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Abstract
The relationship between research and policy and practice in education is a long‐standing issue in many countries. Focusing on the UK Government, which is responsible for education in England, this paper looks at the criticisms of education research that have been made in recent years by government and related non‐departmental public bodies and stakeholders. It then looks in more detail at specific examples of the use that has—and has not—been made of research in developing policy. But rather than produce a balance sheet of pluses and minuses in policy makers' use of evidence, the paper emphasises the realities of the policy making process and the difficulties in establishing consistently and exclusively evidence‐based policy. At the same time, it argues that researchers should beware of allowing their work to be shaped entirely by the Government's call for research that is directly useful to policy by always prioritising applied or practice‐based approaches. The paper concludes by highlighting the need for BERA to promote all types of education research—regardless of its utility for policy makers—and, as part of this, for the education research community to ensure that appropriate quality criteria are available for all approaches.
†. Inaugural Presidential address, BERA, University of Glamorgan, September 2005.
Notes
†. Inaugural Presidential address, BERA, University of Glamorgan, September 2005.
4. http://www.nerf‐uk.org/ (NERF was disbanded in March 2006)
6. Appointed Secretary of State for Education and Skills in 2004.
7. For information on the RAE see http://www.hefce.ac.uk/research/assessment/
8. See http://cee.lse.ac.uk/
10. See http://www.nrdc.org.uk/
11. The Assisted Places Scheme was introduced by the Conservative Government under the 1980 Education Act to provide public funding to enable academically able children from poor homes to attend the country's elite academically selective private schools. It was abolished by New Labour in 1997.
12. Reading Recovery is a school‐based intervention designed to reduce literacy problems within an education system. It is an early intervention for children, giving those who have particular difficulties in reading and writing after their first year at primary school a period of intensive, individual help.
15. Though note criticisms of similar provision to enable teachers to undertake research by the then Teacher Training Agency through its Teacher Research Grant pilot scheme—for example, the suggested poor quality of some of the projects undertaken through this scheme (Foster, Citation1999).
16. See http://www.aers.ac.uk/aers/