Session Information
23 SES 05 D, Research Politics and the Knowledge-Policy Relationship (Part 1)
Paper Session. Continued in 23 SES 06 D
Time:
2009-09-29
08:30-10:00
Room:
HG, HS 21
Chair:
Lisbeth Lundahl
Contribution
There is a salient international and national interest in evidence-based education politics and policy. The main drivers in this development have been the increasing volume on knowledge and statistics on education in different parts of the world available for comparison and learning. The ICT-technology has also increased the accessibility to and demand on knowledge and research reviews which can supply with evidence and be applied within the educational field. Knowledge reviews are assumed to improve the educational policy making as well as making better use of available educational knowledge.
In Sweden the historical connections between the two worlds of politics and research have in Dale’s (1986) terms been the social-administrative policy project in the expansion of education (1940-1970). In this project educational research was used to plan, modify and improve the provision of education through what has been called the social engineering model. The policy analysis project (1970- ) is characterised by an outcome-based evaluation and research”…ensuring the effective and efficient delivery of social policies irrespective of their content” (Ozga, 2000, p. 39). This project is based upon certain discursive reform coalitions between politicians, policy analyst and researchers. In the paper I use the distinctions proposed by Dale and analyse the conditions for what Dale’s calls the social science research project due to current education policy changes in Sweden, using knowledge reviews as empirical data.
The following questions are put forward: (i) who are the supranational and Swedish educational policy actors conducting research/knowledge reviews? (ii) What kind of knowledge is constructed in knowledge reviews? (iii) How do knowledge reviews mediate between the worlds of research and politics within the Swedish educational context?
Method
The empirical study was conducted as a screening and analysis of policy relevant knowledge reviews which included supranational knowledge brokers, international and Swedish knowledge transfer actors (organisations who work with mediating knowledge between research and politics and uses knowledge reviews, for example EU, World Bank, OECD and research funders and agencies as The Swedish Science council, The Nation Agency for Education etc.). The found policy relevant knowledge reviews were analysed (n=239) in terms of their growth over time, target groups, content orientation and diffusion/circulation.
Expected Outcomes
The results show that the number of knowledge reviews have increased quite dramatically the last ten year as more broker agencies have been established mainly in the Anglo-Saxon countries. The knowledge reviews have primarily professional teachers as their main target group and are focused on the compulsory and upper secondary school. A significant and increasing part of the research reviews are also directed towards policy makers and the most salient policy areas are “governance and organisation” and teaching and learning (stands together for more than half of the knowledge reviews). The conclusions of the empirical investigation and the results are discussed in terms of what role knowledge reviews as an emergent key link between the world of education research and the world of politics and policy-making play in Sweden.
References
Dale, R. Perspectives on policy-making. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1986. Ozga, J. Policy research in educational settings – contested terrain. Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000.
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