Evidence–Based Education Policy: What Evidence? What Basis? Whose Policy?

The movement towards ‘evidence based’ policy and practice has raised, again, important questions about the extent to which policy can be derived from research and about the kind of evidence which should inform policy. Evidence–Based Education Policy begins with a critique of the narrower conceptions of the evidence which might inform policy, espoused by the ‘what works’ movement among others, and then examines some of the logical and other kinds of gaps between what can be shown by research and the wider political requirements of policy. The book then examines the claims of some different educational research traditions to inform policy: large population studies as well as individual case studies; personal narratives; action research; philosophy; and imaginative, even romantic, literature. It calls for a more subtle understanding of the ways in which different forms of enquiry may inform policy and practice, and for the recognition and utilisation of the insights offered by the rich variety of educational research traditions available to us.

Spis treści:
Notes on ContributorsPreface (Lesley Saunders).
1. Educational Research and the Practical Judgement of Policy–Makers (David Bridges, Paul Smeyers and Richard Smith).
2. The Importance of Being Thorough: On Systematic Accumulations of ‘What Works’ in Education Research (Alis Oancea and Richard Pring).
3. Educational Research and Policy: Epistemological Considerations (David Bridges and Michael Watts).
4. On the Epistemological Basis of Large–Scale Population Studies and their Educational Use (Paul Smeyers).
5. Epistemology as Ethics in Research and Policy: The Use of Case Studies (John Elliott and Dominik Lukeš).
6. Personal Narratives and Policy: Never the Twain? (Morwenna Griffiths and Gale Macleod)
7. Action Research and Policy (Lorraine Foreman–Peck and Jane Murray).
8. Philosophy as a Bas is for Policy and Practice: What Confidence Can We Have in Philosophical Analysis and Argument? (James C. Conroy, Robert A. Davis and Penny Enslin).
9. Proteus Rising: Re–Imagining Educational Research (Richard Smith).
Index.

Nota biograficzna:
David Bridges is Professor Emeritus at the University of East Anglia and Emeritus Fellow at St Edmund’s College, Cambridge.
Paul Smeyers is Professor in the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Leuven, Belgium.
Richard Smith is Professor of Education at Durham University.

Okładka tylna:
The movement towards ‘evidence based’ policy and practice has raised, again, important questions about the extent to which policy can be derived from research and about the kind of evidence which should inform policy. Evidence–Based Education Policy begins with a critique of the narrower conceptions of the evidence which might inform policy, espoused by the ‘what works’ movement among others, and then examines some of the logical and other kinds of gaps between what can be shown by research and the wider political requirements of policy. The book then examines the claims of some different educational research traditions to inform policy: large population studies as well as individual case studies; personal narratives; action research; philosophy; and imaginative, even romantic, literature. It calls for a more subtle understanding of the ways in which different forms of enquiry may inform policy and practice, and for the recognition and utilisation of the insights offered by the rich variety of educational research traditions available to us.