaches. Two predominant ones stand out: inductivism, which is related to the generation of scientific knowledge with generalization tendencies, and interpretation, which is linked to the human sciences; Furthermore, it marks the need to recognize that it is a construction that starts from a process that dialectically involves a social and a personal framework in which the concrete subject acquires prominence, as a free and meaning-giving entity, aware of its own condition. reflexively situated in a space-time with contextual components. The Object of Study is construction, it is not given as usually assumed by positivist and empirical analytical sciences.

Carlota Guzmán Gómez

Doctor in Educational Sciences from the University of Paris VIII, researcher attached to the Regional Center for Multidisciplinary Research (CRIM) of the UNAM, she is a member of SNII Level 2. Her lines of research are Rural high schools in Mexico, Higher education students and social inequality and Conceptual analysis and research field of students and students. In general, her production has led her to venture into working with students and her values and vital concerns are framed within the problems surrounding inequality in upper secondary and higher education. To the question about the Object of Study respond:

I understand the Object of Study as a construction or assembly of theoretical, conceptual and empirical contents. Its construction is part of the research process and in very general terms it begins with the delimitation of a topic, the formulation of a question and its immersion in a theoretical-conceptual corpus that gives it meaning and consistency. There are some issues that I would like to highlight: firstly, that the research does not begin with an Object of Study, but rather this is the product and result of an advance in which literature reviews, theories and many essays are implicit. delimitation and trimming of topics and questions. The second issue is that the Object of Study changes throughout the process, that is, it is not immovable, nor can we expect it to be so, since as we progress we incorporate new elements, discarding some and adjusting others.

In my experience in the educational field, my Objects of Study are always linked to the sociological dimension. I recognize that the field of education has a multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary character, but I feel very marked by my initial sociological training; what interests me fundamentally is the social dimension and, in the background, the political one. I try not to address psychological, pedagogical or didactic aspects because I feel that I do not have the tools to do so. On the other hand, I am inclined towards the use of intermediate theories, I am not very fond of large theorizations, but I like to be able to use them analytically and that they can guide me to demarcate the dimensions that I am going to observe; An example is the sociology of experience by Francois Dubet, which is a theory that guides me and bases the construction of my Objects of Study in the field of the subjects' experiences. I lean towards qualitative research, my questions are always linked to understanding and subjective aspects, I seek rigor and I like to account for the methodological processes from which I construct my research. At some points in my career I have also done quantitative work, I have done it with a colleague who uses statistical tools, I have liked the structural dimension that that perspective provides, but I always end up returning to the questions about the subjects.

Carlota Guzmán expresses a key distinction of the Object of Study: the research does not begin with a predefined Object of Study, but rather it emerges as a product and result of a process in which literature reviews, analysis of theories and numerous attempts are carried out. of delimitation and focus of the themes and research questions. It is essential to understand that the Object of Study is not static in the research process, it is not an immutable entity and, as the research progresses, it is natural to incorporate new elements, discard others and adjust aspects of the Object of Study based on the findings and evolution in the understanding of the topic.

Carlota reveals the importance of recognizing the disciplinary scientific frameworks in which a researcher was trained as the beginning of the construction of the Object of Study; That is, whoever investigates and carries out the task of delimiting an Object of Study, does so from scientific reference frameworks acquired in their professional training. Likewise, Carlota leads us to reflect on quantitative and qualitative approaches, which from their respective foundations offer epistemological, ontological and methodological platforms.

