Research and Policy in Education: Evidence, Ideology and Impact

Overview & Synopsis

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) tells us that 90 per cent of education reforms are not properly evaluated. So it seems that governments have not lived up to their own ideals of evidence-informed policymaking. "Research and Policy in Education" argues that education policy is as often driven by political ideologies as by solid research evidence. It explores this claim with case studies of: (1) the Coalition government's reform of teacher training towards a school-led approach; (2) the use of evidence in international policy borrowing and the rhetoric of "what works"; and (3) the deployment of policies that aim to narrow the social class achievement and participation gap. The book concludes with a plea for more discipline-based research on education, and a reassertion of the importance of the sociology of education as an essential resource for making sense of contemporary education policy.