Process oriented educational research has failed because it has relied too heavily on scientific method and has neglected "unscientific" but important questions. Educational research should study the society and how social forces influence teaching practices. Teachers can not be expected to change at will. They are constrained by pre-existing ideas of what education is all about which come from political and economic forces in the society. Schools, which appear to be neutral, are in important ways agents of the state, and the selection and training of teachers is similarly related to the state's interests. Yet research, particularly in capitalist countries, has failed to explore or discuss this. A part of these functions may even be viewed as symbolic violence--that is, the squelching of certain values of students in favor of others. The power relations within education allow this domination of certain values to occur. Teaching remains a way of socializing children into the middle class and of obtaining cultural and social conformity. The content and methods of teaching thus have specific reasons for existing as they do which researchers have neglected to study. (Notes and references included). (CD)