Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice in Education: A Sociological Grounding

Description

Evidence use is now part of the rhetoric of educational research, policy and practice. Grounded in the contention that using evidence can help educationalists develop better solutions to the key issues facing teaching and learning today, Chris Brown seeks to develop a complex, rich and socially situated framework to aid researchers, practitioners and policy-makers to better understand how evidence-informed policy and practice can be successfully conceived and enacted. In Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice in Education, Brown journeys through his past empirical work while also employing the ideas of a number of key social theorists and philosophers, including Baudrillard, Eco, Flybjerg, Kant and Aristotle, in order to give ‘research on evidence use’ a more rigorous conceptual underpinning. Examining and critiquing evidence use both by schools and government and critically engaging with topics as wide ranging as consumption and rationality, Brown concludes by setting out an overarching model of evidence-informed policy and practice. In doing so, he also provides a compelling vision for the future role of researchers both within this model and for the promotion of evidence generally. Cover Half-title Title Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgements Introduction Part I: Policy 1. Research as Consumer Object Baudrillard’s ‘The System of Objects’ Signifying and symbolic values Use and exchange value Research as Baudrillardian object Luxury evidence use The policy agora Ornamental research Functional research Issues with functional research A way forward for functional research 2. Issues and Solutions in Relation to Evidence-Informed Policy-Making Initiatives designed to enhance evidence use by government Current assumptions underpinning evidence-informed policy-making Expertise Expertise in policy development Expertise as learning Moving to expertise in luxury evidence use What kind of engagement? How might such engagement be facilitated and enforced? Beyond luxury research use 3. The Effects of the Hyperreality Types of reproduction Hyperreality and the media The media’s creation of new social reality The media’s creation of meaning The hyperreal’s interpretative critique The hyperreality and policy development The hyperreality and evidence-informed policy-making Media misinterpretation Semiotic guerrilla warfare Employing guerrilla tactics Moving away from policy-making Appendix: Examples of hyperreal critique Part II: Practice 4. Islands of Context The Punjab Tower Hamlets The importance of context Inductive versus deductive knowledge The economics of the long tail What might hinder practitioners becoming evidence producers? And what of teaching schools? The implications for evidence-informed practice 5. Individual Focus, Outstanding and Confident Performances New routes to headship Washington Academy Globe Academy The researcher in residence Effective collection and analysis of assessment data Processes in place to take action on the basis of data Consistently commitment leadership The Tower Hamlets story The presence of ambitious and determined leaders An approach to school improvement based on a thorough understanding of the needs of individual schools A confidence and willingness to pursue the Tower Hamlets way Summary 6. Scenes and Scenic Capital Describing scenes and scenic capital A typology of scenes Influencing scenes Evidence use in type 1 scenes Scenes and the promotion of evidence use Scenic transfer When is a scene truly evidence informed? Future scenes? Part III: Implications 7. What Does This Mean for Rationality? Aristotelian ethics Kantian epistemology and ontology A universal moral code The end of Enlightenment? The end of a universal moral code? Code The impossibility of consuming in line with the moral imperative What next for rationality? Returning to Aristotle Departing from Aristotle The interplay between cultural and practical rationalities Appendix: Constructivism 8. What Does This Mean for Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice? The role for researchers/research in this schema The end result of my analysis to date Conclusion Notes References Index