A frustration we had to fight: What does research say to teachers? A study about government regulation of educational research

Author(s):

Sofia Viseu(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

23 SES 02 E, Research Policies and the Politics of Research (Part 1)

Paper Session: to be continued in 23 SES 03 E, 23 SES 04 E

Time:

2014-09-02

15:15-16:45

Room:

B338 Sala de Aulas

Chair:

Xavier Rambla

Contribution

This paper focuses on of government regulation of educational research. More precisely, I intend to describe and analyse public authorities’ attempts to influence educational research in order to produce useful knowledge for policy and practitioners. For this, I’ll present an empirical study centred in the action of a governmental agency that operated in Portugal, between 1989 and 2001, as an illustration of the objectives and processes used to regulate educational research. Although the agency is not working any longer, the study remains pertinent and actual.

Pertinent, because the creation of a governmental agency dedicated to orient and influence educational research wasn’t a Portuguese originality. In fact, in the early 1990, Popkewitz and Pereyra revealed the trend that was being followed in several European countries, committed to the implementation of educational reforms during the 1980s, to create "new entities and certification standards and the establishment of research institutions (...) to guide teaching "(Popkewitz & Pereyra, 1992, p. 12).

Actual considering the growing importance of knowledge in public policies, with a rising demand by public authorities for the production of useful knowledge in order to improve public policies (see KnowandPol, 2008). This phenomenon tends to emphasize an instrumental character to educational research (Ozga, 2011). In fact, transnational agencies, as OECD (2003), recommend a use-inspired basic research to solve contemporary educational issues. These trends reinforce a global standardisation on research topics, agendas and methodologies (Amos et al, 2002) and raise the “deployment of new kinds of ‘research’ knowledge” based in a performativity for education research (Ball, 2010, p. 124). Simultaneously, in most of European public policies there is a transition to new regulation modes, or post-bureaucratic, that emphasise the control post action: evaluation and self-evaluation, awards, best practices, among others, became preferential modes of public action orientation (Maroy & Demailly, 2004). In science policy, this transition can be seen by the progressive replacement of the principles of self-regulation that establish the scientific systems, to the increasing introduction of external control mechanisms of scientific activity (Bourdieu, 2001): competitive calls, indirect financial provisions, evaluation based on bibliometric criteria, and publishing in refereed journals have become central in scientific activity (Vincent-Lancrin, 2006).

These phenomena are at the origin of the paper, where our interest is to describe and reflect on government regulation of educational research given a central question: how do public authorities try to orient and control educational research?

Despite the focus on governmental regulation, the study assumes that the way public authorities try to influence scientific production does not reflect social reality (Terssac, 2003). In this sense, the study joins a tradition of research that emphasizes the unpredictability of public action, and seeks to describe, and capture, the complexity of public policy processes (Le Lascoumes & Gales, 2007). Thus, even if the study is focused on the action of a governmental agency, the data revealed other regulation modes that result from the action of social actors, namely researchers and policymakers, who, according to their interests and strategies, (re) set the rules and orientations in their social contexts (Reynaud, 2004).

This work was supported by Foundation of Science and Technology (Grant SFRH/BD/60714/2009)

Method

The methodology of qualitative nature (Bogdan & Bilken, 1994) was designed to describe and analyse the attempts to influence educational research by government authorities. To do so, I’ve chosen a governmental agency named Institute for Educational Innovation (IEI), which operated in the late 1980s and early 2000 under the supervision of the Ministry of Education in Portugal. This agency was chosen because of the explicit inscription on the decree law of its foundation that it such serve for "coordinating educational research" (Decree-Law n. 3/87, January 3). The first stage of the study was dedicated to documentary analysis, collecting three types of documents: (i) legislation that framed the action of IEI; (ii) documents produce by the agency, mainly plans and activity reports, regulations for financial support to research projects and publications and reviews edited by IEI; (iii) studies and grey literature about IEI. In the second stage of the study I conducted four semi-structured interviews (Drever, 1995) to former IEI directors and managers. The interviews were lead to kwon not only the professional trajectory in the IEI but mostly the representations of these top managers about the action of IEI in the attempts to coordinate and influence educational research. Through content analysis, the qualitative data were organized by inductive, emergent and meaningful categories (Cohen & Manion, 1994) that addressed to the regulation modes on educational research: (i) objectives or intention for regulation educational research, including attempts to influence research agendas; (ii) processes for regulation educational research through norms and orientations for the academy, indirect financial provisions through competitive calls, and the production of educational research within the Ministry of Education (iii) the way governmental regulation was received, interpreted and reinvented by social actors, including policymakers themselves and researchers.

