Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice in Education: A Sociological Grounding 9781472593436, 9781472579751, 9781472579775

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Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice in Education

Also available from Bloomsbury Education, Policy and Social Justice, James Avis Education Policy, Practice and the Professional, Jane Bates Education Policy Unravelled, Dean Garratt The State and Education Policy, edited by Helen Gunter Theory Building in Educational Research, Nigel Kettley

Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice in Education A Sociological Grounding Chris Brown

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc LON DON • OX F O R D • N E W YO R K • N E W D E L H I • SY DN EY

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

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www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2015 Paperback edition first published 2016 © Chris Brown, 2015 Chris Brown has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-1-4725-7975-1 PB: 978-1-4742-9335-8 ePub: 978-1-4725-7978-2 ePDF: 978-1-4725-7977-5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brown, Chris, 1975Evidence-informed policy and practice in education : a sociological grounding / Chris Brown. pages cm Summary: “Reconciles policy and practice within an overarching theoretical framework to explain what happens when evidence from research is translated into policy and practice”– Provided by publisher. ISBN 978-1-4725-7975-1 (hardback) 1. Education–Research–Methodology. 2. Education–Research–Social aspects. 3. Education and state. 4. Educational sociology. I. Title. LB1028.B759 2015 370.72–dc23 2014031958 Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printed and bound in Great Britain

Dedicated to the memory of Anna Maria Brown. Loved, remembered and missed.

Contents

Acknowledgements Introduction Part I 1 2 3

Research as Consumer Object Issues and Solutions in Relation to Evidence-Informed Policy-Making The Effects of the Hyperreality

Part II 4 5 6

Policy

Practice

Islands of Context Individual Focus, Outstanding and Confident Performances Scenes and Scenic Capital

Part III

Implications

viii 1 13 15 33 51 71 73 91 109 131

7 What Does This Mean for Rationality? 8 What Does This Mean for Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice? Conclusion

133

Notes References Index

162

153 161

169 182

Acknowledgements A big thank you to the heads and principals of the schools I engaged with as part of my work with the Teach East Teaching School Alliance and the New Routes to Headship project. The data I collected as part of these projects, which are set out in Chapter 5, were instrumental to much of my thinking and to a number of the conceptual developments I was able to make within this book. Thanks also to Professors Chris Husbands and David Woods for enabling me to collaborate on a vital project examining the practices and performances of Tower Hamlets (also see Chapter 5), from which I was able to conceive of the notion of the ‘scene’ (Chapter 6). Finally, gratitude also goes to Professor Louise Stoll for her continued support and energy and to Dr. Sue Rogers for both suggesting the book be written and making time for comments, editing and suggestions for improvement, despite having her own book to write (now get on and finish it!).

Introduction

The notion of using evidence to aid policy or practice is not without controversy or debate. Much has been written, for example, regarding – the epistemological differences between academic researchers and policymakers in terms of what counts as evidence, the quality of evidence and what evidence can or can’t tell us (e.g. Hargreaves, 1996; Hillage et al., 1998; Tooley and Darby, 1998; Nutley et al., 2007); – whether the evidence-informed movement serves to work against practitioners’ professional judgement (e.g. MacLure, 2005; Biesta, 2007); – issues in relation to how formal academic knowledge and professional or tacit knowledge might be effectively combined (e.g. Stoll, 2008; Brown, 2013); – differentials in power that can affect or limit interactions between teachers or policy-makers and research/ers (e.g. Hargreaves, 1996; Davies, 2006; Brown, 2013); – controversies in relation to some of the methods commonly associated with enhancing evidence use (e.g. systematic reviews or randomized control trials: MacLure, 2005); – how capacity to engage with academic research might be enhanced (e.g. Nutley et al., 2007; Cooper et al., 2009); – issues such as the inaccessibility of research to teachers and policy-makers, both in terms of where it is published and the language that is typically used in such publications (e.g. Hargreaves, 1996; Hillage et al., 1998; Tooley and Darby, 1998). Notwithstanding these issues (through which I journey and chart my own personal perspectives in Brown, 2011 and 2013), this book is grounded in the idea that engaging with evidence is socially beneficial: that using evidence can

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Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice in Education

develop our understanding of the world via an exposure to ideas and concepts we might not ordinarily come across. In turn, this exposure potentially enhances the repertoire of ‘understanding’ upon which we can draw as we develop solutions to the issues facing policy and practice. Nonetheless, facilitating the meaningful or sustained use of evidence is no simple matter: assuming that we believe it is beneficial to do so, evidence use is not something that can be effectively introduced into policy development or teaching simply by researchers providing a catalogue of ‘tips and tricks’ (what might comprise the meaningful or effective use of evidence is tackled in various chapters throughout). On the contrary, policy-making and teaching practice are socially situated activities; correspondingly, I argue that, if we are to ensure they are to be ‘evidence-informed’, we are required to engage with the complexity of the social world and to take this complexity into account. Such engagement might be undertaken in a number of different ways: for example, via the application of pertinent social and philosophical theory, used elsewhere to explain people’s general actions and behaviours, to how and why people might also use evidence. Yet this is a position that is still to be widely adopted: using my example above, for instance, both research activity into research use and the models designed to explain knowledge ‘mobilization’, ‘exchange’, ‘transfer’ or ‘adoption’ tend not to be explicitly situated within such theory (Cooper et al., 2009; Brown, 2013). As a result, our present understanding concerning ‘knowledge adoption’ (my preferred term for the take-up of evidence – defined below) and the activities we might undertake on the back of this understanding are underdeveloped (e.g. see Wingens, 1990; Landry et al., 2003; Mitton et al., 2007). This situation is compounded by the specific complexities of the policymaking process and the nature of professional practice, the environments in which knowledge adoption is to be realized in order to achieve a state of being evidence informed. Policy-making, for example, often represents a tension between optimal decision-making and short-lived, ever-changing ideologies or perspectives, with decisions on the education system being made under public scrutiny. Acts of teaching, meanwhile, are shaped by the cultures and leadership of schools, the pressures of performativity and the day-to-day individual and often private decision-making of teachers, informed by their professional knowledge, values, beliefs and experiences. In the face of this

Introduction

3

complexity, it is not surprising that, despite the many initiatives undertaken to promote evidence use by government and in schools, the routine use of evidence by policy-makers and teachers still seems a long way off (the ‘failure’ of such initiatives will be discussed in detail in later chapters). As a result, it is difficult not to conclude that, if we cannot effectively account for why people might engage with evidence both within government and across schools, we will also not be able to plan for or devise ways in which instances of evidence use might be increased. It is my core argument in this book, therefore, that any discipline, if it is to be effective in its ability to explain and to provide solutions to practical problems, needs to be informed by a conception of how the social world operates in order to frame how we might investigate it. With this in mind, my aim has been to develop a complex, rich and socially situated schema which might help us to understand better how evidence-informed policy and practice operate, and to do this by – Employing the work of a number of key social theorists and philosophers in an attempt to give ‘research on research use’ a more rigorous conceptual underpinning and to link it more fully with how other disciplines view the nature and operation of the social world. Further conceptual development has also been undertaken in a number of areas where either theory is currently lacking or it does not adequately marry with my firsthand observations and analysis. This additional development includes an analysis of context and the ‘long tail’ value of practitioners concentrating on localized understandings (Chapter 4); an exploration of the benefits of organizations and communities concentrating on and acting at the level of the individual (Chapter 5); and the development of the notion of the ‘scene’ – a place or set of distinctive activities that provide alternatives to current cultural norms (Chapter 6). – Bringing both theory and conceptual development to life with data gathered from a number of empirical projects that I was involved with, or responsible for, between 2011 and 2014 (all of which involve an element of evidence-informed policy or practice). These projects, in geographical terms, stretch from Pakistani Punjab to the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. They also vary in terms of the nature and scope and in terms of

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Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice in Education

the methods employed, as such a more detailed description of the nature of each may be found in the relevant chapter in which they are used. – Expanding my previous work on evidence use in education policy in order to also examine evidence-informed practice and to provide an explicit link between the operation or domains of policy and practice and how these intertwine and affect each other. The target of my analysis has been a number of key issues that I believe need to be addressed in terms of evidence use as it currently stands: 1. Research is generally treated by its users as a commodity, correspondingly, that we need to better understand the implications of this for the ways in which research is used. 2. We are yet to see the application of solutions that enable policy-makers or practitioners to learn from evidence so that it enhances their overall expertise. As a result, evidence is all too often treated as an aside to the day-to-day actions of policy and practice. 3. One vital reality of evidence use is that policy-makers often need to reach for findings that support a predetermined course of action rather than to improve optimal decision-making – what drives this and how can this approach be challenged? 4. ‘Universal’ solutions (i.e. those frequently proposed by government) cannot be implemented across the piece with fidelity; instead, they need to be tailored to suit the needs of the context in question. Conversely, knowledge of individual pupils, teachers or schools combined with solutions that can be applied at this level seem more likely than one-sizefits-all solutions to lead to outstanding outcomes. How can this tension be reconciled? 5. If evidence use is rational why isn’t everybody doing it? Rationality thus needs to be considered in terms of how what we want to do and what we know we should do marry together. As such, how do we ensure that ‘what we know we should do’ includes evidence use as a publically expected norm? Correspondingly, I have, in relation to my first stated aim (above), focused on those theorists whose works are, I believe, seminal to these issues. In

Introduction

5

particular, I engage in detail with: (1) Jean Baudrillard’s (1968) The System of Objects (Chapter 1); (2) Bent Flyvbjerg’s notion of phronetic expertise (Chapter 2); (3) Umberto Eco’s and Jean Baudrillard’s twin conceptions of hyperreality (Chapter 3); and (4) Aristotelian and Kantian notions of rationality and reasoned behaviour (Chapter 7). This does not mean, however, that I have employed their work uncritically, nor that I view all of these theorists as necessarily compatible with one another. For example, it is my argument that Kant’s perspective, while seemingly forming the mainstay of much of our understanding of rational behaviour, is untenable in the modern world. Similarly, aspects of Baudrillard’s work need to be reversioned (e.g. see Chapter 1) and, in the case of the hyperreality, combined with Eco’s analysis of the hyperreal in order to truly account for the operation of the modern media. Perhaps then it makes sense to outline in this introduction my own personal epistemological and ontological perspectives, which are likely to account for how I have presented and used these theories. Specifically, I would argue that I am a social constructivist who believes that social world and the self, and correspondingly, knowledge of the social world and self, are developed through interaction and interpretation. From a constructivist perspective, how individuals make sense of the world is a function of their starting position, is influenced by the existence of dominant discursive positions and is also a product of the experiences and phenomenon people encounter along the way. Taken to its logical extreme, the ‘constructivist’ position implies that there cannot be a single knowable and independent social reality, no world to which we can hold up a mirror and establish concrete opinions or beliefs, universal behaviours or definite links between cause and effect. Instead, there must exist multiple realities, each comprised of the individual (or, where appropriate, aggregated) perspectives of those who inhabit the social world. Here then, both research and theory operate by describing a world that looks broadly identifiable by being based on commonalities and norms that exist within and across social groups. As a result of my constructivist perspective, I tend to afford primacy both to the notion of individual agency and also to the pivotal role of the individual: for example, I argue that the policy-development process is very much determined by the interplay and struggle between individual policyactors and that focusing on the individual is an effective way of improving

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outcomes for pupils, teachers or schools. Likewise, policy ‘solutions’ have to be harmonious with a context or setting; they cannot simply be handed down from above and implemented exactly as envisaged by central government. This is not to deny, however, that individuals or actions related to them will be unaffected by group, institutional or societal structures; indeed, these will, through their influence on the perspectives developed by individuals, have key roles in determining and reinforcing societal norms, beliefs and behaviours. These perspectives combined mean, therefore, that I am more likely to be sympathetic to views that reject the idea of objective ‘universal’ concepts and instead argue that many notions grounded or positioned in this way (e.g. those of truth and reason) should in fact be viewed as contextually situated. Correspondingly, ideas such as power should be seen simply as the ability for individuals and groups to promote their version of truth or reason over others. This in turn has implications for the social semiology: the interpretation or signification people take from signs (i.e. words, pictures or other social referents such as branding), which will be affected by such power. In a similar vein, it also suggests that other concepts, for example, ‘expertise’, do not always or solely have real underpinnings but can also often relate to how well people perform in a given context or social situation and in relation to other individuals. Likewise, when I have developed theories to explain issues (as I have in a number of chapters), I have foregrounded those that look to cause disjuncture with the norm, that is, that lead to change by challenging popularly held discourse or perspectives.

What I hope readers will take from this book As you will no doubt have gathered, the work presented in this book is in some places unashamedly theoretical, while in other respects it provides an analysis of the issues raised based on the empirical. In all cases, however, it is intended that it make a difference to the issues I highlight. For example, in Chapter 1, I use and adapt Baudrillard’s analysis of the consumer object to show how evidence use can mean different things to different groups of people. Doing so enables me to illustrate how the commonly recognized ‘ideal’ of evidence use, as relates to policy-making, may not be appropriate for conceiving evidence

Introduction

7

use in schools and also is fundamentally different from what often occurs in the ‘reality’ of policy-making (which instead involves a type of evidence use I view as being ‘ornamental’ in nature). Since this is the case, the fundamental questions that stem from this chapter are: (1) how can we best facilitate the ‘ideal’ of evidence-informed policy-making – where evidence is actively used alongside practical understanding to ensure policies are equitable and efficient and provide value for money; (2) how can we reduce more ornamental evidence use (i.e. where evidence is used to embellish a given position rather than to inform); and (3) how can we encourage the production of more contextually specific understanding that has more salience with and value to schools? Chapters 2 and 3 focus on the first two of these questions. First, in Chapter 2, I examine the factors that have traditionally hindered the ideal of evidenceinformed policy-making. I then set forward how engagement with the notion of expertise and the development of policy-learning communities could facilitate the continuous and reflective engagement that is required for policy-makers to become expert evidence-users and for evidence to be used holistically and intuitively as part of policy-makers’ overall level of expert decisionmaking. Chapter 3, meanwhile, engages with the hyperreality; specifically, my argument is that, as a result of hyperreal constructions of reality, the actions of government are undertaken in a constant dialogue with the media. The consequence of this government/media interaction is to warp policy-makers’ use of evidence away from optimality and towards a discursive weapon that can be used to bat away criticism. I also suggest, however, that the hyperreality represents as much an opportunity as a threat: specifically, if researchers and social scientists can work out how to engage effectively with the hyperreal, the hyperreality could be employed as an effective challenge function. In other words, provide researchers with a way to bring policies and policy-makers to account where they have not engaged with evidence effectively or have ignored tranches of evidence that could lead to more effective decision-making. My suggestion in terms of the nature of such engagement is based on Eco’s (1967) notion of semiotic guerrilla warfare. While Chapters 1–3 are richer in theory, it is Chapters 4 and 5 that, perhaps, have more direct application. In them I examine the third question I pose above (‘how can we encourage the production of more contextually specific understanding that has more salience with and value to schools?’) and I begin

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Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice in Education

with the notions of context and recontextualization. In other words, I discuss the problems faced by schools when presented with ‘top down’ or generalized evidence that must be employed within the specifics of an individual setting. Using the notion of ‘long tail’ economics as a way of understanding consumption, I subsequently show how the value of research use does not have to simply accrue from lots of individual schools adopting the same ‘top down’ solution; it can also be garnered as an aggregation of individual schools using evidence (combined with localized understanding) to develop individual solutions that have more relevance to them. This message is further explored in Chapter 5, where I look at how schools and others have developed a rich understanding of the needs of individuals within their settings and have acted upon such needs in order to achieve outstanding performance. In theory, it should be a relatively straightforward task for schools to embrace this type of working so that the school system as a whole benefits from it; it will, however, also require approaches that both embrace and support staff to do so. Chapter 6 examines the notion of ‘scenes’: places or sets of activities that encapsulate distinctive characteristics and so provide alternatives to the norm. Scenes relate both to policy and practice activities, but in the chapter I focus on the latter: using the concept to provide a more grounded assessment of how England’s self-improving school system might actually self-improve. Specifically, continuing with the analysis in Chapters 4 and 5, I consider how it is only specific leadership activities and ethos in a small number of schools that currently provide the types of environments in which evidence-informed practice might flourish (known as ‘type 1’ scenes). In the absence of any mandate requiring them to do so, I then consider how other schools might develop in this way. I use my work here to contrast my perspective against more commonly held views regarding the power of (school to school) networking and the likely effects of collaborative ‘self-support’ in enabling schools to learn from and embed effective practice. In particular, it is my argument that, while valuable, this type of collaboration is unlikely to automatically lead to evidence use forming part of the normative culture of schools. As a result, it seems likely that a ‘self-improving’ culture shift across England’s 21,000 schools will take time – perhaps years – since it will require a bottom–up approach: for the small number of head teachers already working in this way to inspire other head teachers or for head teachers (or others in schools that have embraced

Introduction

9

these approaches) to actively move and lead other settings in order for the next phase of scenes to develop. In Chapter 7, I posit the idea of ‘optimal’ rationality, a concept which stems from a critical engagement with Aristotelian and Kantian notions of rationality. Specifically, optimal rationality recognizes that people often act with a short-term and/or self-serving focus, but if individuals or groups behave in ways congruent with actions that will also benefit either society or themselves in the long term, more effective outcomes will occur. I also argue, however, that what might be considered appropriate or beneficial for society or for the individual in the long term (a notion I term ‘cultural’ rationality) will also be contextually situated and so can shift over time. As a result, I use Chapter 8 not only to set out an overarching model of evidence-informed policy and practice but also incorporate alongside this model my revised conception of rationality. In doing so, I also provide an indication of the role of researchers/research within this schema and for the promulgation of evidence-informed policy and practice more generally. Specifically, I suggest that our role must be to influence cultural rationalities - to conceive of and then champion what we believe to be optimal. For instance, seeking to ensure that the scope of the research that governments engage with is maximized, while lending our support to those who lobby government and who embrace the practice of using research. Researchers must also help ‘type 1’ scenes develop cultures that ensure they can fully understand and so support each individual in them. Crucially, we must work to banish research as something that exists merely as ornament while, at the same time, develop user capacity when it comes to research use. I hope the work presented here proves to be not only engaging and insightful but also useful. I also acknowledge that there is likely to be a tranche of pertinent theories still to be engaged with, as well as bottom–up, more ‘grounded’ theory still to be conceived. I would welcome thoughts on how the initial analysis presented might be further developed, and if you do have ideas, I would be happy to discuss them, with a view to either work in partnership or simply provide my take on the matter. Similarly, my analysis and conclusions in the book relate directly to the sphere of educational research and to educational policy-making and practice. It may be possible, however, to further generalize and to argue that my findings might also have implications for other sectors

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in England and Wales (such as health, justice, social care, etc.) or even for other jurisdictions. Given the lack of data to support any such generalizations, I argue that this may only feasibly be undertaken by those familiar with such systems, who have read this work and who, through vicarious experience, can relate these findings to their own areas of interest (Stake, 1995).

Appendix: Definitions Evidence knowledge and research In my first foray into examining evidence use (Making Evidence Matter: Brown, 2013), my definition of evidence was necessarily a narrow one, relating as it did simply to policy formation. As my analysis has expanded to include practice as well as policy, it has become vital to expand this definition in order to include those types of activities undertaken in schools. For the purpose of my new analysis then, my definition of evidence is as follows: (1) use of formal research produced by researchers; (2) practitioner enquiry such as action research; and (3) the interpretation of routinely collected data. More specifically, I take the notions of formal research and practitioner enquiry (1 and 2) to comprise the collection of data that have been gathered via a process of research, that have been interpreted and that subsequently have or could be used to address a particular issue facing policy-makers or practitioners. Routinely collected data (3) would include those data already captured by systems within schools, such as pupil assessment data. As with my previous work, in this book I use the terms ‘knowledge’, ‘research’ and ‘evidence’ interchangeably throughout and treat them as synonyms. A detailed explanation of my reasoning here can be found in Brown (2013).

