This proposal focuses on the study of knowledge mobilisation in educational organizations, within the framework of the new modes of regulation in educational systems and the use of regulatory instruments in public action.

The redistribution of responsibilities at national, regional and local levels changed regulation processes in educational systems. Public action is now characterized by a complex regulation system promoted by different levels and actors, and new kinds of regulation emerge. School networks constitute a form of voluntary regulation of collaborative nature (Justino & Batista, 2014), as it derives from organizations or actors own will. Their joint action guides, conditions or influences the allocation and management of resources and the goals or results of educational action.

According to Pons and Van Zanten (2007), changes in regulation processes are associated with the development of knowledge-based regulatory instruments. It is possible to assume that school networks can constitute new spaces for the creation and dissemination of those instruments.

Our main theoretical question resides then in the role of knowledge for school organizations improvement, in the context of new modes of regulation in educational systems. More specifically, we are concerned about the mobilisation of knowledge-based instruments produced and disseminated within school networks to inform collective action in school organizations, namely to contextualize changes or make decisions (Choo, 2003).

In order to explore these issues, a study is being conducted in a Portuguese school network: ESCXEL Project – School Network for Excellence. This network is based on a partnership between public schools of eight Portuguese municipalities, their local authorities, and CICS.NOVA, an interdisciplinary research centre. The main goal of the project is the continuing endeavour to improve quality and performance of ESCXEL schools.

Two main axes of ESCXEL activities identified in a recent presentation (Batista, Gonçalves & Santos, 2014) are directly related to the issues previously discussed: benchmarking and collaborative learning. The benchmark of schools and municipalities results in national exams is the most consolidated network tool, in the form of indicators and reports. Other reports include monitoring students and classes’ progress within a pilot project on strategies of grouping pupils according to their performance profile in main subjects. As for collaborative learning, ESCXEL network organizes “good practices” seminars and professional training courses, events where teachers can discuss common problems and possible solutions or learn how to use research instruments to build and improve their self-assessment strategies.

Our collaboration in this Project will allow us to explore two sets of research questions. On the one hand, those related to the characterization of knowledge instruments within the school network. How are they produced and disseminated? What is their nature? In what extend do they constitute regulatory instruments? How are they seen by school actors? Do they respond to school actors needs?

On the other hand, questions to assess the use and effects of these instruments in school organizations. As stated by Bennet and Bennet (2007), knowledge mobilisation is a connection between knowledge produced by researches and social value that it can bring to organizations like schools. Knowledge produced and disseminated by researchers is important to stimulate a reflexive approach by teachers upon their educational practices, moreover if the new knowledge produced locally is based in a professional learning community, where it is shared and helps to elaborate collective know-how in order to improve students’ performance (Normand & Derouet, 2011). In this sense, we question: Do schools mobilize knowledge instruments produced by researchers? For what purposes and how do they use them? What are the effects of the mobilisation of knowledge instruments on educational practices and school results? 

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