Hedgehogs and Foxes Among Educational Researchers

Almost 5 decades ago, Isaiah Berlin, in an essay on Leo Tolstoy's view of history, distinguished between writers and thinkers who were hedgehogs and those who were foxes. Hedgehogs cling to a central vision, a single organizing principle that makes sense of what they do, write, and think. Foxes, however, chase many ends, often unconnected, even contradictory, seizing varied experiences, bridging different domains as they live, write, and think. Although there are faintly negative connotations associated with each figurative animal (single minded, lumbering vs. cunning and dilettantish), Berlin avoids pejoratives by calling such luminaries as Plato, Doestoevsky, and Nietzsche hedgehogs, while naming as foxes Aristotle, Shakespeare, Pushkin, and Balzac (Berlin, 1957, p. 8).