Expected Outcomes

Empirical data show two main findings. First, governmental regulation was made based in knowledge-based policy perspective: the creation of a public agency, depending on the central state administration, designed to orientate educational research for the promotion of useful knowledge for the political decision and practitioners. This was carried out by trying to control the scientific agenda, a common characteristic of state regulation (Johanningmeier & Richardson, 2006), and principally through (i) competitive financial support for research projects (ii) the production of research inside the ministry of education, "to create an expert knowledge, of its 'own'”, that could be used for legitimated political decisions that teachers should apply (Barroso & Carvalho, 2011 p. 13). Second, and in parallel, the study pointed out the coexistence of other regulation modes of educational research, proving that the regulation is not done automatically, but through a "process of alignment between different actors, whether regulatory or regulated "(Freeman et al 2012, p. 14). In the "regulated" standpoint, data showed a clear attempt of researchers to maintain autonomy that could enable them to align the criteria of financial support and their research agendas. In the “regulatory” perspective, the attempts to control research agendas turn in to some frustration within the Ministry of Education concerning the effective contribution of research promoted under the auspices of IEI. The variety of strategies and interests of policymakers and researchers produced unanticipated effects of accumulation and the results of IEI action became unpredictable. In a scenario with the growth and reconfiguration modes of regulation of research and controversy associated with them, it seems demonstrated the relevance of policy analysis a perspective of public action to capture their hybrid complex and multirregulated nature (Commaille, 2006).

References

Amos, S. K, Keiner, E., Proske, M. & Radtke, F. (2002). Globalisation: autonomy of education under siege? Shifting Boundaries between Politics, Economy and Education. European Educational Research Journal, Vol. 1, nº. 2, pp. 193- 213. Ball, S. J. (2010). New Voices, New Knowledges and the New Politics of Education Research: the gathering of a perfect storm? European Educational Research Journal, Vol. 9, n.º 2, pp. 124-137. Barroso J. ; Carvalho, L. Apontamentos sobre os «novos modos de regulação» à luz de estudos sobre as relações entre conhecimento e política. Propuesta Educativa, v. 2, n. 36, p. 9 – 24, 2011. Bourdieu, P. (2001). Science de la science et réflexivité. Paris : éd. Raisons d'agir. Cohen, L., & Manion, L. (1994). Research methods in education. New York: Routledge. Commaille, J. Sociologie de l’action publique. In Boussaguet, L. ; Jacquot, S. ; Ravinet, P. (Org.). Dictionnaire des politiques publiques. Paris: Science Po., 2006, p. 415-423. Freeman, R. ; Smith-Merry, J. ; Sturdy, S. Rhizomic regulation: mobilising knowledge for mental health in Europe. In: Barroso, J. ; Carvalho, L. (Org.). Knowledge and Regulatory Processes in Health and Education Policies. Lisbon: EDUCA, 2012. p. 13-50. Johanningmeier, E. ; Richardson, T. (2008). Educational research, the national agenda, and educational reform- a history. Charlotte: Information Age Publishing. KNOWandPOL Project. Available . Acess 21 jan. 2008. Lascoumes, P. ; LE Gales, P. (2007). Sociologie de l’action publique. Paris: Armand Colin, 2007. Maroy, C. ; Demailly, L. (2004). Les régulations intermédiaires des systèmes éducatifs en Europe quelles convergences? Recherches Sociologiques, v. 35, n. 2, p. 5-24. Ozga, J. (2011) Governing Narratives: “local” meanings and globalising education policy. Education Inquiry, Vol. 2, nº. 2, pp. 305–318. Popkewitz, T. ; Pereyra, M. Práticas de Reforma na Formação de Professores em oito países: esboço de uma problemática. In: Nóvoa, A. ; Popkewitz T. (Org.). Reformas Educativas e Formação de Professores. Lisboa: EDUCA, 1992. p. 11-41. Reynaud, J.-D. (2003). Régulation de contrôle, régulation autónome, régulation conjoint. G. Terssac, La théorie de la régulation sociale de Jean-Daniel Reynaud (pp. 103-113). Paris: Éditions Découverte. Terssac, G. (2003). La théorie de la régulation sociale: repères pour un débat. In: Terssac, G. (Org.). La théorie de la régulation sociale de Jean-Daniel Reynaud. Paris: Éditions La Découverte, 2003. p. 11-33. Vincent-Lancrin, S. (2006). What is changing in academic research? Trends and futures scenarios. European Journal of Education, Vol. 41, n.º 2, pp. 169- 202.

Author Information

Sofia Viseu (presenting / submitting)

Instituto de Educação da Universidade de Lisboa

Lisboa

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