Knowledge adoption The means through which policy-makers and practitioners encounter and engage with evidence has also been conceptualized in a variety of ways: for example, via the notion of ‘knowledge exchange’, defined by the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation as ‘a collaborative problem-solving between

Introduction

11

researchers [users]’, or Cooper and Levin’s (2010) concept of ‘knowledge mobilization’, described as a process of strengthening the connections that exist between research, policy and practice. I use the phrase ‘knowledge adoption’ to depict the process, in all its complexity, of users digesting, accepting and then ‘taking on board’ research findings and noting their relevance, benefits or future potential (Brown, 2011). As a notion, ‘adoption’ is regarded as being ‘flexible’ in nature: it can account for scenarios in which users take on board evidence but do not necessarily (or initially) act upon it. Here adoption results in knowledge being added to user’s tacit knowledge base and so ‘stored’ for later use. In this situation, adoption may be considered synonymous with ‘conceptual’ uses of research (i.e. adoption will increase users’ overall level of understanding on a given topic). But adoption also accounts for what happens before any ‘instrumental’ use of research occurs, or even before research is used to justify an existing decision (the ‘symbolic’ use of research: Weiss, 1979). This is because knowledge must be digested, accepted and then taken on board before it can be used either in the formation of a course of action or to justify a given action or stance post-hoc. As such, I argue that adoption should be viewed as independent from the policy or practice, but as integral to them being evidence informed.

Part One

Policy

1

Research as Consumer Object

I use this chapter to introduce the idea that, as with many things in our Western consumer culture, research use may be conceived as an act of consumption. The idea that research should be regarded as a consumer object, much like a coffee maker or television, can be derived from a combination of trends affecting both the production and adoption of knowledge and, more generally, phenomenon associated with post-modern existence.1 A nascent trend in evidence use, for example, is the requirement by educational policy-makers for ‘policy ready’ evidence: policy-makers seek more than simply the presentation of findings; they also require advice and recommendations on how findings might be implemented and the implications for doing so (Brown, 2013). I have previously argued that the desire for ‘policy ready’ outputs stems from policy-makers regarding themselves as consumers of research, whether this research has been commissioned by government or not. As a consequence, policy-makers regard themselves free to select or omit evidence as with any other consumer product, that is, based on its benefits and features, with policy readiness considered one such feature. Feature-dependent consumption by policy-makers has been made easier by the increase in, and the actions of, new knowledge suppliers looking to influence policy – for instance, the growing plethora of think tanks and their corresponding ability to quickly and easily publish and market their work, thus speedily bringing it to the attention of policy-makers (e.g. see Ball et al., 2012). Simultaneously, we have seen accompanied trends such as the more general production of ‘Mode 2’ knowledge: a notion which represents a shift from use being made of knowledge once it has been produced (‘Mode 1’ knowledge) to one where knowledge is actually generated in a context of application (Gibbons et al., 1994; Nowotny et al., 2003). I argue that combined, these trends and their

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associated activities and behaviours have served to ‘marketize’ the research process (Brown, 2013), a concept perhaps best viewed as the introduction of private sector discourse and practice into traditionally ‘public sector’ domains (Fairclough, 1995). Specifically, the marketization of research is an activity that serves to introduce competition among evidence producers, with those organizations able to deliver the ‘ideal’ of ‘policy-ready’ findings, patronized and privileged over others. In addition to these specific trends, Trowler (2003) argues that in the postmodern age there is, more generally, a free flow of information on a global scale … Many contrasting sources of information are available to individuals and they are able to pick and choose from them. In this way they are empowered to create their own identity … and to construct the social world in which they live by choosing from the myriad of possibilities available to them. Consumption, in this very wide sense, is an important feature of postmodernity.

In other words, in more recent times, consumerism and consumeristic behaviour have been facilitated and accentuated through the proliferation of new media, which has provided new possibilities for the distribution of research and evidence and the communication of related ideas and ideologies (Hollis, 2008). At the same time, globalization has resulted in the international integration/interchange of products and cultural artefacts and identities (Martell, 2010): not only are people exposed to more ‘information’, but the adoption of new and previously ‘foreign’ ideas is fast becoming the norm.

Baudrillard’s ‘The System of Objects’ As a social phenomenon, consumerism can be thought of as being formally identified by Thorstein Veblen (1899) in his text The Theory of the Leisure Class. While Veblen’s analysis was groundbreaking, in that it identified consumption as an activity that served needs well beyond that of subsistence, it did not, however, identify how the ‘leisure class’ might engage with what they buy. At the same time, it is clear that once goods are purchased or acquired for reasons other than that they enable one to survive, they can be employed in numerous ways: as a consequence, items such as research can come to serve a wealth

Research as Consumer Object

17

of purposes. To understand what these might be, we need to establish the ‘relationships’ that exist between the consumer and that which is consumed – in other words, how people relate to what they buy. Such a theory can be located in Jean Baudrillard’s (1968) The System of Objects: here Baudrillard concerns himself with both consumer behaviour and the ‘objects’ which are consumed within capitalist society – in other words, how objects are ‘experienced’ and what needs they serve in addition to those that are purely functional. To examine the interplay between the purchaser and what is purchased, Baudrillard (1968) employed semiotics2 – an analytical approach concerned with the meanings (signs) that are associated, by potential interpreters, with words, images, objects and so on. Doing so enabled him to contend that all consumer goods in fact possess four values: (1) their ‘use’ value, which corresponds to the utility that can be derived from the good; (2) their exchange value, which represents the price goods can command; (3) their value as a ‘sign’, in other words, how the object facilitates differentiation (e.g. a particular brand of coffee-making machine may, while having no added functional benefit, signify ‘prestige’ relative to another); and (4) their symbolic value – the meaning of the object to the consumers themselves (e.g. the coffee maker as a birthday present may come to symbolizes a token from a loved one). As a result, Baudrillard concludes that objects in a consumer society are not just consumed; they are both produced and employed to make statements. Similarly, it cannot solely be ‘needs’ that dictate consumer behaviour but also ‘lifestyle’ and ‘values’. I now explore and critique these four values in more detail, before illustrating how they might be applied to the ‘research object’ and the implications of doing so.

Signifying and symbolic values According to Baudrillard, in order for an object to become consumed, it must first of all become a sign. In other words, an object must represent something to potential interpreters, both to oneself and to others (Eco, 1979). Since meaning corresponds to the interrelationship of signs and the notion of difference that stems from examining signs in context (i.e. in relation to other signs), Baudrillard argues that ‘[c]onsumption is the virtual totality of

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Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice in Education

all objects and messages ready-constituted as a more or less coherent discourse. If it has any meaning at all, consumption means an activity consisting of the systematic manipulation of signs’ (1968: 218: emphasis in original). In other words, to a greater or lesser degree, all social acts involve the active creation of meaning and the act of consumption provides a way of both creating meaning of and for the self and also transmitting this meaning to others. At the same time, our role as consumers also means we are able to interpret the meaning that is transmitted by others. Baudrillard’s analysis assumes, however, that we are able to explicitly differentiate between an object’s sign and symbolic values (i.e. what an object means to me and how I am using it to create a difference between myself and others), and I suggest that while this is possible when considering specific objects in isolation, it becomes problematic when it comes to analyzing the actual act of consumption. For example, I may well seek to purchase a coffee maker to symbolise (to myself) my successfully passing an exam (thus consuming an object for the symbolic value it can afford me – i.e. the marking of an event), but this decision cannot be separated from other desires, for instance, (1) the desire to demonstrate the importance or magnitude of the event and the status I attach to it in relation to other events that I have experienced; (2) the desire to signify to others my enhanced status in light of passing the exam and in anticipation of receiving a doctorate; or (3) the general signification about lifestyle/values/status that I wish to convey and that represents a desire inherent within any purchase I make. In other words, I cannot simply purchase a coffee maker for symbolic value alone; I must purchase it with a view to also signifying something. The converse is also true, since all acts of consumption, while perhaps signifying a message about status or prestige, will also contain an element of the symbolic about them. For example, that must have album might also encapsulate to me my summer in Devon; I may be prone to buying expensive Paul Smith shirts in order to make a statement, but will, more than likely, only wear them on special occasions (and so associate the experience of these occasions with the shirt in question). Simultaneously, the branding of goods and the billions spent worldwide on promoting brand identities and establishing brand values (Hollis, 2008) now means that the act of branding can often serve as an effective and convenient shorthand (a ‘universal’ language) in relation to fulfilling those desires set out

Research as Consumer Object

19

in (1)–(3), above: typically this will work within a given context for most highstreet consumable goods (with information flows regarding ‘reputation’ or label providing a similar role for goods such as fine art or vintage).3 For instance, as passing my viva was, to me at least, quite a big deal, and wanting to mark the occasion to showcase my impending new title of Doctor, I felt I was entitled to splash out. In keeping with the other values I like to perceive myself to be aligned to, I chose to buy a Nespresso Coffee Maker. To me such a purchase thus signified both the sophistication and the high status that I felt should accompany the possession of a doctorate (in addition to acting as an indicator of the taste and eye for design I believed I had already possessed). There were other coffee machines available, but a Nespresso, to my mind, provided me with both status and a symbol of what had happened. This suggests that consumption aimed at obtaining symbolic value and consumers’ association with branding/brand values/reputation are now intertwined. That is, the meaning of consumption is established via an individual’s take on the brand attributes of the object in question: a Bialetti stove-top espresso maker would not serve as an appropriate marker of my viva, but a Nespresso one would. Both, however, were affordable and both make coffee. To mark this occasion, I wanted ‘indulgent’ not ‘utilitarian’, and as noted on the Nespresso website, ‘the Nespresso brand stands for exceptional quality, refined service and genuine pleasure. It has become a symbol of elegance’4 (brand attributes on the Bialetti website, meanwhile, include ‘technological simplicity’, ‘classic design’ and ‘enduring quality’ – i.e. attributes which flag that their stove-top espresso maker is something both original and functional).5 In other words, I argue that consumers purchase brands because brands help create/determine how, or the nature in which, we wish to symbolize something: that is, brands create meaning for consumers. In my case, the purchase of a particular brand was intertwined with the way in which I wanted to mark an event. At the same time, however, brand values and sign value must also now be, in effect, merged, for example, with regard to positive actions on the part of the consumer. That is, when it comes to actually making a purchase, brands help provide instantaneous ways of deciding how to make statements or send signals of prestige/status. As Kuksov (2007) notes, the value of consumers associating themselves with a brand (through its consumption) is its effect on the information exchange between consumers as they seek to establish the nature of their relationship with one another.6

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Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice in Education

This conflation of sign value, symbolic value and their commensurability with an object’s branding essentially means, therefore, that we can simply use one ‘value’ to represent all three factors; and I argue that the term signifying value may be re-appropriated to represent these things. An object’s signifying value thus, first, represents its ability to project something personally meaningful; such meaning, however, will sit in relation to the wider system of meaning that affects consumption and, in itself, this wider system will be determined by common understandings and norms in society concerning the representation and so desirability of brands/reputation. In other words, my purchases will clearly have meaning to me but will also be made in relation to what they mean to others (with such meaning signposted or flagged via the brand of the object to be consumed). This then leaves two remaining values an object will possess: its use value and its exchange value.

Use and exchange value Baudrillard argues that it is consumption not production that defines modern society, and, therefore, we can assume that the values associated with the branding of an object or the reputation of its ‘creator’ can serve to affect the exchange value of objects. This is because the effectiveness of branding, or general understanding with regard to reputation, means that we come to understand what suppliers wish us to know about what different brands/reputations signify: for example, a product’s ‘status’, ‘desirability’, ‘exclusivity’ and so on. As a consequence, consumers are also able to place object brands or reputation of a particular type (e.g. the brands of different watches or mobile phones) into hierarchies according to perceived status and so also the relative range of prices that may be commanded by one brand/reputation in comparison to others, for example, taking a range of watches that stretch from Casio to Rolex. Exchange value is also likely to be a factor of the functionality of the product: a product’s use value and typically (e.g. with regard to ‘high street’ objects/ consumption) exchange value increase as products enable users to do more things or existing things better. As a result, if utility matters with regard to the purchase and consumption of a good, then the use consumers derive from an object will also have an influence on price: the more useful something is, or

Research as Consumer Object

21

the more functions it possesses (i.e. the more it is able to offer the consumer), the more we may be expected to pay for it. This is true ceteris paribus for any brand of ‘high street’ consumables. In other words, the latest mobile phone from brand x will have more functions and will cost more than older models from brand x.7 I contend, therefore, that potential acts of consumption are in fact best represented as points along a spectrum of the combination of use and signifying values. Therefore, the optimal mix of use/signifying value will be decided upon by the consumer, but constrained by the exchange value of the good (i.e. what they can afford).

Research as Baudrillardian object Transposing Baudrillard’s analysis (and my subsequent conflation of symbolic and sign values) to the consumption of the research ‘object’ leads me to suggest that: (1) use value should be equated to how the research might be employed – the extent to which it may help resolve issues or concerns and whether this suits the immediate needs of potential users; (2) exchange value can represent either the actual purchase cost or simply the worth of the research to the user (although, like the ‘utilitarians’ have previously discovered, ‘worth’ is unlikely to be something that can be measured quantitatively, it is more something that can be ranked qualitatively); and (3) signifying value represents, first, the ‘prestige’ associated both with employing evidence (e.g. the term ‘evidence informed’ implies that those who engage in particular forms of praxis have put serious thought and consideration into improving the optimality of their outputs or actions), and, second, the differentiation that the object which incorporates the evidence now achieves (i.e. that we may connote that something is either evidence informed or it isn’t). In keeping with my argument above, prestige will be a function of the reputation or brand of the supplier and, consequently, their credibility to both the consumer ‘personally’ as well as how they perceive others to regard the evidence supplier. Again, I argue that a combination of the use, exchange and signifying values of research represent the driving patterns for its consumption. This analysis is represented in the two diagrams below. The first, Figure 1.1, represents the totality of what may be consumed, based on the myriad of

22

Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice in Education Use value High

High Exchange value

Low

Low

High

Signifying value

Low

Figure 1.1 The totality of what research may be consumed

values research objects command. Use, signifying and exchange values each range from high to low, but it is the combinations of use and signifying value (and the worth attached to them by the consumer) that will essentially determine the exchange value of a research object.8 The second model, Figure 1.2, translates this combination of values into a typology of potential research objects to be demanded and consumed, and so produced in response. For example, the top-right quadrant in Figure 1.2 represents luxury research, that which exhibits high levels of functionality (i.e. that can be used to address pertinent issues through the provision of, for example, ‘policy-ready’ findings)

Use value

Functional

Luxury

Signifying value

Trash

Ornamental

Figure 1.2 A typology of potential research objects

Research as Consumer Object

23

and which has been produced by highly regarded suppliers and/or is valued because of the extent to which it will enable certain policies to be differentiated from others.

Luxury evidence use Concentrating for the moment on Figure 1.2, I suggest that, in many ways, both desire for and the consumption of luxury research represent what is commonly understood as representing a state of ‘evidence informed’. This is because such consumption implies one or more of the following: (1) that evidence can and should address a policy issue; (2) the more evidence can address a policy issue, the better it must be; (3) similarly, the more evidence there is to address an issue, then the closer it will be to providing the best available evidence; and/or (4) those who are high-status providers of evidence are in this position because they provide the best (i.e. most convincing and well-argued) evidence – hence a positive relationship between exchange, symbolic and use values. Correspondingly, it is suggested that this type of research will most likely be both more valued by those subscribing to the evidence-informed approach and, if bought, more expensive than other forms of research, with expense being a function of, for example, the specification of the tender that has been produced by the user and the reputation of the provider. The ‘cost’ of this research could also, however, relate to the budget governments are willing to invest in this area. For instance, the desire for luxury research can be represented by the situation witnessed in the early years of Blair’s inaugural New Labour administration, in which a commitment was made to put an end to ideologically driven politics, replacing it instead with ‘rational’ decision-making and a commitment to finding out ‘what works’ (Cabinet Office, 1999; Sutcliffe and Court, 2005; Wilkins, 2011). In other words, there was a general desire for the provision of research with high levels of utility (and so which could meet the needs of the government of the day). It is argued by Whitty that corresponding resource accompanied this desire for utility (such resource representing the cost of this utility), noting that ‘in [New Labour’s] first three years in government, annual research

24

Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice in Education

expenditure in the English Education Department doubled from £5.4 million to £10.4 million … ’ (2006: 163) – more recently it has been suggested that Department for Education (DfE) expenditure on research may be somewhere in the region of £12.1 million (see Department of Education, 2012a; Brown, 2013).

The policy agora The quadrant of luxury consumption also represents the theoretical and empirical space in which the majority of my analysis to date has been undertaken (e.g. see Brown, 2013). Therefore, I am able to argue that the consumption of luxury research, even within a policy system that is fully subscribed to the evidence-informed approach, is unlikely to be either endless or boundless: this is perhaps best illustrated by the notion of the policy agora. As a concept, the policy agora has been employed to demonstrate that, rather than evidence use by policy-makers being dependent upon how well researchers have argued the case for its inclusion (the Habermasian approach), the topics of investigation, the methods researchers employ and the way in which evidence is communicated and/or married to policy issues are all affected by the discourse of government (Brown, 2013). As a consequence, if researchers wish to influence policy, they will need to ensure that their subject areas, approaches and narratives are compatible with the current dominant political philosophy and/or ideas that are currently privileged, or risk their work being excluded. Ideological and epistemological salience (both in terms of methodology and in terms of ‘surface-level’ concerns) are therefore key drivers in determining which evidence policy-makers are likely to employ. The existence of the agora thus places boundaries on the optimality of policies, but that it operates at all is still underpinned by the assumption that some evidence, to some extent, might be used to enhance optimality – in other words, by the assumption that policy-makers, in addition to or in conjunction with their ideological leanings, fundamentally believe that they have a duty to improve the outcomes for at least certain sub-groups of the population and so will take on board evidence to help them carry out this duty. It should also be reaffirmed that it is unlikely that the consumption of luxury research will ever

Research as Consumer Object

25

lead to a state of policy being evidence ‘based’. For example, the notion I have previously developed to represent the role of evidence within policy-making is that being ‘evidence informed’ represents a situation in which academic research outputs have been adopted and so combine with other pertinent knowledge to enhance individual policy-makers’ understanding of the social world (Brown, 2013). My previously made suggestion here is that to employ evidence effectively, assuming that a desire to do so exists, requires policymakers to become experts in evidence use (Brown, 2013). This position is restated and re-explained in Chapter 2.

Ornamental research Other positions are represented by the other three quadrants of the model and essentially enable me to expand my analysis from the quadrant of luxury research use to examine both ‘non-rational’ uses of research (from the perspective that using research to optimize policy effectiveness is a rational endeavour) and research use by practitioners, as well as the interplay between research use within the domains of policy and practice. For example, within policy-making, I suggest that notions as to the prestige of being evidence informed, the value which such prestige adds to the policy debate or, importantly, the fact that someone regarded as a preeminent researcher or expert is supporting a particular position can often and in many ways be more important (i.e. can be more likely to drive consumption) than the use value of the research.9 As Martineau (1957: 100) notes, for example, The average motorist isn’t sure at all what ‘octane’ in gasoline actually is … But he does know vaguely that it is something good. So he [sic] orders ‘high-octane’ gasoline, because he desires this essence quality behind the … surface jargon.