Miguel Ángel Olivo Pérez

Sociologist graduated from El Colegio de México; He is currently a Level 2 investigator of the SNII and works at UPN Unit 096 CDMX Norte where at the time of the interview he serves as director. His production reveals a concern for the issues of epistemology and politics crossed by educational phenomena and socioeconomic vulnerabilities. He is enthusiastic about the thought of Alain Badiou, but he also draws on the teachings of Theodor Adorno, Lacan, Walter Benjamin, Pierre Bourdieu and Latin Americans such as Ernesto Laclau, Orlando Fals Borda, Hugo Zemelman and Jorge Alemán. When asked the question, he answers:

The first expression of objective knowledge, and in science of the object of study, is the public. Knowledge being public circulates, has open access and the ability to be defined as identifiable. There is a lot of knowledge that is public and circulates, but only a very small part of that public knowledge can be considered scientific. Just as symbols circulate in our society, we must also understand that scientific works circulate, which are characterized by having a greater dose of realization unlike scientific knowledge. We can also call an artifact a body of knowledge characterized by being a framework that manages to contribute something to society, such as psychoanalytic theories, Bourdieu's field theory, Fals Borda's action research proposal or the speculative work of Theodor Adorno. Among all these intellectual entities or objects (symbols, works, scientific works, artifacts, etc.), we must distinguish what belongs to science. In particular, an artifact is art turned into a fact, and then the aesthetic dimension is already involved here: the taste for the thing produced, to which a lot of work and efforts were invested with passion, and even love. Thus, scientific work can be generated from artistic taste, which is one of the most valued artifacts in our society today. Why is it an artifact? because it somehow fits into the reality of society and begins to circulate, regardless of the time it lasts in circulation. In this sense, the lessons learned from the experience of Allende's fall in Chile can often become an artifact at the political level, as much as Habermas's theory of communication or Garfinkel's proposals to understand how people index elements of their contexts.

Regarding my own work considered as an artifact, there is one in particular: the book I wrote about street vendors (2010). I firmly believe it is an artifact. Talking about the sociopolitical and cultural mechanisms and processes that underlie their lives and praxis is to exercise the expression of an artifact, which makes it easier to understand these people in order to revalue their struggles. Thanks to the elaborate artifact, we can better understand their situation in the social and political fabric of our society. One quality of this book is to understand how they are stigmatized, and the role that stigmatization plays in the network of complicities that existed before and after Carlos Slim expelled them from the streets in 2007; Since then, streetwalking in the historic center of Mexico City has never been the same. The government sponsored the network of complicities and corruption that exists in the environment and then they try to put all the blame on the street vendors, when they themselves are children of the government in some way in those complicities; So, when I say that message I also say Nobody takes it away from me and there this message is circulating in society, and I say How wonderful! Journalists do it their way, we do it our way. I say that delimiting the Object of Study is something that must be worked on in the long term, which requires a slow and patient process of maturation that is carried out little by little in order to crystallize into a work. Only until the moment you close and have the message well polished is when the Object of Study is delimited and clearer.

As a delimitation project, the Object of Study is curious. It may be that you work on a work projected a priori in your mind, in a tentative way, when you delimit an Object of Study in an anticipatory way, and you say This is it, this is what I want to do, I sense that it is going to fit as a good work in the society, but the real work comes after you have worked on it for a long time and when you complete it. That is, first you venture the Object of Study, you delimit it in an adventurous and hypothetical way at first as a project, and then you work hard on it and complete it until you publish; So, an Object of Study would have that artifact component and the paradox: you invested many individual things, many personal concerns, for example, yesterday when I spoke about forgiveness in politics, but do you think I am going to talk about forgiveness on a personal level? not even that he was stupid. Without a doubt, feelings, beliefs, concerns and personal dispositions play a very important role in how you project, conceive and complete the works, but they must always be silenced with the maximum commitment to contribute something to society in a selfless way, to contribute something to the public knowledge, preferably in the form of a work and not just another book lost in the mass of superfluous things that tend to abound today. In this way, writing a book is not a personal confession or a relief that as individuals we might be tempted to express; Of course there is some of that, but one should not worry too much about that, but all the attention and conscious efforts must be focused on the construction of the Object of Study, the elaboration of the artifact, and in its most excellent form to the culmination of scientific work. In other words, the process of scientific production is completely unrelated to a psychoanalytic process in which you are going to be cured of something. In this sense, that is secondary, if you are cured or it was beneficial to you on a personal level in your psyche or spirit, or on an emotional level, fine, if not, then too, because that should no longer be part of the priorities. Curiously, however, there is almost always an enormous benefit in terms of what you contribute to society and at the same time to yourself in the form of the investment of language, gaze and actions that forged your work and your life. That is priceless. As a person, you may have your own traumas and they may even be coming into play in your main hypothesis, but you must pretend not to realize it and submit completely to what Bourdieu calls epistemological vigilance.

