Public scholars, legitimation, and the “subject of history” predicament

This essay explores recent trends in contemporary educational studies that have focused on developing closer partnerships between university-based scholars and school practitioners and community-based organizers. With a focus on the antidote, as seen in the 2016 American Educational Research Association’s conference theme to recalibrate university-based education scholars as professional educational researchers in the service of the public, the author exposes how the contemporary trend, although running counter to, cannot be extricated from the Marxian problematic concerning the subject of history.