Thus policy-makers may simply reach for any acceptable evidence so that it may be claimed that a policy is evidence informed. In such instances, policy does not develop in the Habermasian sense, in relation to the strength/quality of the argument, but in relation to the perpetuation of a given ideology, that is, in order to ensure that the political party in power is re-elected. As a result,

26

Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice in Education

the role of evidence reverts to that of providing support or to banging a drum in aid of a given course of action and may even be produced simply to do so. If the full gamut of research available (or even that which sits within the agora) is not employed, however, then we can assume that the value of research in situations such as these is principally ‘ornamental’. In other words, while use value does have some bearing on the value of the research, its main benefit, despite any claims of its users, is its ability to support a given perspective or point of view, not to maximize the optimality of policy. This position is nicely summarized by Pielke (2007: 42), who argues that the process of policymaking can often simply represent a myriad of ‘conflicting commitments based on differing values’; and, therefore, ‘arguably no amount or type of scientific information … can reconcile [these] different values’ (Pielke, 2007). In other words, evidence is not produced or used to help identify some ‘truth’ about the social world; it is there to provide ammunition in an ongoing political war of words between government and others.10 Since ‘ornamental’ research refers to both production and/or the use of research to support a given discursive position, I argue that it extends beyond Weiss’ (1979, 1980) notion of ‘symbolic’ evidence use, which involves policymakers employing research to legitimate and sustain pre-existing policy positions. In other words, Weiss’ position appears to implicitly assume that the production of research is rational and legitimate and geared towards social enlightenment. It is my argument, however, that the entire research process from production to consumption can, on occasions, be subsumed and directed by policy need.11 For example, another concept that may be employed to explain the often ‘ornamental’ use of research is the notion of hyperreality (e.g. see Eco, 1967; Baudrillard and Patton, 1995). This is explored in detail in Chapter 3. Briefly, however, and for the purposes of my analysis, this notion is taken to represent the role of the media in scrutinizing in infinite detail the actions undertaken by government in both its ‘day to day’ governance and also how it responds to shocks and crises. In the hyperreality then, policies are produced via constant interaction with the media. For example, press releases or indeed leaks are regularly employed as tools to gauge reaction or manage expectations with regard to policy initiatives, that is, to enter new terms into the discursive milieu. Research production and use must, therefore, also be seen in this light. Thus, in many instances of policy development, the driving

Research as Consumer Object

27

force behind the production and choice and use of evidence will have much to do with attempts to enforce discursive control at the very point in time where, due to the growth and influx of 24/7 media providers and social media, efforts to do so are becoming more and more problematic. As a consequence, the notion of evidence informed becomes essentially subservient to the ability to seek discursive hegemony.

Functional research Like policy-making, many arguments put in favour of evidence-informed practice often appeal to its signifying value. In his 1996 lecture to the Teacher Training Agency, for example, Hargreaves praises health professionals and laments educational practitioners with regard to their research use, specifically linking the use of evidence to notions such as public ‘esteem’: Research [could play an] effective role in advancing the professional quality and standing of teachers … The medical profession has gained in public prestige concurrently with the growth of its research. The teaching profession has not … Doctors draw on [a concrete cumulative scientific evidence-base] for the technical language of the profession … After qualification teachers largely abandon [their] academic influences and the use of social scientific terms within their professional discourse declines. (1996: 1–2)

Other badging and labelling have also been employed to differentiate between those schools and teaching practices which involve the application of research and those which do not. For instance, terms such as Teaching Schools, Joint Practice Development, Advanced Skills Teachers, National and Specialist Leaders of Education and notions of the Self-Improving School System, all connote research use, while simultaneously representing attempts to enhance the prestige of those doing so (e.g. see Hargreaves, 2010, 2012; Sebba et al., 2012a, 2012b). Despite these attempts to add kudos and prestige in order to augment the signifying value attached to practitioner research consumption, I argue that what matters most to practitioners is whether they can usefully employ evidence (also see Cooper, 2014). In other words, when it comes to their actual day-to-day engagement with pupils, it is ‘use’ not ‘signifying’ value that dominates: what matters most is not that practitioners

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Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice in Education

engage with research as an activity in itself, but that this can be combined with their practical knowledge to enhance outcomes. Here then, where the user determines value based on their need and consumes accordingly, you have functional consumption.

Issues with functional research There are a number of issues with the way the outcomes from much educational research is produced and presented, however, that both drive practitioners towards functional consumption, but, simultaneously, also prevent them from consuming much existing research in this way. Beginning with the former, if research is to matter to the government policy-maker, it will need to be seen by them as both descriptive and applicable to the national setting: in other words, it must be generalized and generalizable. This is because policy-makers want something that can be used to set policy for all schools and that will generate policy which leads to all schools performing, or improving their performances, in given and definable ways (e.g. see Brown, 2013). Current models of research production also serve to both reflect and in effect reproduce the notion that research should be produced, disseminated and so consumed in a ‘top down’ way (e.g. see Campbell and Levin, 2012a). Yet, as I show in Chapter 4, context clearly matters: context-free general principles, therefore, need to be adapted so that they make sense to individual settings. Such reconstruction, however, comes at a cost, which is likely to be a function of a number of attributes, for example: the time involved in searching, the cost of access (where is research stored?), the time and energy required to read a text and understand what its implications are and to then work out how these implications might be applied to a given setting and the cost of finding a mediator (and the availability of such mediators – for instance, establishing and facilitating a learning community for each school in England would present a mammoth task). A tension thus exists between core principles and context which, while enhancing the use value for policy-makers, can serve to reduce the use value of research for practitioners. Simultaneously, it has also been argued that the evidence-informed movement serves to work against practitioners’ professional judgement (e.g. see Haggar and McIntyre, 2006; Biesta, 2007; Rexvid et al., 2012). This is because

Research as Consumer Object

29

the centrally determined and prescribed practices or guidelines associated with evidence based can serve to restrict practitioners’ ability to ascertain whether or how given actions are suited (in an educational sense) to a particular context. This restriction occurs, in part, because the signifying value or the prestige that counts here will be the brand reputation of those supplying the research not those using it. In other words, privilege will be afforded to the views of researchers (via any guidelines developed on the back of research) rather than practitioners, suggesting that the former will have substantive influence regarding what occurs in the classroom. For practitioners, then, rather than represent ‘luxury’, centralized evidence-informed approaches, unless resisted, subverted or successfully reversioned to suit local needs, represents a state of paucity. Again, I return to this argument in more detail in Chapter 4. The way research findings are presented (or rather ‘marketed’) can also often serve to turn off practitioners. Here, however, I am not referring to earlier critiques presented by Hillage et al. (1998) and Tooley and Darby (1998), who criticized educational research for being esoteric and inaccessible, but rather to the notion that practitioners often find it hard to both relate to and recontextualize the findings from ‘idealized’ case studies of ‘best’ practice. By idealized, I refer to the types of approach employed when researchers or organizations seek to identify and then generalize (i.e. so that it can apply to other settings) given phenomenon regarding exceptional practice. Exemplars of this approach are provided by Ofsted (2009a, 2009b) and Hargreaves and Harris (2011): Ofsted, for example, published both Twelve Outstanding Secondary Schools – Excelling against the Odds and Twenty Outstanding Primary Schools – Excelling against the Odds in 2009, in order to detail how some schools are able to reach and sustain outstanding performance despite the high levels of depravation facing their communities. In Performance beyond Expectations, meanwhile, Hargreaves and Harris investigate and provide some eighteen case studies of organizations (in business, sport, education and health), which have achieved success despite various indicators of relatively weak investment, limited resource capacity or being faced with challenging circumstances. Such studies are problematic for a number of reasons. First, of course, though creating a specific exemplar case, the practices of the organization concerned become fetishized, despite the fact that they are successful in the main because what they do works for a particular context and with regard

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Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice in Education

to the issues that are specific to that context. Second, the story of these types of cases is often told in such a way that the serendipitous coming together of key contextual factors which often accompany success (Fullan, 2011, for example, suggests that these include the pre-existence of quality, capacity or innovation, community and/or external economic factors) is often airbrushed out of the picture as the story is retold, often by a narrator who is seeking to make the message of the case as simple and as easy to digest as possible.12 The journey to success for the case in question thus appears to be one which comprises wholly of deliberate and calculated action. Not only this, but such stories are often told in wholly positive terms: again then, the conflicts, doubts, mistakes and process of learning which characterize the day-to-day realities of leading or working within an institution are conveniently forgotten and the complexities and contextual peculiarities that had to be grappled with along the way, treated as if irrelevant. In other words, within the idealized case study, every action seems both pre-planned and plans are executed without a hitch. Simultaneously, the message is one of ‘they can do it, so why aren’t you?’ We thus find ourselves in a situation in which practitioners reject what Baudrillard refers to as ‘myths and fables’ regarding a better and brighter future, but still seek ways in which to enhance their performance. In other words, practitioners ‘do not believe in such fables, but cleave to them nevertheless’ (1968: 180).

A way forward for functional research Returning to my earlier analysis above, as well as representing actual purchase cost, exchange value as price will also be dependent on the costs of production: the skill or ability involved with production and other economic factors such as ease of entry to market (e.g. setting up a fruit stall has significantly lower costs of entry than setting up an assembly line for aeroplanes). Given that ‘functional’ research, almost by definition, does not have to be produced by those of reputation/will requires an in-depth understanding of the context required to ensure that use value remains high, one possibility may be for practitioners to solve the twin issues of the cost of recontextualizing generalized research messages and the requirement for high levels of use value by ‘growing their own’, thus becoming broadly self-sufficient in producing knowledge that

Research as Consumer Object

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meets their needs, while also blending this with some formal knowledge to ensure that what is produced is fully situated within both context and what is ‘formally’ known. Such an approach is likely to subvert the ‘economic’ basis of current models of research production, dissemination and use (as detailed above). At the same time, it may, however, be a more effective approach when it comes to practitioner research use. This will be further explored in Chapters 4 and 5, where I examine the notion of ‘long tail’ economics: the value that accrues when you produce multiple instances of small value as opposed to single instances of large value. For the next chapter, however, I revisit my previous analyses of evidence use, relating them now to the consumption of ‘luxury’ research: specifically, I consider issues and solutions in relation to evidence-informed policy-making, in order to show how the consumption of luxury research might be best facilitated.

2

Issues and Solutions in Relation to Evidence-Informed Policy-Making

Luxury research is typically consumed by those truly seeking to embed evidence use as part of the policy-development process. This is because the employment of such evidence is based on the premise that policy outcomes will be improved if decision-making is aided by knowledge that is of quality and pertinent to the issue in hand. This premise is explicated through the work of advocates such as Oakley, who argues that evidence-informed approaches ensure that ‘those who intervene in other people’s lives do so with the utmost benefit and least harm’ (2000: 3), also described by Alton-Lee (2012) as the ‘first do no harm’ principle. Oakley thus contends that there exists a moral imperative for policy-makers to only make decisions, or to take action, when armed with the best available evidence. Similarly, it is acknowledged that failing to employ luxury-type evidence can lead to situations where public money is wasted – for example, if vulnerable members of society are not offered treatments or interventions at points in their lives where doing so might provide most benefit. This is typified in the work of Scott et al. (2001), who, in their analysis of the financial cost of social exclusion, note that acts of antisocial behaviour (ASB) at the age of 10 are accurate predictors of the cost of public services consumed by a given group at age 28, typically a cost 10 times that of those with no ASB issues. Yet such costs could be avoided by policy-makers adopting effective and timely intervention strategies.

Initiatives designed to enhance evidence use by government In order to advance the consumption of luxury research, numerous initiatives have been instigated by governments and other stakeholders (both in the

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Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice in Education

United Kingdom and internationally), in an attempt to improve the links between evidence and education policy. Gough et al. (2011), as part of the Evidence Informed Policy in Education in Europe (EIPEE) project, for example, identified 269 instances of such linking activity in a survey of 30 European countries. The authors suggest that ‘the findings from the survey [indicate] a high level of activity across Europe and demonstrate that a wide variety of approaches [have] been taken to try to improve the use of research evidence in policy settings’ (Gough et al., 2011: 4). A catalogue of UK government initiatives, meanwhile, is set out in Brown (2013). Recent among these include the 2012 Civil Service Reform Plan,1 which contains within it a commitment to the widest possible engagement with external ‘experts’ and investigation of the feasibility of setting up an independent institution that might determine ‘what works’ with regard to social policy. In addition, in 2013 the UK government announced the launch of the What Works Network2 – six independent ‘evidence centres’, responsible for producing and disseminating research to decisionmakers on areas such as crime reduction, active and independent ageing, early intervention, educational attainment and local economic growth. The aim of the centres is to support local decision-makers invest in services that deliver the best outcomes for citizens and value for money for taxpayers. This is to be achieved through collating, assessing and synthesizing published evidence on the effectiveness of interventions, assessing interventions using a common ‘currency’, publishing clear synthesis reports and sharing findings in an accessible way (see Cabinet Office, 2013). While such initiatives abound, it is also argued that their impact to date has been limited (Brown, 2013). For example, while a number of studies suggest that capacity to understand and consider evidence does, to an extent, exist at the level of the individual policy-maker (e.g. see Campbell et al., 2007; Brown, 2009), Nutley et al. (2007) argue that the effects of those initiatives designed to improve evidence use across the civil service generally have not been fully evaluated and are restricted to case studies and simple anecdotes of success. Similarly, although the Government Office for Science (2010) observes that within England’s Department for Education (DfE) ‘there is strong and active leadership support for evidence-based policy-making’ (2010: 22), for example, the Making Policy Happen programme, designed to shift policy-makers’ behaviours towards a better consideration and use of evidence as part of their

Issues and Solutions to Evidence-Informed Policy-Making

35

decision-making, it also noted that Making Policy Happen is yet to be fully embedded and will require continued senior-level support to become so. At the time of writing, however, Making Policy Happen does not feature as an active initiative on the DfE’s website. It should also be noted that, between the publication of the Government Office for Science’s Science and Analysis Review and now, a number of the examples of best practice spotlighted by the Government Office for Science (and, which, it was felt, served to enhance the DfE’s capability to engage with and use evidence) appear to have been discontinued. For instance, the department’s annual Research Conference is no longer referenced on www.dfe.gov.uk. Gone too are the annual Analysis and Evidence Strategies, the DfE’s annual statements of evidence requirements and priorities (e.g. see DCSF, 2008, 2009). There have been few attempts in the United Kingdom to assess quantitatively the uptake of research by policy-makers. Approaches have been undertaken elsewhere, however. For example, in Canada, Landry et al. (2003) undertook a survey of 833 government officials from Canadian and provincial public administrations in order to examine the extent to which they employed academic research as part of the policy process. The study of Landry and others based research use on the Knott and Wildavsky (1980) scale of research use, which ranges from ‘reception’ (‘I received the university research pertinent to my work’) to ‘Influence’ (‘university research results influenced decisions in my administrative unit’) via the stages of ‘cognition’, ‘discussion’, ‘reference’ and ‘effort’ (‘I made efforts to favour the use of university research results’). As Webber (1992: 21) observes, the points along the Knott and Wildavsky scale are ‘meant not only to capture the extent to which information is processed cognitively by the policy-makers but also its consequence in the policy process’. The scale can be considered cumulative in the sense that cognition builds on reception, discussion on cognition, reference on discussion, effort on reference and influence on effort. Since research rarely provides an immediate solution to a policy problem (Weiss, 1986), policy-makers were asked to consider an elongated time period: ‘Concerning the use of university work, please indicate your experience in relation to the six following aspects [of the Knott and Wildavsky scale]. Drawing on your experience of the last five years, check a single box using the following scale, where 1 = never; 2 = rarely; 3 = sometimes; 4 = often; and 5 = always’ (Landry et al., 2003: 196: my emphasis) (Table 2.1).

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Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice in Education

Table 2.1 Frequency of knowledge use (n=833) Stages of utilization

N/A or missing data (%)

Never (%)

Rarely (%)

Sometimes (%)

Usually (%)

Always (%)

Reception

9.9

6.5

32.3

39.6

10.9

0.8

Cognition

13.3

1.0

5.0

25.3

43.5

11.9

Discussion

14.2

28.1

31.3

21.4

4.8

0.2

Reference

11.2

14.4

24.5

32.3

15.1

2.5

Adoption

12.1

16.3

29.3

29.2

12.4

0.7

Influence

11.4

9.7

31.6

38.5

8.0

0.8

Source: Landry et al., 2003.

Landry et al.’s results indicate that nearly 12 per cent of policy-makers report they usually or always received academic research pertinent to their work; 39 per cent of respondents, however, rarely or never did. Moving through the six stages from ‘reception’ to ‘influence’, it can be seen that there is an increase in university research that is rarely or never used and, conversely, a decrease in the university research that is usually or always used. Ultimately, only 8 per cent of respondents reported that the academic research they have received has ‘usually’ influenced decisions, and slightly less than 1 per cent indicated that academic research always influenced decisions in their departments; 41 per cent reported that research rarely or never affects decisions (with 46 per cent rarely or never making efforts to favour the use of academic research). The analysis undertaken by Landry et al. (2003) again suggests that attempts to enhance the uptake of research have not been as successful as they might.

Current assumptions underpinning evidence-informed policy-making While it is clear that current attempts to improve the use of evidence are not as impactful as they might be, little analysis to date has sought to investigate why this might be the case. I suggest that there are a number of reasons why such initiatives are yet to take hold, particularly within educational policy-making.

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These are set out below as assumptions that are often held, yet have also been problematized in extant literature (e.g. see Brown, 2011), and were arrived at after undertaking an extensive review of literature.3 Despite compiling them in this way, they should not be thought of as all carrying equal weight and not all will simultaneously be held by policy-makers or by researchers who have undertaken work in this area. Nonetheless, at least some will ring true with individual readers familiar with this subject or with those who actively develop policy: – Assumption 1: The use of evidence in policy-making is inherently rational in nature: that is, the primary concern of policy-makers is a desire to develop policies that are optimal in terms of their efficacy, equity and value for money (in other words, the basis for luxury research consumption). Therefore, policy-makers not only systematically seek out evidence to aid their decision-making but also pursue all pertinent evidence with regard to a particular issue (e.g. see Trowler, 2003). – Assumption 2: There exists a process for developing policy and this process has broadly definable stages and also tends to operate in a broadly linear or sequential order. Correspondingly, there are specific roles for research within this process; that is, research should be considered at specific points, with a view to it then being used to aid specific decisions – for example, by aiding the identification of a problem, by helping to create, form or steer the public agenda or by aiding (or inspiring) policy directorates in the development of their initiatives (e.g. Nutley et al., 2007; Perry, et al., 2010). – Assumption 3: The provision of knowledge can, by itself, deliver or lead to expertise with regard to the topic in question and also to expertise in terms of social actors being able to ‘use’ evidence generally (e.g. Hackley, 1999; Stewart and Liabo, 2012). In a similar vein is the notion that, the more simply evidence is presented, the easier it is for policy-makers to make a decision and the more effective that decision will be (e.g. Hillage et al., 1998; Brown, 2009; Cherney et al., 2012). – Assumption 4: The voices of researchers carry equal weight compared both with others operating within the policy ‘sphere of influence’ (such as

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think tanks) and also in relation to the policy-makers, who are responsible for developing a given policy (e.g. Habermas in Cooke, 1999). In other words, it is the quality of the argument that matters, rather than who is making the argument. Correspondingly, research use is thought to transcend fashions and fads concerning, for example, the topic in question or the author of the studies (e.g. Brown, 2012). – Assumption 5: Instances of evidence use have not materialized in greater numbers because the process of educational research and its underpinning epistemological/ontological assumptions principally serve the interests of academics, rather than those of policy-makers. As a result, there is generally a mismatch between the research and policy-making cycles; the ‘quality’ of research is poor; and researchers are unable to express their conclusions in ways that make them usable, for example, by failing to provide detail on ‘what works’ or by not providing definitive ‘facts’ about the social world in its actual (i.e. unequivocal) state (e.g. Hargreaves, 1996; Hillage et al., 1998; Tooley and Darby, 1998; Davies, 2006). This also links to Assumption 3, since it is also felt by the same critics that the communication of research has traditionally been through language and via means that policy-makers find inaccessible. That these assumptions can be problematized and shown not to hold true in a number of empirical studies (e.g. Landry et al., 2003; Brown 2009; Coburn et al., 2009; Brown 2011) raises a simple question: if policy development does not occur in ways currently envisaged and if these blockages to evidence use truly exist, then why continue to try and facilitate evidence-informed policy-making through ways that do not effectively address or account for them? My alternative (e.g. see Brown, 2013) is to posit the adoption of expertise in evidence use, which has its basis in the work of Bent Flyvbjerg, in particular in his 2001 thesis, which examines the role of the social sciences and how they might be best harnessed to deliver ‘enlightened political, economic, and cultural development’ in society (2001: 3). Flyvbjerg posits that this is best achieved by employing a contemporary interpretation of Aristotle’s notion of phronesis, something often translated as ‘practical wisdom’.

