The overall question is, ‘What kind of ‘philosophy of education’ is relevant to educational policy makers?’. It is addressed by focussing on the following four sub-questions:

0. What meanings are attached to the term philosophy (of education) by philosophers themselves?
0. What meanings are attached to the term philosophy (of education) by policy makers?
0. What difference do place and time make to these meanings?
0. How do these different meanings affect the possibility of philosophy (of education) influencing policy?

The argument proceeds as follows:

(1) Philosophers of education rightly want to influence educational policy makers (Fielding, 2000, McLaughlin, 2000; Bridges, 2003; Bridges, et al, 2009).  But are they doing so? The overall question addressed in the study arose after reflection on failures of communication during the attempt to find policy makers who were knowledgeable about or interested in philosophy (of education). The context for this study is explained in relation to (a) Classic philosophical texts in which philosophers relate their work to education (e.g. Plato, Aristotole, Locke, Rousseau, Dewey); (b) Work from the more recent past by philosophers of education investigating the relevance of philosophy to education; (c) The current policy context, especially in the UK but also more widely, in which there are pressures on all university based philosophers to show the impact of their work on policy (HEFCE, 2009); (d) Evidence about what influence philosophy of education has had on educational policy in the last few decades; (e) Empirical (interview) evidence about what happens in a range of European countries across the UK and in Italy, Malta, Netherlands, Scotland and Ireland.

(2) Ways of understanding ‘philosophy’ vary among philosophers and among policy makers (Blake, et al, 2003; Curren, 2006; Chambliss, 2009). As a result the question posed itself:  When we look for evidence of the influence of ‘philosophy’ in policy making what are we looking for? Answers are found in an investigation of different ways of understanding philosophy and philosophy of education, both among academics and also in ordinary usage. The analysis is put in the context of the well-known differences in approaches of Socrates and Plato (Hogan, 1995). The paper proceeds by reviewing, critiquing and analysing a range of 20 and 21^st century philosophical views about what philosophy is and, where relevant, its relation to education within, for example, analytic, existential, pragmatic, and postmodern philosophies as well as in contemporary philosophy of education (e.g. Dewey, 1916; Arendt, 1958; Deleuze, 1994; Le Doeuff, 1989, 1991).

(3) Only some of these ways of understanding are likely to be directly relevant to the practices of policy makers. The paper summarises social science research evidence about the actual practice of policy makers – rather than about what policy makers think they do (Nutley, et al, 2007). (4) It then becomes possible to identify some ways of understanding which are relevant for the purposes of connecting philosophy of education and policy making. Links are drawn between different ways of understanding philosophy and the possibility of it influencing policy making.

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