We all have traumas, problems, it's just that you know how to accommodate them, in such a way that you train yourself to build a peculiar relationship between your current moment, them and your work. In this way, the individual person is not visible in the work, but it is undoubtedly there. But the most important thing is that the thing is public and a certain public knows how to recognize itself in what you wrote, because it is a problem of society and not a personal problem. The best way to do that is with love. Doing something like this is paradoxical, that is, there are those same problems that you have internally and at the same time, inadvertently but effectively, they are also in the form of an Object of Study; There they are, but with another language. Do not ask me about how my traumas are present in my different books, because such a question seems vain to me. In summary, we are going to put the message about traumas and your work in this metaphor: it looks like a network of concerns and passions of which, by turning them into work and duplicating them in that work, you also solve your personal things, it is something that I have seen little in authors. Dilthey (1948) calls it the nexus of life and I have come to see it in Hegel in his own way and it is something that should be talked about more (p. 48).

The Object of Study in the reflections offered by Olivo leads to the recognition that it reaches its greatest epistemological recognition when it is completed, even at the moment when it is an accepted and published work (from the Latin publicâre: "to make public"), at which time It becomes public domain and becomes what he calls an artifact, since it is part of a society and in some way useful to it. While this does not happen, the Object of Study is an adventure, a hasty launch that along the way gradually acquires its shape, with time and work. Also, Olivo incorporates the irremediable complicity and involvement of those who investigate with their object, since in the investigative task the person projects their vital concerns, their personal history, longings, desires, frustrations and everything that constitutes them personally. Such a perspective on the work and the author provides us with valuable reflections for the task, not only of the dissemination of science in the form of a taste for scientific works but, more importantly, of the very impulse to participate in the production of tasks. science by the younger generations.

CONCLUSIONS

The concepts of the Object of Study enunciated by each researcher who collaborated are not intended to have recognition in the form of knowledge with tendencies of universalization, of law, as positivism could seek. Each person who does research achieves a version of themselves that is manifested in their research work and in the construction of their Object of Study and the relationship they maintain with it (epistemology). It makes an interpretation and reflection of reality in general and, consequently, of education, as well as of the people who give it life (ontology); He also manages to make his methodological task a personal manufacture (methodology), the above does not mean that there is no foundation and that it reduces the validity of each concept of the Object of Study; On the contrary, there are theories, epistemic approaches, authors, traditions, referential, disciplinary and scientific frameworks, but each researcher recovers what they consider relevant and gives it the necessary order to be able to learn the idea of the Object of Study in the research work.

As Kreimer (2012) mentions, the historical development of science contemplates a series of events that frame scientific work in institutional and state talents that set trends, especially in those countries that have financing schemes and that lead researchers to a dynamic of publication, or as the author himself would say Publish and punish (p. 93). However, the subjective nature has a central relevance in research praxis, especially in social and human sciences, since each researcher in the educational field is recognized as a social subject from which the research activity cannot incorporate the neutrality and objectivity; at least not in a categorical way, since values, interests, needs, conflicts, etc., are constantly manifested.

As a closing, we offer the following reflections, which may or may not be accepted, at the reader's discretion.

The Object of Study leads to the consideration that its maximum recognition is achieved when it is completed and the work is accepted and published, at which time it becomes public domain; At that moment it becomes an artifact, because it becomes part of society and has a purpose in it. However, before reaching that point, the Object of Study is a journey, like a hasty launch that, with time and work, gradually takes its shape. The inevitable complicity and involvement of the researcher with his or her Object of Study is also highlighted. During the investigation, the person projects their personal concerns, their life history, their aspirations and frustrations, as well as everything that constitutes them on a personal level.