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Expertise Flyvbjerg employs the ‘Dreyfus’ model of learning to illustrate what he means by expertise. The Dreyfus model employs five ‘levels’ of human learning, ranging from novice to expert,4 with each level comprising recognizably different behaviours in relation to performance at a given skill. A novice, for example, is new to particular situations; will, during instruction, learn about facts corresponding to and other characteristics pertaining to the situation; and so is taught or develops ‘rules for action’. Flyvbjerg suggests that for the novice Facts, characteristics, and rules are defined so clearly and objectively … that they can be recognised without reference to the concrete situations in which they occur. On the contrary, the rules can be generalised to all similar situations, which the novice might conceivably confront. At the novice level, facts, characteristics, and rules are not dependent on context: they are context independent. (2001:11)

This is nicely illustrated through the example of learning to drive, which comprises theoretical rules for action (the rules of the road) along with more practical instructions: for example, what constitutes the biting point of gears, the process of moving through gear changes and so on. Both can be learnt independently of any ‘concrete’ situation. Over time, however, as the driver becomes more familiar with instances in which they change gears, this process becomes more intuitive. Flyvbjerg argues that as learners advance from ‘novice’ and through the levels of ‘advanced beginner’, ‘competent performer’ and ‘proficient performer’, a number of things occur to facilitate the normalization of this instinctual/intuitive behaviour: first, instances of performing in reallife situations increase, and correspondingly, the number of ‘cases’ that the learner encounters and tackles also increases; second, recognition of different situations accumulates, as does recognition of the context in which those situations occur; third, dependency on specific ‘rules for action’ diminishes as learners are able to interpret and judge how to perform optimally in any given situation (e.g. when the noise of the engine, rather than rules of thumb concerning speed, indicates that it is time to change gear). Genuine expertise, however, only occurs as the result of ‘quantum leap’ in behaviour and perception

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from that of an analytical problem solver to someone who ‘[exhibits] thinking and behaviour that is rapid, intuitive, holistic, interpretive … .[Expertise] has no immediate similarity to the slow, analytical reasoning which characterises rational problem-solving and the first three levels of the learning process’ (Flyvbjerg, 2001:14). In other words, experts immediately perceive a situation: the problem that is presented, the goal that must be achieved and the actions that will address this, without the need to divide this process into distinct phases. This, Flyvbjerg argues, is ‘the level of true human expertise. Experts are characterised by a flowing, effortless performance, unhindered by analytical deliberations’ (2001: 21).

Expertise in policy development In the United Kingdom, the social actors directly responsible for creating central government policy are ministers and civil servants. The role of ministers is described by Riddell et al. (2011), who suggest that, in relation to policy, ministerial responsibility exists both in terms of: (1) parliamentary duties (e.g. with regard to making statements about or in defence of policy decisions); and (2) executive and policy-related responsibilities (developing policy objectives, approving decisions and providing leadership for both senior officials and their department more widely). With regard to civil servants, Ribbins and Sherratt (2012) argue that there has been a paucity of empirical studies detailing their role with regard to policy development. Nonetheless, it is possible to set out a conceptual or theoretical position regarding what their ‘performances’ might comprise, in particular, that it is the responsibility of civil servants to serve apolitically and implement the policies of the elected government of the day (Ribbins and Sherratt, 2012). I note in Brown (2011), for example, that from the perspective of the civil servants I have previously interviewed regarding policy development, the policies they work on or develop originate from the pre-conceived ideas, the commitments and the overall narrative of the ministers or the political party (or coalition of parties) currently in power. Policies are typically developed by teams rather than individuals, and each member of the team will possess a greater or lesser general understanding of the policy process work (depending on their time in post). While those

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responsible for the development of policy texts (in the United Kingdom, known as Green and White papers) are likely to be ‘generalists’, they will also draw on expertise from other areas (such as legal or economic advice) as and when required (Brown, 2013). In terms of the policy process, then, ‘ultimate’ expertise from a Flyvbjergian perspective (the achievement of phronetic, virtuoso expertise) may be envisaged as a state in which individual civil servants can, almost without thinking, interpret and respond to a policy request in a way that meets the requirements of the politicians requesting it, while also attending to the contextual nuances that might affect the successful enactment of the policy. Invariably, however, each policy request will differ in terms of the ideologies of those requesting it, their output or impact requirements and with regard to the setting involved and the resources available. This means, then, that unlike with other acts within the education sphere (such as teaching), developing solutions to ever-changing requests cannot be viewed as an act of ‘performance’ that can be practiced and perfected, nor something that can ever be universally or effectively judged against a fixed or definable standard: success simply relates to how well the needs and likely responses of those requesting the policy have been anticipated and met. Therefore, unlike with more realist notions of expertise, for example, the often-quoted 10,000 hours required to achieve certain recognized levels of performance (e.g. see Lemov et al., 2013), possession of expertise in the policy setting can be viewed as more constructivist and so temporal and context specific. For example, an individual may get on well with one minister and be able to quickly ascertain and meet their needs, but may initially jar with the personality of another; this may also then affect their ability, at first, to provide solutions that both meet the ministers’ requirements and that which can effectively be enacted. Alternatively, an official may move department and so have to learn about its recent policy history and the aims and successes of these policies. Similarly, an exogenous event (e.g. an act of legislation, or economic, social or natural disaster) may mean that the policy context changes and so a new understanding may be required of what is achievable. As a result, the development of policy expertise is likely to be gradual, interrupted rather than linear and stem from constant immersion within both the policy process and in relation to the focus, remit and the personalities of those running the department in which they operate. Not only this, but given

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the gradual turnover of staff in any organization, at any one time government departments will be populated with officials at different levels of competence. As a consequence, policy texts and documents will be constructed by (and also reflect) the range of proficiency and understanding that exists. Nonetheless, the general trend, despite any disruptions which occur en route, should be seen as one which heads towards competence (e.g. see Dowling, 2010) as policymakers engage more and more with specific policy cases and instances.

Expertise as learning Notions of expertise from a Flyvbjergian perspective derive through the learning that accrues from experience: that is, expertise is explicitly related by Flyvbjerg to the number of cases an individual interacts with. This approach is thus congruent with more constructivist/sociocultural aspects of learning which consider the mental models learners employ when responding to new information and which reflect the notion that knowledge itself emerges from participation in cultural practices (e.g. see Paavola et al., 2004). Important too is the notion of ‘distributed cognition’ (i.e. aspects of knowledge will be distributed among individuals), which implies that collaborative problem solving can be more productive than individual efforts, since it will bring together a myriad of perspectives. Thus, it would appear that, through their day-to-day actions, interactions and engagement, policy-makers learn through the constructivist and sociocultural modes and it is this learning that leads them to develop expertise in policy development. When it comes to evidence use as currently conceived, however, civil servants would appear both to be positioned and to act, at the level of novice. For example, I have noted above ‘linear’ perspectives regarding how evidence is used, which posit that there will be fixed points at which evidence will or should be consulted in order to inform policy. In other words, evidence is not regarded as something to be considered continuously or holistically but separately as part of a defined, rationalized, sequence of events. This disrupted engagement can occur either directly with regard to research texts or in terms of those who might provide them: for example, where they exist, government departments often separate rather than bring together within policy teams,

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specialists and more ‘generalist’ civil servants (with the former holding experience in social research, economic knowledge, legal knowledge and so on). Such separation can vary from teams being located in different floors of an office to them being situated in different cities (the Department for Education, for example, has much of its research and statistical activity based outside of London, including in offices in other UK cities including Sheffield and Darlington); separation does, however, mean that specialists are often called in at fixed points to discuss an issue rather than provide constant input into the policy-development process. This, as a result, serves to limit the number of instances or cases of evidence ‘generalist’ policy-makers are exposed to. This notion is reaffirmed when we examine the kinds of luxury evidence requested and privileged by civil servants, which is often akin to the knowledge that may be found in an instruction manual. For example, evidence that details ‘what works’, i.e. that provides generic, context independent rules of thumb (which can be applied to any situation, e.g. to all classrooms or schools), or evidence that is ‘policy ready’ (Brown, 2013). In both cases, this type of evidence can be directly applied against potential plans for action or used to pinpoint solutions in themselves. In addition, this type of evidence is easily digested and thus frequently doesn’t require more than cursory engagement or interpretation in order for it to be employed. In fact, the more esculent the evidence, the more likely its ‘use’ can be limited to a simple acceptance/ rejection of the recommendations or solutions presented (Cherney et al., 2012). For example, should it point to a solution that is not cost effective or impractical to implement, then this type of evidence is likely to be dismissed out of hand. While the novice-level use of luxury evidence might be appropriate in solving well-specified tasks, where the solution is equally well defined and understood, it is less well suited to situations in which the task is complex, where the solution needs to incorporate a multitude of factors (including the economic and ideological) and where any solution proposed will be scrutinized by the media and critiqued by those with vested interests in its outcome. In other words, novice-level research use is insufficient when it comes to the process of policymaking as it actually happens. True expertise in evidence use, on the other hand, provides a vision of policy-makers as social actors who intuitively develop responses to situations: with this intuitive holistic

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reading based on an amalgamation of the formal research knowledge, they have adopted, to date, an understanding of the specific case they are dealing with and their understanding of the other environmental factors that might influence the policy decision (e.g. the amount of money that is available; the ideological or personal perspectives of the ministers initiating the policy; how the press/public might respond; who might try and block its implementation; those stakeholders who might need to be courted; the capacity of available delivery mechanisms to ensure that the policy is implemented on the ground, and so on). This then moves conceptions of how policy-makers should engage with luxury-type evidence away from something separate and temporally specific to something which is fully and continuously integrated.

Moving to expertise in luxury evidence use My proposition for moving evidence-informed policy-making forward (a proposition underpinned by the notion that luxury research is indeed what is required) has therefore been to suggest that policy-makers, as an essential element of their role, move to more continuous engagement with research and researchers. As well as illustrating what might be, however, I argue that this phronetic approach actually represents a more realistic conception of evidence use as it currently stands. For example, it is ordinarily implicitly assumed that the mind of the policy-maker must be ‘empty’ of knowledge in relation to a given issue until they have been provided with evidence in relation to it. Patently, this cannot be true: policy-makers will have considered opinions, are likely to have an understanding of the wider policy environment and may have already digested research in relation to a given issue before they are specifically required to tackle a given problem. As a result, adopting a phronetic approach illustrates the fallacy of conceiving of evidence use as something separate from policy development: that instead, we must recognize that policy-makers and their decisions will already be (explicitly or implicitly) informed by every facet that has shaped their perspective/reality to date, including the evidence and knowledge they have already adopted. I also argue that this initial proposed approach presents a more effective way of accounting for some of the issues (problematized assumptions) I

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outline above, which serve to prevent increased instances of evidence use. For example, continuous engagement with research means that policy decisions will not be contingent on evidence being considered at a fixed point in time in order for them to be considered ‘evidence-informed’. In addition, this position also provides a much needed ‘constructivist’ alternative to the dominant ‘realist positivist’ perspective: rather than policy-makers relying on or awaiting tranches of evidence to provide direction, policy-makers instead will develop their own understanding of the evidence base and draw their own implications (in terms of ‘what works’) from it. At the same time, how evidence is interpreted and whether it is adopted, rather than solely a function of ‘rational’ engagement, will be driven by the perspectives developed by policy-makers over time and the realities that they inhabit (and so the ‘structural’ limitations to their thinking – something captured by the notion of the ‘policy agora’: see Chapter 1). This means that rather than assuming concepts of quality and the methodology employed will be the key determinants as to whether evidence will be used, they will instead sit alongside notions such as how well the story ‘resonates’ with policy-makers, something alluded to by Huberman (1990). In addition, as policy-makers develop a picture of the evidence base over time, they will be less likely to be faced with situations where they will be required to accept/reject the findings of a particular study in relation to a policy decision. Instead their decisions will be steeped in a rich bank of evidence, of which some (depending upon their time in post) will have its origins in a multitude of past ‘policy agoras’ corresponding to a wealth of ideological positions held by previous governments: civil servants will thus be aware of potential solutions residing outside of the agora and the ways in which these solutions might be bought into the fold.

What kind of engagement? Collins and Evans (2007) argue that developing expertise requires deep immersion among those considered to be experts. Learning communities are an alternative form of capacity building, which embrace this approach and have been described by Stoll (2008: 107) as a means through which to build ‘learning [in order] to support educational improvement’. Learning communities

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comprise ‘inclusive, reflective, mutually supportive and collaborative groups of people who find ways, inside and outside their immediate community to investigate and learn more about their practice’ (Stoll (2008). The notion of such communities thus encapsulates instances where policy-makers and researchers might conjoin in order to facilitate learning about and from formalized/academic knowledge. A key benefit of the learning communities approach may be attributed to the nature of the learning that takes place within them, which is encapsulated by the process of knowledge ‘creation’; described by Stoll (2008) as one where the producers and users of formal knowledge, who are, respectively, also the users and holders of ‘practical’ knowledge, come together to create ‘new’ knowledge (Stoll, however, uses the term ‘animation’). Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) conceptualize this process of creation as one which arises from the interactions that arise between tacit and explicit (or informal and formal) knowledge. In particular, it is a ‘spiralling’ that accrues from the occurrence of four sequential types of knowledge conversation: (1) the conversation between tacit knowledge and tacit knowledge (labelled ‘socialization’); (2) the ‘externalization’ of tacit knowledge (i.e. its explication); (3) a conversation between explicit and explicit knowledge (which represents the ‘combination’ of explicit knowledges); and (4) the ‘internalization’ of knowledge (i.e. its move from being external to knowledge which is tacit). The first stage, ‘socialization’, should be regarded as representing baseline behaviour, that is, the normal state of affairs which governs policy-makers’ interaction with one another; since it may be assumed that those operating in a given policy area will all have some commonality or overlap with regard to their perceptions and understandings in terms of a given issue. The second stage (‘externalization’) represents a situation in which policy-makers and researchers are cataloguing ‘what is known’ (both in terms of ‘formal’ and praxis-based knowledge); the third stage represents creation, as the totality of ‘what is known’ is combined and shaped into new solutions to issues. In the sense that I have been discussing throughout this chapter, such creation results in ‘policy ready’ knowledge, that is, evidence directed at policy problems. The final stage, then, represents the situation of policy-makers porting this new knowledge and intuitively drawing upon it as part of the day-to-day process of developing policy solutions.

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I note above that creation will lead to new knowledge that is ‘policy ready’. Unlike as currently conceived, however (where I have critiqued the notion of ‘policy ready’, because of the expectations by policy-makers that these outputs should comprise a solo enterprise by researchers), through knowledge creation, policy-makers build their capacity to use research (i.e. by engaging with researchers who can assist with explanations as to method and meaning), while simultaneously merging formal and informal/tacit knowledge in a dynamic way to address real and current policy concerns. In other words, policy-makers engage to construct their own ‘policy ready’ knowledge-based understanding, rather than act as passive recipients or customers of research knowledge. It is this creation and the journey towards it which thus develops policy-makers’ phronetic expertise with regard to evidence use.

How might such engagement be facilitated and enforced? A final consideration must centre on how to facilitate and enforce continuous engagement via the development of policy-learning communities. This likely needs thought and effort both at the level of the individual and at the level of departments/organizations. At an individual level, if the general remit or expected requirements of policy-makers are expanded so as to include an active engagement with evidence, then expectations with regard to their ability to do so must be altered too. The competency framework for central government officials in the United Kingdom is set out within Professional Skills for Government (PSG). The PSG provides four thematic groupings for Civil Service competencies: (1) leadership; (2) core skills; (3) professional skills; and (4) broader experience.5 Within these, two statements of ‘ability’ encapsulate what is currently required in terms of evidence use: in ‘leadership’, for example, there is the requirement that civil servants ‘build capacity for the organisation to address current and future challenges’; under ‘core skills’ are the requirements that civil servants are able to engage in ‘analysis and use of evidence’. I suggest that these are neither sufficiently descriptive, or prescriptive enough to encourage the development of capacity/instances of evidence use, nor the regular participation of officials in learning communities (or similar activities).

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Beginning with the former, for example, Hannay and Earl (2012: 313) argue that the skills required for the twenty-first century include: ‘collaboration, problem framing, critical thinking, “thinking outside of the box”, innovation and creativity’, all of which are functions or outputs associated with being able to employ evidence. Pierson et al. (2012), examining the health sector in Canada, also suggest that core competencies for policy-makers working in this area should include ‘proficiency’ in evidence-informed decision-making (which implies developing ‘experience of ’ rather than simply having an ‘ability to’). In a similar vein, Pollard and Newman argue that The ability of teachers to recognise the type of knowledge required to address a particular practice issue, to find such knowledge, to appraise its quality and relevance, and to interpret it for their own practice environment are … key features of professional teaching practice. This process and the set of skills/knowledge required to apply it are what is referred to as evidenceinformed practice. (2010: 264)

I argue that the same might apply to policy-makers seeking to find innovative and effective solutions to problems (whether in one department or across departments or even jurisdictions where specific problems have multiple roots or drivers: e.g. also see Hargreaves, 1999; 2010). Therefore, it is clear that current descriptive requirements in this area need to be revised and addressed so that policy-makers are not only required to engage with evidence but that it is obvious what policy-makers are expected to be able to achieve once they have done so. In addition to competency, however, is the mechanism of enforcement: that is, prescription with regard to how the descriptive expectation noted above is to be realized in practice. In recent years, UK governments have sought to establish various ways of improving the competence and capacity of the education workforce. This approach is encapsulated by the notion of the ‘self-improving’ school system and its corresponding four forces of ‘top-down performance management’; the development of ‘capability and capacity’; market ‘incentives’ to improve efficiency and quality; and customers/users being able to dictate and shape services (Ball, 2008: 103). Ball (2008) argues that hand in hand with the emergence of this system have been the use of a number of key terms to signify what is required from reform, including

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notions such as ‘transformation’, ‘enterprise’, ‘modernization’, ‘innovation’, ‘creativity’, ‘competition’ and ‘dynamism’. Within the self-improving system, specific policies in relation to the governance and modernization of the school workforce have included, for example, both ‘standards’ for teachers and the National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH) for school leaders. These serve not only to set out expected behaviour, against which performance can be judged, but have also, in recent years, acted as frameworks for progression within the teaching profession: with the NPQH, for example, essentially acting as a benchmark entry requirement for headship in UK schools. Given the notion of such a system, of which policy-makers must surely be part, it is argued that the reforming gaze of government may also be required to look inwards and apply some of the transformative and modernizing approaches used elsewhere on itself; putting in place mechanisms of performativity (such as standards) to ensure that engagement with evidence and participation in activities such as knowledge creation are essential rather than perfunctory and form a vital and integral part of any policy-makers’ career progression. Organizational culture too, however, will need to accommodate learning community activity. Talbert (2010), for instance, notes that, while learning communities rely on collaboration, access to a variety of resources and are directed to establishing mutual accountability and responsibilities in terms of reaching effective outcomes, bureaucracies on the other hand rely on creating checks and balances. In other words, bureaucracies operate by limiting the power of individuals or groups of individuals to act. As a consequence, Talbert argues that bureaucratic resource must be used to facilitate learning strategies: that is, aspects such as collaboration, mutual trust, participation and accountability must be allowed to develop within a context of rules, check-up and accountability.

Beyond luxury research use In examining the consumption of luxury evidence, I have reprised a number of arguments I have made in my previous work as well as proposed solutions. As I illustrate in the first chapter, however, the consumption of luxury research is

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only one of four potential typologies of research use. My analysis above and the solutions posed as part of it are thus only likely to hold in particular situations, or rather, in relation to specific combinations of signifying and use values as they relate to the consumption of evidence. For instance, as I will illustrate in the next chapter, the development of expertise through the instigation of policy-learning communities is likely to be meaningless when what is required is ‘ornamental’ in nature: that is, in situations where research use is centred on affirming rather than informing situations. Similarly, functional research use is likely to be affected by/dependent upon what particular settings or groups of settings (or even meso-level structures such as local authorities or academy chains) wish to implement within or in relation to their schools: learning communities may therefore form solutions in some areas, but other schools/ collections of schools may prefer entirely different solutions when it comes to engaging with evidence. I will return to functional evidence use in Chapter 4.

