Lakatos Revisited

In this paper Imre Lakatos' ideas on "Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes" are revisited and reviewed. It is suggested that Lakatos' framework offers an insightful way of looking at the relationship between theory and research that is relevant not only for evaluating research programs in theoretical physics, but in the social sciences as well. Winch's notion of a social science is used in order to illuminate why and how Lakatos' model should be adjusted. As an example of how Lakatos' framework might be applied to the social sciences, and specifically to education, research on teacher thinking is analyzed using a Lakatosian framework. His ideas of a 'hard core' and 'protective belt' are used to argue that the body of work on teacher thinking can be viewed as a research program, separate from the research program on teacher behavior