Through what was mentioned by the researchers, the importance of recognizing the scientific and disciplinary frameworks in which the person carrying out the research has been trained is highlighted. This, in principle, stands as a fundamental component in the construction of the Object of Study, so that the person who carries out the work of constructing the Object of Study does so within the scientific frameworks acquired during their professional training. Furthermore, we must reflect on the quantitative and qualitative approaches, from their respective bases, since they provide platforms, both epistemological and ontological, and consequently determine the methodologies to follow.

It also opens the debate and reflection on inductivist argumentation that rests on the apparent internal validity that it acquires through the empirical. The transition from the particular to the general, achieved through observation and experience, appears to establish a solid foundation, with seemingly no room for doubt, as to the validity of this process and its subsequent results. However, this is based on an objectivity that tends to reduce and sometimes fade away the personal experience of the researcher; On the other hand, recognizing the interpretation and sustaining the personal experience leads to appropriating the Object of Study as a construction, a process that implies a dialectical interaction between a social framework and a personal one. In this process, the concrete subject plays a central role, being a free agent who provides meaning and is fully aware of his or her own condition. This subject is reflexively located in a particular space-time. In this order of ideas, it is important to understand that the Object of Study is not a given entity, as is often assumed in positivist and empirical-analytical sciences; rather, it is the result of a dynamic and contextual construction process.

The Object of Study in research on education requires beginning with the recognition and understanding of education itself. The latter is made up of several elements, including knowledge, language and their respective verbal applications, technology, techniques, the institutional framework and the actions carried out by those who participate in education, according to their roles and responsibilities in the institution to which they belong. The inclusion of all these components in the process of constructing the Object of Study leads the researcher to enter an analytical and comprehensive field, which provides the bases to advance in the construction, appropriation and understanding of the Object of Study.

The phrase The Object of Study is built against the illusion of immediate knowledge, marking a starting point to recognize that researchers in the educational field face the challenge of dealing with experiences that incorporate knowledge and practices, often lacking clarity. conceptual on the part of those who star in them. At this milestone, the research process requires recovering, systematizing and contextualizing what the people involved share in the form of stories, opinions and perspectives. From this reflection, constructing the Object of Study involves facing the notion of immediate knowledge, influenced by a series of cultural, social, personal determinants, customs, etc., elements that the researcher conceptually orders.

It is key to recognize that the Object of Study is an entity made up of multiple determinants that challenges the deductivist tradition of research in the positivist paradigm. Consequently, the Object of Study becomes a reflection on its complexity and each of its components and that the researcher assembles contextually and conscientiously to constitute what will later be stated as the Object of Study.

The reflections presented here point out that the Object of Study is not something given, as it can be understood from a positivism; It is a construction, especially based on research on education which is a social and personal activity and its approach, which requires epistemological, ontological and methodological approaches that understand educational activity in that dimension. Finally, the reflections presented here may or may not be valid for whoever reads them; Whether they are useful or not, the important thing is that each reader of this manuscript can give it the guidance they see fit, possibly under Paul Feyerabend's everything works principle, who says:

It is clear, then, that the idea of a fixed method, or the idea of a fixed theory of rationality, rests on an excessively naive conception of man and his social environment. To those who consider the rich material that history provides, and do not try to impoverish it to satisfy their baser instincts and their desire for intellectual security under the pretext of clarity, precision, "objectivity", "truth", to those people it will seem that there is only one principle that can be defended under any circumstances and at all stages of human development. I mean the principle everything works (Feyerabend, 2017, p. 12).

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Conflict of interests:

The authors declare not to have any interest conflicts.

Authors' contribution:

The authors participated in the design and writing of the article, in the search and analysis of the information contained in the consulted bibliography.

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