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The Effects of the Hyperreality

My analysis of ornamental evidence use centres on the notions of the hyperreality. Eco (1967) situates the idea of hyperreality within the sophisticated and often-complex culture of ‘reproduction’ that was pervading the American art scene during the 1960s. For example, the photorealist movement, which represented the ‘real’ with such a degree of accuracy that the ‘copies’ made by photorealist artists could not be easily distinguished from the ‘original’ real. The concept of the hyperreality extends far beyond art, however: in Travels in hyperreality, for example, Eco describes his journey through the United States, examining physical instances of hyperreality and hyperreal artefacts (ranging from the recreation of wild west frontier towns to reconstructed Venetian palazzos containing ‘renaissance’ works of art). He notes after this immersion that, often, hyperreal sites can offer more in the way of ‘reality’ than reality itself can: A real crocodile can be found in the zoo, and as a rule it is dozing or hiding, but Disneyland tells us that faked nature corresponds much more to our daydream demands. When, in the space of twenty-four hours, you go (as I did deliberately) from the fake New Orleans of Disneyland to the real one, and from the wild river of Adventureland to a trip on the Mississippi, where the captain of the paddle-wheel steamer says it is possible to see alligators on the banks of the river, and then you don’t see any, you risk feeling homesick for Disneyland, where the [fake but realistic] wild animals don’t have to be coaxed. Disneyland tells is that technology can give us more reality than nature can. (1967: 44)

Within hyperreality geography too can be compressed, meaning that it is possible to traverse or access numerous sites of reality in a much shorter period of time. In Las Vegas, for example, one can travel from New York to Venice in

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the space of a few blocks, in the British Museum, from ancient Egypt to the North West coast of North America (via Pompeii), literally within minutes. For Eco, then, the hyperreal is something that provides an instant, accessible and digestible ‘version’ of reality, one that can be provided on demand, as and when it is required.

Types of reproduction Since it represents the real, the existence of the hyperreal is dependent on the ability to create a simulacrum: the reproduction of a ‘likeness’ or ‘similarity’. This notion is exemplified by the work of Baudrillard (1994a), who suggests that it is possible to reproduce the social world or objects within it in four types of ways: (1) faithfully, so that copies precisely replicate the original ‘real’ from which they are derived; (2) distorted reproduction, designed to improve on the original real (e.g. by making it more appealing or accessible); (3) the masking of absence, a copy based on other copies, since there is no original real (other than a general concept which resides in the popular psyche); and (4) pure simulacrum, the creation of something totally divorced from any kind of reality. The most effective way to illustrate these four types of reproduction is via references to art. Here, then, as noted at the beginning of the chapter, the faithful can be represented by the photorealists or any artist attempting to ‘accurately’ represent a real place or person. Examples of distorted reproduction meanwhile can be found in the work of Gerhard Richter, who overlays photographs with paint, often only subtly changing the imagery. Similarly, the impressionists captured essence but not substantive detail, illustrating how the real could be recognized simply through its salient features. Reproductions which provide a masking of absence can be seen within the Sistine Chapel and on frescos and other iconography that serves to represent the metaphysical – things we have never and cannot see. Also within this genre are the myriad of statues in the Uffizi, which depict common representations of the Greek and Roman gods or popular characters from myth and legend: we recognize such characters (as we recognize Father Christmas), but they are simply based on images of people as we have come to think of them, rather than present likenesses of real people

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in themselves. Finally pure simulacrum can be found in the abstract, or in the work of pop artists such as Lichtenstein. Lichtenstein’s best-known work, for instance, provides an interpretative reproduction of comic art, in itself a work of fiction: Lichtenstein thus reinterprets scenes from this fiction, creating a reproduction or representation of something that was never intended to convey reality in the first place. Having outlined these four types of reproduction, Baudrillard (1990, 1994a) employs two, his notions of the masking of absence and of pure simulacrum, to argue that post-industrial society has moved from the mass production of objects, which connote or possess sign and symbolic values (see Chapter 2), to the mass production of signs themselves. In other words, he contends that while capitalism has traditionally been served by the use of marketing and branding techniques to create a demand for objects that did not originate from any actual need for them, the information age has shifted the output of society to the creation of both reality and meaning themselves: that is, the consequence of digital technology is that reality can exist as data and so be copied and communicated both continually and with ease; this has led to society being able to produce a bewildering excess of meaning, where even the smallest event is magnified and given importance. As a result, more extreme manipulation of signs is required to achieve ‘cut through’ – to grab the attention of the consumer. Baudrillard’s position can be illustrated effectively when married with Eco’s notion that the hyperreality exists to service a desire for a version of reality that can be experienced ‘on demand’: in particular, these two positions come together most markedly when examining the behaviours and role of the media.

Hyperreality and the media We have, for a long time now, been living in an information age and have become used to both demanding and receiving instant gratification when it comes to our informational requirements. This desire and the ability to meet it have been facilitated by the development and access not only to broadband internet but also to multichannel media platforms. In terms of news and current affairs, for example, in the United Kingdom, Sky, Virgin and Freeview all

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provide access to a number of dedicated channels: running 24/7, these stations (and their related websites) field an army of correspondents that are located in or can quickly access those locations most likely to be newsworthy; advances in communications technology mean that live feeds (or at least images) can now be broadcast with the most basic of kit. Simultaneously, most newspapers now have websites, ensuring that their news provision is always up to date and so can compete with that provided by television. In addition, ‘surrounding’ the output of the mass media is social media: this, for the first time, provides an instant handle on the voxpopuli, enabling it to either be directly reported or otherwise used to judge the general ‘mood music’ in relation to media output. In other words, it can provide a barometer to assess whether the media and/or policy-makers are in tune with the views of society in terms of the reporting of current events, as well as enable the promulgation of alternative discourses.

The media’s creation of new social reality All pervasive media and the investment that has been made to secure its existence means, however, that channels have to continually provide content that interests and excites in order to attract and retain viewers. At the same time, big newsworthy stories do not happen every hour of the day, so each must be made the most of. As a consequence, when a story breaks, all possible details are examined and assessed for importance, with the result that the media machine works assiduously and relentlessly to construct the most detailed hyperreality there is.1 For each and every event, the ‘reality’ of what occurred is re-created as all potential angles are explored, potential witnesses and likely commentators engaged with and points of view and opinion entertained. This, then, is the media simulacra where, thanks to the media’s ability to reproduce the real, we can, should we wish, know everything about anything and experience it over and over again from whatever angle we choose. The outcome, however, is a new version of social reality: even if we had witnessed the event firsthand, we would not have had access to the combined and so augmented experience now afforded to us. At the same time, the only place we can gain access to this version of reality is via the media, since this new reality does not and cannot exist without it.

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The media’s creation of meaning Baudrillard argues that those experiencing the hyperreality derive ‘the pleasure of an excess of meaning’ (1994a: 28) but simultaneously problematizes this, developing the notion of ‘code’ to examine the consequences of simulacra for the interpretation of reality (Baudrillard, 1998). As a concept, code operates in a similar way to Foucault’s notion of discursive power: as something that serves to programme reality (via the construction of simulacra which come to subsume the real) in ways desired and preferred by those in power. This is reflected, for example, in Baudrillard’s contention that ‘the image and information are subject to no principle of [universal] truth or reality’ (1994b: 90). Correspondingly, media hyperrealities will serve to a greater or lesser extent to promulgate positions and arguments which simultaneously serve to reflect, reinforce and also to inform the social realities or the habitus of their reader/viewership (directing them via the agoras of those who own the press, which may or may not align with or reflect the agora of the major political parties). This can be seen, for example, when examining the print media in the United Kingdom, which is clearly aligned to a number of political dispositions, with the broadsheets ranging from the left of centre Guardian to right of centre Times. While the broadcast media in the United Kingdom is bound by legislation and regulated in relation to accuracy and impartiality, and so is less discernibly split along these lines, in the US CNN is regarded as representing the political centre ground, Fox has a strong Republican allegiance, while MSNBC is sympathetic to the Democrats. The position has at times been more extreme in other European countries. In Italy, for instance, three times prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is also the controlling shareholder of Mediaset, the country’s largest media company. This and Berlusconi’s previous influence, as prime minister, over state broadcaster RAI (which, for example, led to the censuring of satirical programs such as RAIot, which on occasion had previously lampooned him) resulted in 2004 to Italy’s press ranking being downgraded from ‘free’ to ‘partly free’ in the Freedom of the Press 2004 Global Survey (Karlekar and Katulis, 2004). It is clear then that the media hyperreality not only reproduces each and every ‘newsworthy’ social fact; it also provides discursive positions through which the events it has created might be

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interpreted (although, as with Foucault’s regimes of truth, it is unlikely that these discourses will ever be fully homogenizing).

The hyperreal’s interpretative critique While it would appear appropriate to discuss the media hyperreality as a whole, since most media outlets covering a particular country or region will, more or less, be focusing on the same few new stories, the individual discourses of individual news outlets will vary according to their predispositions. In other words, for each event, there will be a myriad of competing interpretations as specific channels, websites and newspapers seek to inform consumers while simultaneously persuading and reinforcing their perspectives as to why the event occurred and, importantly, what its implications are. Despite this, there does tend to be an element of commonality with regard to how such interpretations are presented. For example, interpretation is often framed as critique, particularly so with regard to the actions of government and/or policies posited by the opposition (unless either government or opposition is acting in a way totally endorsed, which is rare), with such critique often dressed within a discourse of common sense rationality. In other words, the hyperreal’s interpretative critique alludes to an ideal that government/opposition policy should be based in a widely held understanding of what it is sensible to do, irrespective of the complexities which characterize the policy process and the role of both structures and agency within this. This is, however, an archetype of the notion of government and of policy-making that has probably only existed in the imagination, or fuelled by a longstanding popular understanding of the democratic process as something that should be Habermasian in nature (a critique of which is presented in Chapter 7). Crucially, however, it is in the interests of the media to position this model of government as ideal, simply because any actual act of government will be left wanting in comparison to it: in other words, actual practice and the ideal can be continually compared and so provide a seemingly endless supply of stories. As a consequence, hyperreal media rationality becomes a yardstick against which policy is taken to task: incompetence, waste, failure, mishap, misjudgement and human tragedy are highlighted, exposed and amplified. The

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media hyperreality thus assumes the role of upholding or policing ‘rational’ behaviour, using hard-hitting headlines as a form of punishment when the yardstick has not been met. I provide examples of this in Appendix, where I set out three articles selected from a number of popular media outlets during the period I was writing this chapter (May, 2013). These are presented verbatim, without seeking to embark in any significant debate regarding the pros and cons of the opinions provided in each article (which, in any case, would also simply represent my own views portrayed as common sense). What is also interesting, however, is the way in which readers responded to these articles (which were all from online sources): as a result, selected comments are used to illustrate typical responses (or, in the case of the Daily Mail, whose readers are able to ‘vote’ for comments, those which are particularly popular).

The hyperreality and policy development The act of policy-making too is essentially the creation of meaning, in that the role of political government is to promote specific interpretations regarding how best to respond to issues facing society or to promote a specific interpretation of events. At the same time, however, their primary means for doing this is also via the media hyperreality, since there are no other mechanisms currently in place that have the same reach or ability to affect public opinion (I touch on social media below). This creates tension when what are essentially two (or more) versions of reality ‘collide’. In essence, this is because media reportage, while virtual, has very real effects: a double hermeneutic of the virtual on and with social reality. For instance, hyperreal interpretative critique can galvanizes popular opinion and, as a result, necessitate that policy-makers respond. As a consequence, if it is possible for such newly galvanized opinion to have a negative impact either on the event in question (which may still be unfolding) or in relation to those managing the national response to such an event (or the ways in which they may be managing it), then ‘official’ interpretation or the ‘spin’ of events in response is vital. In this way, the hyperreality as a whole provides a site in which power struggles will ultimately be played out, both between political parties and in terms of the government of the day seeking to defend itself against critique or

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to promote specific views, with all sides seeking to employ the full arsenal of strategies at their disposal in order to promote their version of social fact and to ensure it achieves primacy. This is nicely illustrated by Ganesh (2012), in his autobiography of current UK chancellor George Osborne. Ganesh notes that Osborne is a staunch advocate of politicians ‘weaponising’ policy, a process of cultivating and finessing policy discourse in order to make it electorally potent, capable of swaying voters and destructive to opponents who find them impossible to convincingly argue against. Simultaneously, we often also now see government policy being produced via iterative and constant interaction with the media, for example, the use of press leaks or press releases to gauge reaction, manage expectations or to enter new terms into the prevailing discourse. This represents government often taking a ‘drip feed’ approach to policy, gradually and stealthily introducing ideas so that they can slip in under the media radar until, when viewed in their totality, it is clear that a policy fait accompli has been achieved. At the same time, there are also instances of almost ‘instantaneous’ policy responses to incidents that have been heavily reported upon and scrutinized by the media in ways that call for action. For instance, the week commencing 14 January 2013 saw two major stories being reported on in the press. First, a private helicopter crash into a crane in central London, killing the pilot and a passer-by on the ground (the first and only fatalities caused in London in such a way since records began in 1976) and, second, the so-called ‘burger horsemeat scandal’, the revelation that several supermarkets had inadvertently been supplying beef burgers (later revealed to also include other processed meat products) with horse and pig meat. The Guardian noted in its rolling reporting of the helicopter crash: My colleague Ami Sedghi has been speaking to the Civil Aviation Authority, the UK’s aviation regulator, about frequency of helicopter accidents in central London. They have responded: ‘We can confirm that there have been no fatal helicopter accidents in Central London since our records began in 1976’. According to the CAA: in January 2012 there were approximately 1,300 helicopter movements in central London. The latest stats for October 2012 state the total was 1,565.

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The Guardian (16 January 2013: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jan/16/ helicopter-crash-in-vauxhall-live-updates)

Nonetheless, despite the high volumes of traffic using London’s airspace without incident, almost immediately after the widely reported crash, the prime minister announced a review of flight rules: David Cameron has announced a review of rules governing flights over central London after two people were killed and 13 injured when a helicopter hit a construction crane in Vauxhall, showering metal on rushhour commuters before exploding in a fireball. The Guardian (16 January 2013: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/ jan/16/london-helicopter-crash-flight-rules)

In reporting the ‘burger horsemeat’ incident, the Guardian noted: Four major supermarket chains operating in Britain – Aldi, Iceland, Lidl and Tesco – are withdrawing a number of beef products after horse DNA was found in burgers sold by them in the UK and Ireland. The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI), which made the discovery, said the burgers were produced by two meat processing plants in Ireland, Liffey Meats and Silvercrest Foods, and by the Dalepak Hambleton plant in the UK. In nine of the 10 burger samples from the four retailers, and from the Irish chain Dunnes Stores, horse DNA was found at very low levels. However, in one sample, Tesco Everyday Value Beef Burgers, the level of positive DNA indicated horsemeat accounted for 29% relative to the beef content. Many of them were also found to contain pig DNA. The FSAI said the retailers have agreed to remove all implicated batches from sale. Prof Alan Reilly, chief executive of the FSAI, said that while the findings posed no risk to health, they did raise concerns. ‘The products we have identified as containing horse DNA and/or pig DNA do not pose any food safety risk and consumers should not be worried’, he added. The Guardian (16 January 2013: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/ jan/16/horsemeat-burgers-supermarkets?intcmp=239)

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The key points here are that supermarkets themselves were taking action and that the foodstuffs themselves, while mislabelled, were not dangerous. The day after the horsemeat scandal ‘broke’ (the 17th of January 2013), however, the UK’s Food Standards Agency responded to the ‘outcry’ by announcing that it would test all beef products at UK supermarkets: The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is preparing to test all beef products being sold in UK supermarkets for the presence of horse and other animals, the Guardian has learned … The FSA held emergency meetings with supermarket groups on Wednesday and came under political pressure to establish how far the British food chain had been compromised. The Guardian (17 January 2013: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/ jan/17/horsemeat-scandal-watchdog-test-beef )

An alternative to direct engagement with the hyperreality is the use of social media by policy-makers, with the social media ‘tactics’ used in response to operation of the hyperreality often reported on. For instance, a Guardian article on England’s former education secretary noted: Education secretary Michael Gove has been plunged into a potentially toxic row over allegations that members of his department have used the social networking site Twitter to launch highly personal attacks on journalists and political opponents and to conduct a Tory propaganda campaign paid for by the taxpayer … An anonymous Twitter account called @toryeducation is regularly used to attack critical stories about both Gove and his department. It is often abreast of imminent Tory policies, suggesting it is coming from close to the centre of government. However, it is also used to rubbish journalists and Labour politicians while promoting Gove’s policies and career. Issuing party political material and indulging in personal attacks are both clear breaches of the special advisers’ code and the civil service code.

The same Guardian article also illustrates that this is not a recent phenomenon: In an unfortunate echo of the way the previous Labour government’s spin doctors smeared the weapons scientist David Kelly, the account has likened one respected reporter, the Financial Times’ education correspondent,

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Chris Cook, to Walter Mitty and suggested he was a ‘stalker’. It has also retweeted insinuations about his personal life. The Guardian (2 February 2013: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/ feb/02/gove-advisers-claims-smear-tactics)

The hyperreality and evidence-informed policy-making When seeking to respond to the pressures of the hyperreality, it is likely that the symbolic/signifying value of research will be of more worth to policymakers than use value: that is, of prime importance is that there is research available which may be used to support a discursive position (clearly, however, such research cannot be useless). To put it another way, if we were to ask policy-makers seeking to defend their policies against hyperreal critique to rank the attributes of a specific research object, it is likely that of principal importance would be whether it can be used to fend off criticism/promote a policy; of secondary concern would be the extent to which it can help them resolve practical issues faced in developing their policy. In the extremes of the hyperreal, then, the notion of evidence informed, in any meaningful sense, becomes essentially subservient to the ability to seek discursive hegemony: what matters first and foremost is that policy-makers are able to say something is evidence informed or that someone (preferably of prominence) supports a given position – both of which are generally viewed as positive. It is this type of research production and consumption which I previously described in Chapter 1 as ‘ornamental’: research that can be or is used to embellish a pre-existing position, that is, something that provides the symbolic essence, rather than the functional worth, of policy being of evidence informed. Hyperreal research use (and the notion of evidence informed within the context of the hyperreal) must thus be seen in this light: such research use represents a weapon to defend or secure positions, or an attempt to enforce discursive control at the very point in time where efforts to do so (due to the diffuse ways and channels through which opinion might be influenced and mobilized) are becoming more and more difficult to achieve. As a result, within the hyperreal, my previously mooted notion of policymakers developing expertise with regard to evidence use is unlikely to assist

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the development of evidence-informed policy-making (in any meaningful sense). This is because the role of civil service policy-makers in such instances will have moved from developing the most effective policy solutions possible to supporting policy decisions that are facing critique (and this requires simply grabbing whatever is to hand that can support this process). Because of this, an alternative to expertise is required, and I suggest that this too may have its origins in how the hyperreality operates. For example, in Brown (2011), I note that the use of the press or other forms of media to mobilize social opinion represents a strategy designed to negotiate a number of the factors faced by researchers looking to facilitate the adoption of knowledge; chief among these is that such use attempts to create a ‘demand’ for the information. The effectiveness of such a strategy is affirmed by Campbell et al. (2007), who claim that the media, as a gauge of public opinion, will influence the thinking of both ministers and of senior civil servants. The benefits of mobilizing social pressure via the media can also be illustrated via some of the quotes set out in relation to this subject in Brown (2011: 163–164). For example, researcher interviewees noted: [when] the public discourse is one where they have to attend to evidence, it’ll be taken account of. If you want to get the Department or Ministers to take notice of something actually the Press is … the best route. And there’s quite a lot of evidence. I mean quite often when after a kind of headline we’ll get requests from the [Department for Education] for the original papers and so on and you’d never get those requests otherwise.

As such, it would seem that while the government’s own use of research is defensive, the hyperreality provides the perfect vehicle through which government policy might be challenged offensively through research.

