How should research, policy and practice interact in the interests of education?

What Matters in Education series from the ESRC Education Research Programme.

16 October 2023

By Gemma Moss

In the run-up to the next general election, each of the political parties is beginning to set out what they see as the key issues in education and what they would like to change. This is a good moment to review the extent to which party-political priorities reflect concerns widely shared by the general public, the practitioner community and the research community – and the role the research community might have in helping to shape that debate. Just how research, policy and practice can best interact are live questions for the social sciences.

There is now a considerable literature on the interaction between research and policy. It consistently finds that policies seldom “follow the science” as directly as that phrase implies. Many of us would not expect them to. Carol Weiss’ seminal work in this area, as long ago as the 1970s, identified that the most enduring research influence has a gradual cumulative effect “to change the conventions policymakers abide by and to reorder the goals and priorities of the practical policy world.” Weiss called this the ‘enlightenment function’ of research. She distinguished it from the ‘instrumental’ use of research, where research is called on to support a specific policy decision or answer a pre-specified policy problem. Under those conditions “the fundamental goals, priorities, and political constraints of the key decision-making group” go unquestioned.

In the run up to a general election in the UK, the political dimensions to the policymaking process – from ideological leanings to the short political cycle and the fight to stay in office – risk obscuring more fundamental issues that badly need redress, and hindering a more profound rethinking of where policy priorities should lie. Certainly in England, many are arguing that education policy has become too subject to short term political diktat, with too few opportunities for genuine consultation on what the ‘real’ problems in education now are and how else they might be solved.

In response to these dilemmas, the next panel discussion in the ESRC Education Research Programme-IOE ‘What matters in Education?’ series will be asking experts from across research, policy and practice to consider how education policy priorities are currently set. To what extent do party political priorities reflect realities on the ground? How else can research, policy and practice interact in the interests of creating an education system that works for all?

For its part, the ESRC Education Research Programme (ERP) is exploring whether and how making more sustained forms of stakeholder engagement integral to the research process can help throw new light on issues that have been of concern in education for some while. The nine projects at the heart of the programme are working in partnership with a range of different stakeholders on two policy-relevant themes: teacher recruitment, retention and development and the uses of digital technologies in education. By engaging with partners from policy, practice, community and edtech domains over the length of the research, they are creating more space for research to take into account what things look like on the ground. This helps ensure that any findings will not just be ‘policy relevant’, but build from practitioner needs and reflect the realities of their working contexts.

Stakeholder engagement involves embedding different kinds of relationships between research and those who might benefit from any findings. An OECD review of the literatures on evidence-based practice, knowledge mobilisation and co-production has highlighted how and why education systems are increasingly turning away from linear models of research dissemination towards more considered forms of research partnership. This has been echoed by the literature reviews conducted for the ERP. But whether such partnerships are facilitated or constrained by different system factors remains unclear. By mapping key features of the policy landscape in the four regions of the UK, the ERP is exploring some of the dilemmas that different aspects of each system creates for partnership working.

The question for the ERP is whether more democratic forms of stakeholder engagement can build a consensus that provides stability for education policy over the medium to longer term, and also whether this is a sure route to realising fairer and more equal outcomes that work in everyone’s interests.

The next ESRC Education Research Programme-IOE ‘What matters in Education?’ panel discussion – Practical policies or bright ideas? How particular topics get to the front of the policy queue – takes place online, Thursday 19 October 2023, 1730-1900. Your questions will help shape the debate. To take part, register here.