As in most European education systems (Hadjar et al., 2022), inequalities in Germany, some of which have worsened in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic (Dietrich, Patzina & Lerche 2020; Wößmann et al., 2021), persist. This is regularly demonstrated by educational research such as in the widely perceived monitoring studies National Report on Education (Nationaler Bildungsbericht; Autor*innengruppe Bildungsberichterstattung, 2022), the IQB-Bildungstrend that describes regular trends in school achievement (Stanat et al., 2023) or the recent PISA study (Lewalter et al., 2023). In the last decades, educational research has been able to gain important knowledge about the emergence and occurrence of educational inequalities (Bachsleitner et al., 2022). The fact that these efforts don’t seem to have contributed much to a significant improvement of the education system shifts the focus on a different aspect that many times has become a condition for research funding: the transfer of knowledge between research and practice as an important instrument or mechanism that may be key to enable overcoming educational barriers and inequalities for disadvantaged social groups. Transfer has therefore internationally gained importance as a practical goal for researchers and policymakers, but also – given that a lot remains to be learnt about the mechanisms and practices of transfer between different actors in the education system – as a subject of research.

Accordingly, this study seeks to contribute to closing the significant research gap on how to actually reduce inequalities in educational processes with regard to empirical research and evidence. Certain issues are connected to that: the way research knowledge enters political processes, the production of expertise on educational inequalities, and the role of research for innovations in the education system. It not only encourages us to ask about the necessary conditions for successful knowledge transfer, but also to enrichen the debate about the relationship between research and practice and to critically examine the self-positioning of the research community in the face of educational crisis.

When aiming to create an overview on what is already known on conditions that favour or diminish the use of evidence and the success of transfer activities, one can learn from a diverse range of research fields (Schrader et al., 2020). Among those, sociology, educational research, and political science are the most relevant ones for the research perspective applied in this study, providing clues on for example decisive factors for an impactful policy advice (Renn, 2017) or barriers to evidence-informed policy (Arnautu & Dagenais, 2021). One particular approach that has appeared useful in thinking about how to empirically examine transfer processes is the conceptual framework by Farley-Ripple et al. (2018) which includes key assumptions and perspectives on the connections between research and practice communities, taking the use of knowledge into account as well as the production of knowledge, and pointing out relevant aspects like the interpretation of research and the frequency of research use. 

Within this context, the empirical focus of this study lies on the utilisation of research knowledge by policymakers, aiming to answer the following specific research question: How is research knowledge being used in parliamentary deliberations on educational policies? The paper discusses this question in the light of the empirical results of an analysis of educational policy documents from two German federal states, giving insights into how policymakers, facing the necessity of responding to social turbulences, deal with evidence to reduce uncertainties in decision-making.

The body of the document analysis is formed by around 400 documents that contain publicly accessible minutes of parliamentary committee meetings from two German federal states: Berlin and Hamburg serve as cases for an analysis of the use of research knowledge in parliamentary deliberations on education. As city states, they share certain structural characteristics regarding their political organisation as well as similar challenges for the education system caused by urban demographics. At the same time, the public image of the quality of their education systems differs: While Hamburg has made significant achievements in school quality, committing to an engaged shift towards evidence-informed educational policy-making (Tränkmann & Diedrich, 2023), the Berlin school system seems to be challenged. This clearly reflects in the results of the study IQB-Bildungstrend (Stanat et al., 2023) which compares the competencies of students between federal states: While Hamburg has developed rather well, the study shows lower ranks for Berlin students. To have a sufficiently extensive sample that frames the time when the coronavirus pandemic dominated educational policies, and additionally covers more than one election period in both cases, the time span under investigation is set from January 2017 until June 2023. In order to organise and structure the totality of documents, text segments were identified which explicitly refer to research knowledge. In a predominantly inductive process guided by the Qualitative Content Analysis (Kuckartz & Rädicker, 2023), using the software MAXQDA a category system was developed to fine-code the identified segments on three levels of analysis: the type of reference (e.g. study, expert commission), the speakers (e.g. members of parliament, or senate representatives) and the respective education policy topic on which research knowledge was mentioned (e.g. pandemic, teacher shortage). Subsequently, by analysing overlaps between codes, this shows certain patterns in the utilisation of research knowledge in parliamentary committee deliberations in two federal states, while contributing to a research problem of international significance.

First empirical findings based on the document analysis describe that the way in which research knowledge is referred to in debates of parliamentary committees on education differs depending on the actor group and education policy topic, and changes over the course of the investigated period. From its numerous mentions in the debates it becomes clear that research knowledge – including evidence such as monitoring and evaluation studies – does play a significant role in the policymaking process of the institutions under investigation. One type of research-based evidence frequently found in the committee debates are studies that are closely linked to the concrete matter of a policy. Stating that the decentralized federal states make their own educational policies, it becomes explicable why only a small part of references to research were found in both Berlin and Hamburg. Apart from that, first interpretations of the material indicate that many of the references to researchers are made to persons that were consulted in the course of the policymaking process. Therefore, in accordance with existing research (Rickinson & Edwards, 2021), relational work seems to have significant influence on whether or not research influences political negotiations. The analysis of a selection of text segments shows a a generally strong orientation towards research, but also critical engagement with research, for example when questioning the validity, methodology or significance for practical action. Thus, the documents are a rich resource for learning how policymakers try to apply and navigate knowledge to face the current educational challenges. This study shows how, to what extent and what kind of research knowledge is being used in policymaking and allows conclusions on success factors and barriers for transfer. What remains to be further investigated is in how far this enables educational policymaking to effectively reduce inequalities.

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