Media misinterpretation A danger of this approach is, of course, misinterpretation, and Moss (2013) provides an interesting example here in relation to the roll out of interactive

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white boards (IWBs) to London secondary schools. Moss’ own evaluation of the roll-out (Moss et al., 2007) suggested that installing IWBs into classrooms had not, at the time of the evaluation, improved pupil performance. Moss went on to argue, however, that this was not necessarily problematic given that the analysis of pupil data had occurred so soon after implementation (while teachers’ pedagogic practice was still adjusting and teachers were learning what features of IWBs might optimize their use as aids to learning). Moss notes that, despite this, public reporting of the evaluation by London’s Evening Standard foregrounded the following: HOW £50M WENT TO WASTE ON A WHITEBOARD Replacing school blackboards with hi-tech IWBs has been a waste of £50 million, say academics. Ministers wanted the whiteboards to help personalise teaching to meet the needs of individual pupils and help children learn at their own pace. However a Government-funded evaluation has found they have had no impact on performance. Pupils were reduced to spectators as teachers produced faster and more complicated electronic displays (Evening Standard, 28 January 2007) (2013: 8)

Reporting which, Moss notes, neither represented the true cost of the introduction of IWBs (£15 million) nor represented the views of the research team. This suggests then that the press are unlikely to report research findings without interpretation and so in an undistorted way. Therefore, if we are seeking to employ the media as a channel for the promotion of truth, we will most likely be wasting our time.

Semiotic guerrilla warfare Instead, the ways in which researchers might actually be able to influence opinion are perhaps best illustrated by examining the notion of semiotic guerrilla warfare (Eco, 1967), an approach that involves: (1) directly influencing the mass media and its news output; and (2) indirect influence of the hyperreality via the harnessing of alternative media and/or opinion formers.2 As a consequence, the actions undertaken as part of such warfare are likely to

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be directed in one or both of two ways. The first is a distortion of the messages that the media might ordinarily produce: for example, the re-creation of social reality might also involve interviewing researchers or the interpretative critique produced by the media might be influenced so that it also comes to provide challenge in relation to specific messages that originate from research. The second is the formation of alternative discourses or ‘regimes of truth’ which, as they reach tipping point, begin to more substantially affect the agoras of both the creators of the hyperreality and, as a result, policy-makers (and/or is likely to influence policy agoras through the operation of ‘echo chambers’ – a notion I explore in Chapter 6). The aim in both cases is to ensure that policy message or media interpretative critique is challenged rather than passively received by individuals. Having this end in mind means that the targets of semiotic guerrilla warfare must naturally be what Triantafillou (2004) refers to as ‘standards of being’, that is, the goals that guide government policy and provide the targets at which it is directed. Directing approaches towards these is thus likely to see government reacting in response, either to counter the attack or to amend its policy accordingly, both types of reaction, of course, providing information (also via the media) to the electorate, who can judge and react accordingly.3 In a sense, then, the use of semiotic guerrilla warfare returns us to the Habermasian position: I have previously critiqued Habermas (see Brown, 2013; I return to this critique in Chapter 7), not because I believe it is wrong to value reason and rationality, but because the world isn’t fundamentally Habermasian in nature: in other words, there is no one universal set of truths; rather truth and rationality are in themselves contextually grounded. This means that, if we seek to influence via the media, we have to acknowledge, right from the beginning of any action aimed at enlightening the public, that this tactic will result in messages but not truth. It does, however, provide a form of challenge function and possibly the closest we might actually get to Habermas’ ‘ideal’ democratic process: decision-making via ‘the force of the better argument’, albeit arguments as selected and interpreted by the media. Nonetheless, even in a Habermasian democracy, our interpretation of given arguments will have their basis in/be influenced by the wider sociocultural milieu in which we are situated, including that of the media (which both reproduces and reflects our predilections). As such, employing such warfare via systems and structures

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that already serve to influence interpretations is the one strategy most likely to work in further enhancing the basis upon which the public make their ballot box decisions.

Employing guerrilla tactics It is noted by the Commission on the Social Sciences that ‘we know that social scientists do not figure much in the media’ (2003: 86). The authors of the report draw their conclusion from a survey conducted by Bryman and Deacon (1996): here only 21 per cent of social scientists involved had actively sought to promote their work to journalists and, in addition, only half of those surveyed had been contacted by journalists of any kind during the previous three years. But if we agree that it is desirable to do so, how might we engage with the arena of the hyperreality and what should our tactics be? One potential approach is outlined by Eco (1967: x) in his discussion of the ‘European Model’, one in which academics play an active public role in writing for the media: … many Italian scholars and literary critics also write columns where they take a stand on political questions, and they do this not only as a natural part of their work, but also as a duty … Cultural anthropologists accept cultures in which people eat dogs, monkeys, frogs and snakes, and even cultures where adults chew gum, so it should be alright for countries to exist where university professors contribute to the newspapers.

Similarly, Baudrillard’s article The Gulf War Will Not Take Place (which subsequently formed a mainstay of his 1995 book, The Gulf War Did Not Take Place) was published in Libération on 4 January 1991, shortly following a vote by the UN Security Council authorizing use of force should Iraq not remove its troops from Kuwait. This piece was followed by The Gulf War, Is It Really Taking Place? And The Gulf War Will Not Take Place in February and March of the same year. This approach (or academics writing for the press) may, however, be regarded as potentially problematic if: (1) it is restricted to a small number of academics and so perspectives; (2) said academics are exclusively retained and continuously used by media outlets and so are viewed

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as the voice of academia by media consumers; and (3) they are engaged solely in polemic activity, rather than deliver their assessments based on their expert knowledge of particular tranches of knowledge. Principally, this is because this approach no longer reflects a position in which many arguments might be heard in relation to a position, but simply extends a situation of duopoly (of government and media) to one of oligopoly, since further challenge from academics outside of this media friendly cabal is unlikely to be heard (and without challenge both good and bad quality research can, of course, be amplified by the media). Possibly a more modern counterpart is advocated by Levin (2013), who suggests that many research-producing organizations such as universities should, rather than focus predominantly on seeking to influence the mass media, look to employ local or social media outlets, for example, blogs or tweeting by prominent academics. Use of social media as guerrilla tactic invokes the Arab Spring, an uprising across the Arab world, driven by Twitter and Facebook. At the same time, it is hard to see how social media can currently be more than a secondary tactic, or at least one that has a very ‘long burn’: it is true that the Arab Spring was driven by twitter, but this was because the mass media that existed in countries such as Egypt, Tunisia and so on was, at the time, controlled by the state and served to promote its messages. In countries where there is a free press, however, the quickest way to achieve a ‘tipping point’ must surely be through those channels which are most accessed and watched. Not only this, but when choosing who to ‘follow’ on Twitter, most people will choose ‘celebrity’ opinion formers, who they have already been exposed to via the mass media. Perhaps, then, we researchers should take our lead from the organizations that exist purely to influence policy, for example, from think tanks who appear to take a more strategic approach to how they handle the media. Here both Rich (2005) and Exley (2008) contend, for instance, that think tanks are increasingly being staffed by those who are media rather than research savvy; Levin (2008: 19) suggests that think tanks now give ‘considerable attention to knowledge mobilisation – it is after all their reason for existence’, while Campbell et al. (2007) note that among the policy-makers they interviewed, lobby and pressure groups were seen to be more skilled than academic researchers in writing user-friendly reports and in presenting key messages in

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concise and actionable ways. Think tanks’ approaches to media engagement also appear to be more systematic and backed by appropriate resources. This notion is also nicely encapsulated by quotes from one think tank respondent in Brown (2011: 165–168): The press exists to make juicier stories out of stories that are there … but for us it’s a really valuable relationship … even if your story gets slightly distorted it will mean that you get invited to interview about something and you can put across your viewpoint as accurately as you wish … so the positives of our relationship with the media definitely outweigh the negatives. What’s very important is our media strategy … and we have a media team who support researchers in writing press releases etc.

Crucially, Haas (2007) notes that the media are happy to present think tank research as credible sources of fact, especially as think tanks were generally likely to display high levels of ‘media convenience’. In other words, to be available to provide last-minute comment in relation to news articles in a user-friendly but authoritative manner, this process then increases policymaker exposure to their work. These points lead the Commission on the Social Sciences (2003) to conclude, as does this chapter, that not only is a more sophisticated understanding of media practice on the part of researchers required, but that plans to communicate research findings via the media (and handling strategies for doing so) should be built into research projects and programmes at the earliest possible opportunity.4

Moving away from policy-making In both this chapter and the last, my analysis has concentrated on the use of evidence within policy-making, both in terms of the ideal (i.e. the use of luxurytype research) as well as the all-too-often real of ornamental use. I now begin to shift my focus to functional evidence use, the use of evidence I associate most with practitioners. I begin in Chapter 4 with an examination of the issues associated with context and the costs of recontextualizing generalized evidence so that it applies to individual settings. I then examine the benefits of focusing on developing an understanding of and applying evidence at the level

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of the individual (Chapter 5) before introducing the notion of the ‘scene’ as a means of illustrating how the UK’s self-improving school system is most likely to ‘self-improve’ in actuality (Chapter 6).

Appendix: Examples of hyperreal critique The following three examples of hyperreal critique were taken from the Daily Express and Daily Mail during May 2013. In keeping with my arguments above, they illustrate the role the media plays in mediating or policing ‘rational’ government behaviour and how it uses hard-hitting headlines/ copy as a form of punishment when the yardstick of rationality has not been met: Taxpayers forced to cough up £5 billion for Government failure over benefit fraud and error AS IF times are not hard enough in Britain already, millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being lost because of the Government’s failure to clamp down effectively on fraud and error, MPs warned today. Incredibly, Revenue and Customs is set to achieve less than half the projected savings from reducing fraud and error in the payment of tax credits, the Commons Public Accounts Committee has blasted. The 2010 spending review set HMRC a target of saving £8 billion by 2015, but the committee said that it now estimated it would miss its goal by a massive £5 billion. A committee report branded the hapless department’s handling of tax credits ‘poor and hugely disappointing’. In 2010/11 alone, it lost £2.3 billion due to error and fraud – £850 million more than expected – with one-in-five awards of tax credits thought to have resulted in the claimants being overpaid. The following year it wrote off £1.7 billion in tax credit debts as uncollectable. Although the committee said that HMRC had massively increased the numbers of checks it carried on individuals from 123,000 to almost 2 million, it had only resulted in a doubling of the money saved. (Daily Express 22 May 2013: http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/401632/ Taxpayers-forced-to-cough-up-5BILLION-for-Government-failure-overbenefit-fraud-and-error).

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Comment by ‘Ekimwar’: ‘Calculated incompetence? Time and time again, we learn that Government cannot do the basic job of government; and yet they seek greater control in every aspect of our lives. The 10k increase in politicians’ pay is not earned; and it is repeated, they should take a pay cut until they MERIT what they are currently being paid. They must work for the people as good servants; not very poor, incompetent masters’. It’s the economy, stupid THE gay marriage row has done more damage to Conservative Party unity than any law in living memory. The legislation was unnecessary and unexpected and pursued in the most high-handed fashion, leaving many of the party’s most steadfast supporters bitterly disappointed and upset. If it wishes to mend fences the Government must get back to the key priorities it was formed to pursue: getting down the deficit, reigniting economic growth, helping families with the cost of living, reforming welfare and cutting taxes on hard-working people. It is by these benchmarks and not trendy social reforms that David Cameron’s administration will be judged come the next election. Banging on about gay weddings will hardly impress voters who cannot afford their heating bills. (Daily Express 22 May 2013: http://www.express.co.uk/comment/ expresscomment/401460/It-s-the-economy-stupid). Comment by ‘TrevorD’: ‘EU Referendum; unsustainable immigration; flatlining economy; dead housing market; foreign gangs roaming London; stupid Green Energy policies......... one is surprised at his choice of priority for gay weddings’. How to make foreign aid work for Britain Is the penny finally beginning to drop that, at a time of spending restraint at home, it is morally unsustainable to lavish extra billions on overseas aid? Officially, David Cameron remains wedded to his wrong-headed policy of handing 0.7 per cent of national income – or £11 billion a year – to the Department for International Development. Yet, quietly, plans to enshrine this posturing commitment in law appear to have been sidelined and will not appear in next week’s Queen’s Speech.

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Meanwhile Justine Greening, the International Development Secretary, has made sensible decisions to stop pouring money into the pockets of relatively wealthy foreign powers. First, space programme-endowed India was stripped of aid. Now South Africa – which accounts for over a third of subSaharan Africa’s total GDP – is to lose its £19 million-a-year government handout. Perhaps even more significant is the decision by the Prime Minister to allow the aid budget to be used to fund work by other government departments. Rightly, the Ministry of Defence, which performs peacekeeping and disaster relief in some of the most dangerous places on earth, is most likely to benefit. It’s ludicrous to expect the MoD to make further cuts in troop numbers, while DfID sits on a budget so bloated that it does not know how to spend it all. But ministers in other corners of Whitehall who make grants to projects abroad must also be able to reclaim money from the aid budget. For example, spending by Michael Gove on initiatives overseas should never be allowed to divert funding from Britain’s schools. In these troubled times, the Mail continues to believe that ring-fencing the foreign aid budget is misguided posturing of the worst kind. Is it too much to hope ministers are at last taking steps in the right direction? (Daily Mail 2 May 2013: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2318008/ How-make-foreign-aid-work-Britain.html) Comment by ‘dims’: ‘How can we give away money when in the UK we have food banks? – Red Velvet, Chester, 02/5/2013 07:30 – Easy, because the people in charge hardly done a days REAL work and lived in a REAL world, the current bunch are all school to uni to office, they have no idea how the real people live in a real world, and after all, its not their money, so giving it away is easy, if you have to ask Cameron or Clegg to donate £5m out of their OWN pocket to aid, I bet you any money, they would spent weeks if not months trying to find out how the moey [sic] will get use and who would benefit and making sure none will go to waste or corruption, if in any doubt, they would cancel the donation, but with taxpayers money, the decision is far easier’.

Part Two

Practice

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Islands of Context

The idea that teachers should engage with research and evidence is invariably intertwined with broader discussions regarding continual professional development and the twenty-first-century requirements for a reflective teaching profession (e.g. Schon, 1983; MacBeath, 2005; OECD, 2005; Pollard and Newman, 2010). It is also often grounded in a moral imperative regarding the basis upon which practitioners and schools make decisions in relation to teaching and learning (e.g. see Goldacre, 2013). I now consider practitioner use of research (returning to my typology in Chapter 1 – my analysis has now shifted to functional evidence use); in doing so, however, I skirt around the topics I outline above. In the main, this is because they have been covered in detail elsewhere. In addition, I have, in the Introduction, already set out my belief that evidence should be engaged with by teachers in order to enhance their understanding of how to approach or tackle particular situations. Instead, then, I consider how context impacts upon the ways in which practitioners engage with research and the alternatives to top–down evidence-informed solutions. I begin the chapter by briefly considering two recent experiences: one in Pakistan and one in Tower Hamlets.

The Punjab I recently spent a grand total of 14 days in Pakistani Punjab. Mainly this was in Lahore, but I also made a number of visits to rural schools in the surrounding countryside, often run by just one teacher. The purpose of my trip was to evaluate how the government of Punjab trains and develops its teachers and to propose how a new system of licensing and accreditation might serve to improve on this. On the whole, I have been uncomfortable with this mission:

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to do my job well I have had to develop an understanding of the Punjabi teacher recruitment and development process in the space of some two weeks. Frankly, grasping the contextual nuances and complexities of a system very different to my own, in such a short space of time and often via a translator, was difficult. Not only this, but I then needed to critique this system and make recommendations as to how it might be improved. Both effective critique and suggestions for change, however, depended on me knowing what might work here, and it is clear that my understanding of social reality – of the norms, commonalities and beliefs of those inhabiting the social world – were never likely to be the same as those who inhabit a cultural system that, in many ways, is diametrically opposite to mine. What is the alternative then? Perhaps the government officials and teachers I worked with would develop a better understanding of their own efforts if we switched positions: by coming to England, by observing real-life practice in English schools, by questioning it and, importantly, by immediately being able to relate aspects (or the drivers) of effective practice back to what they know, the Punjabis, in my opinion, might stand a better chance of creating something better able to deliver what they are seeking to achieve.

Tower Hamlets My approach as a ‘researcher in residence’ for a teaching school alliance in the London borough of Tower Hamlets has perhaps been more productive. The alliance comprises a number of primary and secondary schools, a special school and a nursery. The role of the two lead schools in the alliance is to support the training and professional development of the teachers, supportstaff and head teachers within it, as well as contribute to an overall raising of alliance standards through school-to-school support. In terms of this last duty, the lead schools are, as are the other members of the alliance, keen to understand what they currently do well when attempting to improve literacy outcomes in an area of massively high deprivation and where often English is used as a second language. As such, I have been to each school interviewing the head teacher and the literacy coordinator (as well as examining school documents), to ascertain what their practice is in relation to the teaching

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of literacy and which aspects of this practice appear to lead to outstanding outcomes for pupils. While I have produced a thematic analysis at an alliance level, the idea is not to impose a homogenous solution on schools: instead we discuss the nature of what can be observed across schools and so what each individual school might do to tap into these drivers of effective practice. In other words, we work collaboratively to produce bespoke solutions that will be worked up and implemented by the schools themselves. My ongoing role, meanwhile, will be to observe and evaluate the effectiveness of these attempts.

The importance of context My experience of the Punjab and of Tower Hamlets would seem to suggest that the importance of context and the difficulties in reconciling different contexts when seeking to provide solutions to issues of policy or practice cannot be understated. Putting it another way, within a given context, objects specific to that context ‘make sense’; they fit in and seem harmonious with their settings. When removed and transplanted to a new setting, a new context with different norms and values, such objects no longer exhibit the same kind of harmony – they stick out and consequently are likely to be treated or viewed as such. In essence then, such objects need to be recontextualized, that is, reconstructed in keeping with their new environment. The same is true for research: context and the activities undertaken within a context affect how, and the extent to which, evidence findings, whether in themselves or as represented by centralized policy initiatives or guidelines (i.e. evidence-informed ‘solutions’), are likely to be enacted within schools. The issues associated with research recontextualization in practice settings are nicely illustrated by Moss (2013) in relation to England’s National Literacy Strategy (NLS) for primary schools, a policy which has its origins in the very public reporting of the poor attainment in reading in primary schools in innercity London (e.g. Ofsted, 1996 and Chapter 5) and the (as was) Conservative government’s response. Moss argues that while the NLS was initiated as a top– down programme, it was intended by those who developed the policy that data from schools would help policy-makers adjust and fine tune their approach. Despite this, Moss also notes that

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the central Strategy team took responsibility for analyzing the data on performance gains and deciding where the policy should go next. Such decisions had to be partly tailored to the political environment in which they operated. By contrast, teachers involved at classroom level had fewest opportunities to reflect on, let alone alter aspects of the programme. … Difficulties teachers identified in practice could be passed on up the line but those in central implementation team reserved the right to determine which key factors were hindering progress most and agree on how further improvements should be secured. [As a result], the solutions the team decided on and passed back down to those at the frontline might not be recognized or even needed in the particular local contexts they entered. (2013: 5: my emphasis)

The issue is further explored by März and Kelchtermans (2013: 13), who examine the relationship between evidence and its implementation. They too suggest that ‘schools’ and teachers’ practices are never simply a matter of executing prescriptions and procedures … schools and classes differ and thus constitute different contexts that affect the actual form of teaching and learning practices’. In addition, however, they note that research is never value neutral: by the time it has reached schools it will have been subject to interpretation by either researchers or government and so will be informed by their specific values as they relate to education. This will inevitably raise further contextual issues: for example, which of these values correspond with those of the school or setting (and/or the individual teachers within it) and how any conflict in values might materialize: who will have a say in shaping implementation, will what is implemented end up looking anything like what was envisaged centrally and, ultimately, does this matter? Issues in marrying centrally prescribed, ‘evidence-based’ solutions with local context have also been reported in professions such as medicine and social work. For example, Rexvid et al. (2012) examined general practitioners’ and social workers’ reactions to initiatives to implement ‘evidence-based’ guidance. Here they found that both types of professionals expressed numerous concerns regarding the impact of the guidance on their ability to carry out patient/client-centric practice. In particular, concerns were raised with regards to: (1) the difficulty in applying statistical risk assessments to concrete individual cases; (2) potential threats to the doctor–patient/social

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worker–client relationship; and (3) the general failure of evidence-based solutions to capture the complexity of the patient’s clinical picture or the client’s contextual and cultural background. Rexvid et al. report that the first of these issues was particularly evident when general practitioners (GPs) perceived that a strict implementation of something ‘evidence-based’ might constitute an apparent risk to the patient’s health. Hence, faced with the risk of misdiagnosing, GPs sometimes chose to ignore evidence-based guidelines. The second issue concerned the preferences of patients/clients with regard to their treatment/care, which might not accord with what evidence suggests. Third, there was a perceived discrepancy between the complex clinical picture experienced in the doctor’s practice and evidence-based guidelines: physicians thus chose to deviate from evidence-based guidelines when they perceived that adherence to them reduced the complexity of the patient’s clinical account.

The cost of recontextualization It is, of course, possible to conceive of ways in which evidence and theory might successfully be recontextualized so that general principles might be reprincipled across a number of settings. Cartwright (2013), for instance, argues that evidence findings derived in one setting may also serve another so long as, first, the drivers of cause and effect apply in both settings; and, second, and crucially, the support factors upon which cause and effect depend in the original setting are also present in the new setting (in other words, causes need the right support so that they behave as expected). While the former may be readily assumed in societies and social settings that broadly share principles and norms, the existence of the latter is, however, less likely. For example, Cartwright illustrates how initiatives to reduce class sizes in Tennessee led to better exam results, but the same initiatives failed in California because a dearth of high-quality teaching staff led to inadequate cover for the increased number of classes. It is clear then that there is also a cost to any centralized imposition of evidence-informed practice, namely, the cost of reconfiguring findings or exemplar cases to the specific situations practitioners find themselves facing. In other words, the costs of recontextualizing will equal the costs of interpreting findings by settings and/or the implementation of

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appropriate support structures within settings. In the case of California, the cost is relatively easy to quantify (the cost of hiring x number of high-quality teachers); in other examples, it may be less easy to calculate; nonetheless, it will still exist.

Inductive versus deductive knowledge To understand the alternative to evidence-informed solutions that are ‘top down’ in nature, that is, where actions or practices which are influenced by evidence are prescribed centrally and for all schools or practitioners, it is important to ascertain the different ways in which we might come to know about and so act in relation to the social world. Broadly speaking, two approaches are most commonly discussed: theory building and application via deduction, and the development of inductive understanding and solutions. The first of these approaches, deduction, concerns the process of identifying generalizable, universal principles, in other words, the development of allencompassing theory to explain the workings of the social world. Until proven, however, such theories remain hypothetical (Russell, 1912). The aim of deductive research, therefore, is to test such theories and ascertain their ability to predict and define the social phenomenon. Thus, the deductive approach naturally lends itself to an emphasis on pre-specified criteria or parameters for comparison (themselves derived from the generalizing/overarching theory); this in itself tends to lead to a preference or privileging of experimental or scientific methods, since these are regarded as suitable for testing hypotheses where control of predictive outcomes is required (Dunne et al., 2005). Similarly such criteria are employed to organize the research data once collected.1 Should deductive theories be ‘proven’ (or indeed if they display such face validity that it is felt not necessary to prove them), then the next logical step is that the implications of such theories can be rolled out via projects and programmes to practice settings. An alternative to deduction is the notion of induction: developing understanding from and in order to produce solutions for specific empirical situations and then seeking to expand the extent or the number of situations to which such understanding/solutions might apply. A fundamental issue with

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induction and inductive methods, of course, is that the results of any initial activity can only, with any semblance of certainty, apply to the situation from which it was derived. With practitioner-based approaches to investigation, this will be particularly so as inductive solutions will stem from the way data are interpreted, which is likely to be intrinsically bound with the tacit and experiential knowledge held by those undertaking the research (in itself this is likely to be firmly grounded within the setting in question – more so than for researchers external to that setting). It is suggested by Ayer, however, that ‘we are entitled to have faith [in the inductive method]’ (1952: 50) and that ‘it is a mistake to demand a guarantee where it is logically impossible to obtain one’ (1952: 50). In other words, it is unlikely that we would ever be in a position to prove that inductively derived principles can be successfully applied to all potential situations. Ayer argues, instead, that it is the hall mark of reasoned behaviour that we allow ourselves to be guided by what has been successful in the past or in a given context or setting. Russell, meanwhile, suggests that the more frequently that phenomena are associated, ‘the more probable it becomes that they will be [associated] another time, and that, if they have been found together often enough, the probability will amount almost to certainty’ (1952: 47). In support of the inductive approach, Nutley et al. (2012) suggest that there has, in more recent times, been a call for more ‘bottom-up’ approaches to define and/or encourage evidence-informed practices – in other words, those where research activities are planned, implemented, analyzed and reported entirely by practitioners, who subsequently base their interventions on research findings (e.g. see Bell et al., 2010). Nutley et al. suggest that one such example stems from Hogam et al. (2011), who, in their discussion of the Singaporean education system, describe the emphasis Singapore’s national government is now placing on facilitating autonomy at the level of schools/ school clusters. Correspondingly, a top–down system of disseminating best practice is now being replaced by an increasing focus on the role of schools as knowledge producers, who co-produce the research agenda in conjunction with researchers. By framing this approach as ‘co-production’, however, the Singaporean model perhaps reflects the notion that it may be desirable for inductive enquiry to be informed by what is accepted as the ‘best available evidence’, that is, tranches or aggregations of evidence, undertaken by

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researchers of myriad perspectives and which suggests a common given direction or course of action (Brown, 2013). This is for two reasons: first, such evidence may help steer or guide the direction practitioners take so that they are not ‘re-inventing the wheel’ when engaging in inductive activity; second, even with approaches to research that begin with the aim of undertaking a purely inductive approach, it is usually subsequently acknowledged that researchers (and others) engaging in inductive investigation will ultimately need to introduce formal, pre-existing concepts into the analysis, since these often help effectively explain what data are saying (steeped as they are within the analysis undertaken to date with regard to a given issue), or importantly, how action in relation to what data are suggesting might be framed.2 As such, a potential alternative to either the inductive or deductive approach may be found in the work of Nutley et al. (2012), who address the problem of what comprises good evidence, in particular, Nutley et al.’s suggestion that quality can only be assessed in relation to context and in terms of the practiceor policy-related questions being asked at the time. There is no simple answer to the question of what counts as good evidence. It depends on what we want to know, for what purposes, and in what contexts we envisage that evidence being used. Research data only really become information when they have the power to change views, and they only really become evidence when they attract advocates for the messages they contain. Thus endorsements of data as ‘evidence’ reflect judgements that are socially and politically situated. (2012: 18)

As a result, it may be that an ‘abductive’ approach is what is actually required: that is, a process through which deductive, ‘best available’, evidence is applied alongside practitioner understanding/data/enquiry in order to frame or define an issue, provide an understanding of how it might be addressed and/ or help ensure that data might be analyzed most effectively (Mason, 2002). A fundamental difference then between deductive evidence-informed solutions (such as that described by Moss above) and what occurs in an abductive situation is that the choice of any formal knowledge engaged with is made by the practitioner such that it best suits their needs, circumstances or priorities. In other words, formal research is filtered through a ‘contextual window’, a kind of practitioner ‘agora’, which determines what formal research might be

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considered (for instance, with regard to the nature of the issue and acceptable ways of tackling it). Similarly, abduction improves on inductive approaches by grounding what is known about one case (whether that be through a teacher’s ‘practical’ knowledge or through practitioner enquiry) within what is known about cases of a similar type more generally (Cordingley et al., 2005; Bell et al., 2010; Pollard and Newman, 2010).

The economics of the long tail If, because of the effort of recontextualization, deductive or centralized methods can sometimes prove ‘costly’ to implement, then the abductive alternative may prove to be ‘cheaper’ by virtue of it taking advantage of the economics of the ‘long tail’. The ‘long tail’, a phrase coined by Anderson (2006), represents the argument that in a situation where the costs of production and distribution are high and so choice is scarce, producers will seek out those high-selling objects that will make a profit. Essentially this is reflected by the 80:20 principle: 80 per cent of profits are traditionally made from the sales of 20 per cent of consumer goods. Consumers meanwhile can consume only from what is available. When production and distribution costs are lower, however (for instance, Anderson examines the sales data of virtual outlets such as iTunes and Amazon), sales tend to be more evenly distributed. For example, rather than the 80:20 principle, Anderson suggests that up to 98 per cent of iTunes’ and Amazon’s profits come from similar selling objects: in other words, there become fewer ‘hits’ or big sellers. As well as applying to more standard consumer goods, however, I suggest that the notion of the long tail might also apply to the consumption and production of research. Currently, approaches to research production and consumption would also seem to be based on the 80:20 principle: Levin (2013), for instance, argues that policy-makers typically tend towards the big – the one piece of luxury research or solutions based on this that can be applied everywhere, in order to drive uniform change and improvement. Correspondingly, the exchange costs3 involved in producing much policy-centred research (especially given many governments’ predilections towards Randomised Control Trials and statistically robust quantitative approaches) are likely to be high, as are the

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costs of transforming the outputs of the research into useable messages, which then have to be distributed to schools. In addition to this will be the exchange costs of other support provided to schools to implement the policy solutions or requirements based on the research in question. Such costs, however, will be countered by a perception (or hope or belief) by policy-makers that the ‘use value’ of the luxury research will also be high: that in seeking to apply high cost solutions, policy makers will be rewarded with a suitable pay-off in terms of nationwide improvements in outcomes for teachers, schools and pupils. As already noted, however, when it comes to practice, it is context that matters. Therefore, if practitioners are able to ‘grow their own’ understandings, they may effectively be in a position to transform the traditional economic model of research production and use to one replicating a long tail market: one where lots of individual smaller use values, on aggregate, can equate to something bigger. I now illustrate this argument further, using Figure 4.1. Returning to my analysis in Chapter 1, I argue that the exchange value of research represents the price of consumption. As well as relating to demand, such cost will be a function of the costs of production noted above (which I short hand to implementation: essentially, this is the cost of recontextualizing research). Exchange value will also be a function of the use value of research and so can be a proxy measure for the overall value of an object to the consumer. Use value of luxury research to setting

High

High

Low

Medium exchange value

No exchange value

High exchange value

Low exchange value

Cost of implementation

Low

Figure 4.1 The effects of the level of implementation support required and the use value of luxury research on functional use value

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Examining the interplay between the costs of implementation and the use value to the consumer, it can be seen in Figure 4.1 that: (1) where use value is high, the costs of implementation will be the key determinant of exchange value, that is, the worth of the research – lower implementation costs thus have a positive impact on exchange value; (2) if implementation costs are high but use value is low, exchange value is minimal. In other words, the success of the top–down approach relies on the solution provided by the luxury research in question being both useful and directly applicable to the situation. As Moss (2013) illustrates with NLS, and Cartwright (2013) illustrates with the case of California, however, this may or may not be the case. Thus, the level of exchange value that may be achieved by the top–down approach may not be as great as originally hoped for. The abductive ‘long tail’ approach, on the other hand, sees lots of little bits of this evidence being produced that are both useful and applicable. In aggregate, then, these may well end up providing more research exchange value overall: this approach thus provides a useful alternative model of research production and consumption. In other words, the use value for each school, combined with the lower overall production costs involved, might provide a more effective basis for much of what might comprise evidence-informed practice.4

What might hinder practitioners becoming evidence producers? Despite the longstanding interest in the use of practitioners producing and employing evidence (this theme, for example, formed the mainstay of Hargreaves (1996) lecture to England’s [as was] Teacher Training Agency), it is noted by Campbell and Levin (2012a: 3) that ‘educators may lack time, resources, skills, and individual and institutional supports for meaningfully engaging with research … ’ (also see Bell et al., 2010). In addition, Campbell and Levin suggest that, if research is to be used to improve educational practice and pupil outcomes, ‘capacity’ will be required, specifically that work in England should focus on two areas: 1. Developing stronger networks among and between educators, researchers and intermediary organizations; 2. Developing capacity within schools to find, understand, share and act

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on research. This capacity may be improved through training to improve skills, or through institutional changes which create the time or resources for schools to undertake these activities. (Campbell and Levin, 2012a: 3).

The notion of ‘capacity’ has been defined by Stoll (2009a: 1) as the ‘quality that allows people, individually and collectively … to learn from the world around them’. The ability for practitioners to adopt knowledge will therefore be a function of their capacity to engage with evidence processes; in other words, it will be dependent upon whether practitioners possess the skills required to understand and interpret the research outputs they encounter or to produce new outputs themselves. Campbell and Levin (2012b) thus view capacity as a function of users’ ability to ‘find’ (i.e. to identify pertinent research and have time to engage with it), to ‘understand’ (i.e. to possess the skills required to both critically assess and interpret and research), to ‘share’ (i.e. to pass on what has been learned) and to ‘act on’ research (i.e. that schools are able to incorporate research into their decision-making). Further specifics on what such capacity might entail may be found in a number of sources, including Campbell et al. (2007); Durrent and Holden (2006); Earl and Katz (2006); Earl and Timperley (2008); and Schildkamp and Hubers (2013), and could form a chapter in their own right, hence I will not reiterate them here. Returning to my analysis above, it is clear that there may be some costs involved in building capacity and this, as a result, may impact on the exchange value that will accrue to activities associated with practitioners ‘growing their own’ understanding. Nonetheless, as I suggest in Chapter 6, these costs may be better viewed as short-term investment with exchange value (as a function of use value) tending to increase in the years following such investment. It should also be noted that the existence of capacity in itself will not necessarily lead to increased instances of research use. This is illustrated by Levin et al. (2011), who sought to investigate how research is encountered and used to shape policy and practice in Canadian secondary schools (employing a collaborative approach involving superintendents, principals and others with designated leadership roles in eleven school districts across the country). Levin et al.’s approach was to trial three interventions, implemented throughout the 2008/2009 school year in nine districts. Specifically, the interventions were designed to: (1) implement a system to share research articles; (2) set up study groups around research issues and; (3) ensure districts were conducting

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research. An evaluation of these interventions suggests that (2011: 1): (1) even in districts with capacity, actual frequency of research use often remains modest; therefore research capacity is not necessarily synonymous with use; (2) better ways are needed to increase daily use of research and embed that use in organizational systems and processes; (3) knowledge mobilization activity still appears to depend heavily on volunteerism or on a few interested people rather than being embedded in daily practices; (4) educators’ beliefs are shaped more by experience and colleagues than by empirical evidence; and (5) interventions to increase research use had modest success. Interventions were most successful where both designated intermediaries/facilitators were involved and the research used was connected to existing priority issues. But if Levin et al.’s findings are correct and capacity alone is not enough, what then might facilitate a desire to build capacity to employ evidence and a concomitant incentive to use it? A potential solution may exist: Campbell and Levin’s (2012a: 3) argument that little attention has been paid to a ‘systematic approach [to evidence use by practitioners] in routines, behaviours and practices within and across education organizations’. Sebba (2012), for example, identifies a need to focus on and instil ‘professional expectations’, that is, to ensure that standards or other guidelines which govern professional behaviour compel practitioners to engage with research. A recent review by Wilkins (2013) has illustrated the extent of official support for teachers’ engagement in practitioner research internationally and suggests that a clear spectrum exists which ranges from the simple encouragement of research production/use to research production/use forming a core competence of the profession (and sometimes being required for advancement). Wilkins notes, for example, that in China, Article 7 of the Teachers Law provides that Teachers shall enjoy the following rights: to conduct education and teaching activities and carry out reform and experiment in education and teaching; to engage in scientific research and academic exchanges, join professional academic societies and fully express their views in academic activities. (Ministry of Education PRC, 1993–1994 quoted in Wilkins, 2013)5

At the opposite end of the spectrum sits Shanghai, where school staff are organized into teaching and research groups, with the role of the latter being to carry out and publish research (publishing research being a requirement to become a master teacher: Asia Society, 2012). Somewhere in the middle

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sits Ontario, whose statement of standards of practice for the teaching profession includes the commitment to ‘reflect on their practice and learn from experience; and draw on and contribute, where appropriate, to various forms of educational research’ (Ontario College of Teachers, 1999). In contrast, Sebba (2012) notes that England’s new Teaching Standards (implemented from September 2012) do not mention the word ‘research’; the closest these standards come, in fact, is on in the context of professional development where it is stated that Appropriate self-evaluation, reflection and professional development activity is critical to improving teachers’ practice at all career stages. The standards set out clearly the key areas in which a teacher should be able to assess his or her own practice, and receive feedback from colleagues. (DfE, 2012b: 4)

Sebba contrasts this to the requirements set out by the England’s medical profession. In particular she highlights The Royal College of General Practitioners’ Curriculum Statement 3.6 on research (my emphasis),6 which states that All GPs will be initiators, collaborators or users of research. In this context, the minimum competence required is that of a user. The effective user of research will be able to demonstrate competence in the following areas: 1. Prioritising relevant information 2. Critical appraisal 3. Problem framing 4. Accessing evidence 5. Implementing change in clinical practice.

The statement then goes on to suggest that (RCGP 2006: 6) All GPs should be familiar with essential components of the research process. They should be able to: 1. Develop a research question 2. Identify appropriate methods from a range of designs 3. Draw up a questionnaire 4. Demonstrate basic quantitative and qualitative data analysis skills 5. Draw appropriate conclusions 6. Summarise results

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In medicine then, localized evidence production and use is mandated rather than simply encouraged.

And what of teaching schools? Teaching Schools are a fundamental element of England’s current government’s drive to create a ‘self-improving’ school system (Hargreaves, 2010). It is observed by Wilkins (2013) that The one place in the English system where practitioner research is officially encouraged is in Teaching Schools. This appears an act of enlightenment for which credit is due, even though there is no correlation between the factors which enable a school to achieve Teaching School status and the factors which make a school a conducive environment for practitioner research.

The role of teaching schools is described on the National College for Teaching and Leadership’s website,7 where it is stated that ‘collaboration sits at the heart of the teaching school model. Teaching Schools are required to form an alliance with other schools and key strategic partners such as LAs or HEIs in order to form teaching school alliances (TSAs)’. The purpose of an alliance is to build capacity to support other schools in a wider network, in relation to the six key tasks, of which the sixth is engaging in research and development activity. In relation to this final task, it is stated on the National College’s website that the college expects teaching schools involved in research and development to 1. Show evidence of engagement in research and development which reflects agreed priorities, builds on existing external research/evidence and contributes towards the alliance’s overall priorities; 2. Ensure that new initiatives within the alliance are based on existing evidence and include a rigorous evaluative focus, drawing on external expertise; 3. Demonstrate an ability to work with other teaching schools on research and development activities as part of regional or national networks where appropriate;

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4. Ensure that existing evidence can be accessed and used by staff and that appropriate staff have the time and support needed to undertake research and development activities; and 5. Effectively disseminate learning from research and development work across the alliance and the wider school system. The National College has also set up a national research and development network to support teaching school alliances to engage in research activities. This provides opportunities for training, sharing expertise and wider dissemination of ‘what works’ and provides a forum for networking between teaching school leaders and teachers, so they can learn from and with each other (Sebba et al., 2012a; 2012b). Three national research and development themes were identified by the teaching schools and three associated research projects set up to address them have been funded by the National College for 2012−2014. Specifically, these examine what makes great pedagogy?; what makes great professional development which leads to consistently great pedagogy?; and how can leaders lead successful teaching school alliances which enable the development of consistently great pedagogy? It is clear then that the Teaching School approach plays a halfway house between compulsion to engage in research and support for doing so. The latter aspect (support) appears designed to tackle the issues identified by Levin et al. (2011) regarding capacity and the need for intermediaries (for instance, the National College has commissioned the Institute of Education, and Sheffield Hallam University to support Teaching School Alliances to undertake cross alliance research and development projects). The former aspect is reflected through statements such as Teaching Schools must ‘ensure that new initiatives within the alliance are based on existing evidence and include a rigorous evaluative focus, drawing on external expertise’. This, however, is only incumbent on schools who have already volunteered to take part – in other words, those who have, by their inclusion, already demonstrated some propensity or interest to engage in research. This then raises questions as the long-term viability and sustainability of the project. Hargreaves argues that a truly self-improving school system is one in which ‘school improvement and professional development are conjoined in the life and work of a school in relation to its chosen partners’ (Hargreaves 2012: 6) and is based on the notion

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of partnerships or alliances of schools acting as engines for improvement. Can such a pilot approach to this type of fundamental development ever be rolled out across the school system as a whole, if identifying best practice is dependent simply on high-cost support and good will?

The implications for evidence-informed practice While there are seemingly as many arguments in favour of evidence-informed practice as there is evidence-informed policy-making (e.g. see Hargreaves, 1996; Earl and Katz, 2006), consideration now needs to be given as to how such practice might be determined. All too often evidence-informed solutions are prescribed from government or from organizations seeking to ascertain ‘what works’ for the education system as a whole (e.g. Moss, 2013). While there is some merit in this, individual contexts matter and the need to recontextualize centralized or generalized evidence can be costly and sometimes off putting for schools. The alternative I outline above is the abductive model: practitioners employing or engaging with formal research alongside their own enquiry/ analysis of data, with their choice of research framed by their needs and priorities (such framing represents a practitioner ‘agora’ which filters research according to practitioners’ contextual situation and its nuances). What is also abundantly apparent from my experience of working with schools in order to help them to identify and scale up best practice, however, is that any kind of school improvement initiative will only ever be successfully implemented when: (1) there is definite focus on tackling the issue in question; (2) there is clarity and confidence as to how the approach will be applied; and (3) that this approach is administered consistently and unstintingly. This must also be true practitioners’ use of research: if we are to ensure practitioners produce or use evidence that can help them deal with the day-to-day practical issues they face in their setting, the localized production of understanding must also exist as a norm. In order to achieve this it must, to an extent and in one form or another, become an ‘as standard’ that all practitioners are expected to reach. This suggests that we must move beyond volunteerism and towards making evidence use the norm: it must be expected of teachers (by pupils, parents, unions and employers) that they employ evidence to improve their

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practice. Similarly it should become an expectation of teachers themselves, that they feel supported in professional development and in understanding implications of research for their practice (including expectation of efforts by researchers to make their work relevant, accessible, including or via efforts to build practitioner capacity in this area). I now continue this aspect of my analysis in Chapters 5 and 6. In the next chapter, I examine the notion of the ‘long tail’ in more detail, specifically in relation to examples of where schools and one local authority have focused on providing solutions at the level of the individual pupil, teacher or school in order to achieve outstanding results. Chapter 6, meanwhile, examines the notion of ‘scene’: a place or set of distinctive activities that provide alternatives to current cultural norms. Here I use the idea of ‘scene’ to suggest that meaningful evidence-informed practice is only likely to grow in an organic self-determined way as, first, individual school leaders in determining the ethos and approach of their school decide to implement evidence scenes based on the individual focus I note above, and, second, as these scenes slowly inspire others to follow suit.

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Individual Focus, Outstanding and Confident Performances

I continue my analysis of functional evidence use by considering a number of empirical projects undertaken throughout 2013, which I use to illustrate the benefits of individualized knowledge and personalized interventions, both as undertaken at the micro-level (i.e. by individual schools) and also by macro-level organizations (specifically, I examine the practices of one London local authority). While relatively small scale, I suggest that these studies are sufficiently robust for me to develop conceptual conclusions that can help more generally in terms of aiding understanding or attempting to address issues in a given setting (as opposed to providing any fully fledged explanatory theory: Punch, 2005). Correspondingly, I use the findings from these projects to make two claims about evidence-informed practice and evidence-informed policy-making at the local level. First, if, as my analysis suggests, outstanding performances accrue from a relentless focus on the needs of individuals, then they must in part stem from an in-depth knowledge of individuals and so can be improved by further developing this type of knowledge (e.g. via the use of data or other evidence). Not only this, but performance can be enhanced further still if knowledge of the individual can be married to an understanding of effective solutions that might be tailored to suit individual needs (also see Hattie, 2012).1 This reiterates the message of the last chapter that context matters and localized abductive understanding is likely to be more effective (produce higher exchange value) than centralized evidence-informed solutions. My second claim relates to leadership and the, perhaps unintentional, results that individualized knowledge and tailoring, combined with the drive and vision, effective leadership can bring. Specifically, school leaders and school district leaders can develop resilient approaches to central government policy

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initiatives through: (1) ensuring their schools possess an in-depth knowledge and understanding of individual cases; (2) enabling their teachers to develop expertise in relation to a suite of effective solutions that can be adapted and employed in relation to this knowledge; and (3) facilitating the combination of knowledge and solutions in order to attain outstanding performance. In other words, they can resist policy initiatives that do not sit well with the setting or context in question and substitute them with actions that do, while also achieving the broad aims desired by political and civil service policy-makers. I begin the chapter by examining the ‘New routes to headship project’.

New routes to headship In 2013, the National College for Teaching and Leadership commissioned the Institute of Education, University of London and Sheffield Hallam University to undertake research on ‘new routes into headship’. The focus of the research was on three such routes, defined as ‘fast-track’ entrants to headships; younger head teachers who had progressed to headship early but outside of a fast-track programme; and mature entrants to teaching, who had achieved headship following a change in career. For each route, the research was concerned with the characteristics and demography of these heads, their progression towards and entry into headship and their practice as school leaders (see Higham et al., 2013). To achieve these aims, the research team undertook a number of research phases, including a literature review; secondary data analysis of school census and Ofsted data in order to analyze the demography of each group; two surveys, yielding a total of 625 respondents; fifteen case studies; and twelve indepth, semi-structured interviews with stakeholders (e.g. with representatives of the Department for Education or National Governors Association).2 As well as managing the quantitative phase, one aspect of my role within the project was to undertake case studies of six schools where the head had followed one of these alternative routes as they progressed in their career. Specifically, this was to develop a rounded perspective of how they achieved headship (especially if their current role was their first headship post) and to provide a feel for their practice as school leaders. In each case school I interviewed the Head or principal, a middle leader, one or two teachers not yet at middle

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leadership level and the Chair of Governors. While vital to the project itself, a number of these cases also seemed to provide vital insight into the importance of focusing on the individual, both in achieving and maintaining outstanding performance and in terms of improving performances from their current state. I illustrate this below, presenting aspects from two case studies: Washington Academy (anonymized at the request of the school Head) and Globe Academy.

Washington Academy Washington Academy in West London is a mixed 11–18 sponsored academy situated in west central London. At the time of my visit to the school (July 2013), there were 952 pupils on its roll, of which 42.6 per cent were statemented for Special Educational Needs (SEN), 89.3 per cent had English as an Additional Language (EAL) and 73 per cent were entitled to Free School Meals (FSM). Despite such levels of disadvantage, 75 per cent of Washington Academy’s pupils were achieving five GCSE grades A*–C including English and Maths (with an achievement gap between disadvantaged and other pupils standing at 6 per cent: 74 per cent vs. 80 per cent). During the interview, the Academy’s principal noted that the school was ‘unique’ and provided the following additional statistics: 60 per cent of children at the school are subject to multiagency working (i.e. had been allocated a social worker, a mental health worker or others forming the ‘team around the child’: Child Workforce Development Council, 2009); 69 per cent of the school’s parents are from workless households; and, remarkably, a 17-year life expectancy difference was found between a child who comes from this area of London and an average resident. The Academy was last inspected by Ofsted in February 2013 and was deemed to be ‘outstanding’ (whereas it was ‘satisfactory’ in its previous inspection, which also occurred under the tenure of the same head teacher). Ofsted note in relation to the school that senior leaders’ relentless focus on achievement has brought about outstanding improvements in students’ examination results … students enter the academy with skills in reading, writing and mathematics which are significantly below average. In 2012 the proportion of students gaining five or more GCSE passes at grades A*-C, including English and

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mathematics, was significantly above average, a considerable improvement on previous results. (Ofsted inspection report for Washington Academy: March 2013: pp. 1–4)

Significantly, they suggest, There are varied reasons for these outstanding results which include the academy’s … outstanding tracking systems that monitor students’ achievement and lead to highly effective targeted interventions which mean all students are on track to fulfill their potential. (Ofsted inspection report for Washington Academy: March 2013: 4)

This perhaps downplays the extent to which each and every child at Washington Academy is ‘known’ and attended to. The principal told me during my interview with her, ‘all we do is care about each child, totally and utterly and completely’, while one member of the staff I spoke to argued, Our expectations are so high … we want to know everything about every child … we don’t work to whole school targets we work at the level of each child … at KS3 we have a minimum [for each pupil to reach] of 6b at KS4 it’s a minimum of a B grade.

Similarly the Academy’s staff are relentlessly child focus and data driven … data is everything [because we are] committed to each child … we know each child and there is a specific intervention for each child … nearly every child has an intervention based on their needs.

Globe Academy Globe Academy, Southwark, meanwhile is a school looking to improve. The school is a mixed, all-through (3–18) ‘ARK schools’-sponsored academy, and as of July 2013, it had 1,140 pupils; of these, 15.1 per cent were SEN statemented, 37.2 per cent had English as an Additional Language and 47 per cent were entitled to FSM. The school’s Key Stage 2 results for 2012 were slightly above national and LA averages (86 per cent of pupils compared to 79 per cent of pupils in England and 83 per cent within the Borough achieved level 4 in

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English and Maths). This represents a vast improvement on the situation in 2009 where the school’s performance lagged 17 percentage points behind both local and national results (55 per cent vs. 72 per cent). Globe’s Key Stage 4 results are less impressive, however: in 2012, only 45 per cent of pupils achieved five GCSEs A*–C including English and Maths, and there is a small gap between disadvantaged and other pupils (with 45 per cent of disadvantaged pupils achieving these qualifications compared to 49 per cent of other pupils). Notably, Key Stage 4 figures have ‘flatlined’ since 2011, after an increase from 26 per cent A*–C including English and Maths in 2008 (which the current principal attributes mainly to tackling behaviour). The school was last inspected by Ofsted in March 2011 and was graded ‘good’. While the inspection took place before the incumbent principal took over, the report provides a certain level of context which pertains to the discussions I had with him. For example, Ofsted noted variation and inconsistency in relation to the school’s teaching practices: there is still teaching that is no more than satisfactory and work remains to be done to eliminate inconsistencies and bring all teaching up to the level of the best. At its best, teaching is skilled and inspiring, but there are still some minor inconsistencies. Occasionally, the pace in lessons is undemanding. Work is marked regularly, but the quality of feedback given to students varies and students do not always have the opportunity to respond to the teachers’ comments. In a few lessons, insufficient attention is given to adjusting tasks and activities to ensure that all students are sufficiently challenged. Most teachers use questions effectively to assess how securely students understand what they are learning, but sometimes questioning can be superficial or require only a short answer. (Ofsted inspection report for Ark Globe Academy: May 2011: pp. 4–7)

To remedy this situation, the principal is seeking to place an emphasis on individuals; only this time the emphasis is on individual teachers and specific instances of their performances. He noted in our interview, for example, that ‘in the States they have a similar percentage of ‘outstanding’ schools [as England], but they have more “good” schools and spend a lot of effort getting poor teachers to be consistently “good” … For next year we’re going to put a real focus on coaching [in relation to] teaching and learning … ’. The move is

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congruent with the idea of being practice perfect (Lemov et al., 2013): every single teacher in the school will have a coach and the coach will meet with that teacher once a week for an hour. The aim of the coaching will be to ensure consistency in approach in terms of specific areas of teaching and learning. As such, one area for improvement for each teacher will be selected and worked on using techniques such as role-play. The principal, a former professional football player, relates this change to his previous experience: ‘I was a midfielder and the coach might say “you need to work on your crosses”, so all week we would practice crosses … the next week it might be heading and so on.’ The approach was viewed by one senior member of staff as helping teachers ‘get the basics right [e.g. in terms of a consistent start to the day to reduce misbehaviour]’ while giving them the ‘flexibility and creativity to teach what needs to be taught’. Key to the approach, however, will be the frequency of the feedback, with the move to weekly feedback meaning that the school will employ a much more regular observation and feedback cycle than before (and indeed when compared to many other schools). Again the principal of Globe likened this to the type of regular individual focus that occurs in sport: In sport, you are constantly getting feedback, whether you like it or not … I valued it – it was more likely to make me a better player and more likely to get me picked. That is not necessarily true of education … in teaching, the feedback cycle tends to be: ‘you see me in September and watch me teaching, you give me feedback, then I’m going to go away implement some of it, develop some of it and then you are going to see me again in January and make a judgment as to whether I’ve improved’. I don’t get that, not from a sports background where actually what happens is you get feedback everyday. To me its [sic] like Wayne Rooney saying to Alex Fergusson: ‘you’re going to watch me train in August in pre-season and then you’re not allowed to watch me train or play until January’.

The researcher in residence My role as researcher in residence for the Teach East Teaching School Alliance has also shown how a focus on the individual can get results. Both Bonner

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primary and Morpeth secondary school, the two schools leading the alliance, are situated within Tower Hamlets, a borough that historically and presently faces significant disadvantage: Hargreaves and Shirley note, for example, that Tower Hamlets serves a ‘diverse multicultural community that [has] suffered from high unemployment rates and some of the greatest incidences of poverty in the country, with more children on free school meals (FSM) than almost anywhere else’ (2009: 63). Not only this, but ‘about half the population is of Bangladeshi heritage, and the proportion of pupils for whom English is an additional language is the highest in the country’ (Ofsted, 1998: 4). The alliance comprises a number of primary and secondary schools, an all-through special school and a nursery. As noted in the previous chapter, the lead schools, as were the other members of the alliance, were predominantly keen to use my residency to understand what they currently do well when attempting to improve literacy outcomes in the face of such deprivation. In order to ascertain best practice within the alliance, interviews were undertaken with five head teachers and school literacy co-ordinators, and other documents including Ofsted reports were examined. Both Bonner and Morpeth were judged to be ‘outstanding’ in 2007, and again in 2010/2011 after interim assessments, with Morpeth maintaining its outstanding grading in 2013 (the head teachers have remained the same for both schools during this period so we may assume that ethos and approach, while developing, have not radically shifted between then and now). Within the alliance, Phoenix too is an ‘outstanding’ special school providing education for pupils who are on the autistic spectrum: that is, all of its pupils have a statement of special educational need related to significant communication and interaction difficulties. From assessing the interview and available documentary data for these schools, it appeared that their performance was once more underpinned by a focus on the individual pupil, specifically by: (1) a consistent and coherent approach in collecting and analyzing assessment data and one that stands in contrast to the behaviours of the majority of schools (Schildkamp and Kuiper, 2010)3; (2) established processes to enable staff to take action on the basis of this data, along with and the tailoring of resources to meet the needs of pupils; and (3) school leadership with consistent commitment to effective and intelligent data use.

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Effective collection and analysis of assessment data A growing body of evidence now suggests that data use can lead to improved student learning and achievement (e.g. Campbell and Levin, 2009; Carlson et al., 2011). For example, Stoll et al. (2014) argue that if they are going to change procedures or practices, leaders and teachers have to know what needs changing. Correspondingly, evidence about their students, about their school and about teaching practices provide a starting point for making wise decisions. This was fully reflected in my engagements with Morpeth and Bonner Teaching School Alliance. For instance, Ofsted note of Bonner that ‘teachers know exactly what pupils need to learn next’4; with regard to Morpeth, meanwhile, inspectors suggest that ‘accurate monitoring and evaluation enables leaders and managers to identify areas for improvement and to take effective action’.5 Similarly, ‘all teachers, across the school, plan carefully to develop the students’ reading, writing and speaking skills’.6 Of John Scurr, it was observed that ‘the school makes good use of comprehensive systems to track the attainment and progress of groups and individual pupils … ’7; likewise, for Globe Primary, ‘progress for pupils is tracked very carefully, with teachers showing a good understanding of the progress that pupils make’.8 Finally, the Key Characteristics of Bonner School document (undated) refers to ‘attention to detail and knowledge of individuals’, that is, the collecting, sharing and appropriate use of information so that individual circumstances are considered and catered for. Effective knowledge use was also seen to mean that ‘children’s learning can be considered in a holistic way over the course of their school career’ (data from my interview with the head teacher of Bonner).

Processes in place to take action on the basis of data Ofsted reports suggest that the data collected via the processes mentioned above are then quickly analyzed and then acted on. For example, they note of Bonner that ‘pupils at risk of not meeting their potential are identified extremely quickly and appropriate support put in place’9; likewise ‘[Morpeth] monitors pupils’ development carefully and is closely focused on those who are vulnerable or where there are concerns about progress, behaviour or

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attendance. The school responds quickly to changes in the needs of individuals but also of groups of pupils’.10 Ofsted have subsequently reported of Morpeth that ‘funding is used well to support Year 7 students receiving catch-up sessions in literacy, who enjoy their lessons and gain confidence in their skills. Their progress is sufficient for them to come off the programme quickly, although the school is keeping it constantly under review in order to identify more effective ways of developing the students’ skills’.11 Of John Scurr, Ofsted note that ‘[progress data] enables the school to provide rapid high-quality additional support where it is required or where there is possible underachievement’12; and for Globe Primary, it is suggested ‘There is well-targeted support for groups and individuals which increases their rate of progress as they move through the school’.13 The Literacy and Language Policy (undated) for Phoenix School meanwhile makes mention of the school’s English Specialist: it suggests that once it has been identified that an intervention for a pupil is required, this dedicated resource will help ensure that ‘maximum individual progress takes place’.

Consistently commitment leadership School leadership is vital to school improvement, as Leithwood and Seashore Louis note: ‘to date we have not found a single documented case of a school improving its student achievement record in the absence of talented leadership’ (2012: 3). It is of no surprise then that what has also been pivotal in improving individual outcomes within schools in the alliance (and indeed of Washington and Globe Academies) are the practices and ethos of school leaders. For instance, head teacher interview data and related documentary analysis for Morpeth and Bonner alliance schools suggest that the leaders of ‘good’ and ‘outstanding’ schools provide a school culture in which there is a maintained focus and commitment with regard to goals and mission, with a concomitant drive towards data use/taking action in relation to data forming an ‘as standard’ aspect of teaching and learning. The first of these, consistent focus, is illustrated, for example, from my conversations with the head teacher of Bonner, who noted that ‘[the SLT have] directed the effort of the whole school towards improving literacy outcomes – everyone should be flat out and

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targeted at the goal’; similarly he suggested that ‘everyone should pull hard in the same direction and be rewarded for doing so – both teachers and pupils’. As the head teacher of Globe Primary notes, ‘things have to be implemented in a consistent way, that they cannot be demoted or watered down – that consistency is part of the concerted effort and that it ensures things are done right and well’. The second, using data to achieve the vision, is evident in the following interview excerpts for Bonner school: ‘Bonner’s priorities are driven by what the data suggests – sustained effort is then placed on these priorities’ (data from my interview with the head teacher of Bonner). Bonner’s head teacher also argued that ‘a child should not be starting afresh each year. A primary school’s pupils typically stay there for seven years. As such knowledge as to how they learn and their performance should accumulate and be accessed and used by teachers in good time to teach the pupil effectively In a sense then, we are talking about assessing points of learning acceleration and plateaus over a school “lifetime” rather than a single year’.

The Tower Hamlets story As well as applying to the micro-level, however, this nascent analysis would also seem to apply to performance and action undertaken at the meso-level. For instance, Tower Hamlets Local Authority (LA), whose performance and practices I explored when helping to write Transforming Education for All: The Tower Hamlets Story (Woods et al., 2013). It has already been noted above that Tower Hamlets is a borough which faces huge issues in terms of deprivation. The borough has also, however, been described as the ‘turnedaround district’ (Hargreaves and Harris, 2011). In chronicling the Tower Hamlets Story, Woods et al. (2013: 8–16) describe the journey embarked upon by the Local Authority as it moved from poor to great performance (in terms of outcomes for children and young people). Woods et al. begin in September 1997 with the appointment of Christine Gilbert as the borough’s new corporate director of education. The ‘legacy’ (in terms of performance) inherited by Gilbert was dire: the previous year had seen the publication by Ofsted of The Teaching of Reading in 45 London

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Primary Schools (Ofsted, 1996). Based on the results of forty-five inspections in Islington, Southwark and Tower Hamlets, the report found that reading standards in Tower Hamlets were poor and that the quality of teaching in many schools was also unsatisfactory or poor. Not only this, but earlier in 1997 the borough had been positioned 149th out of 149 local education authorities in terms of its performance. Further bad news was provided in the form of an Ofsted Inspection of Tower Hamlets carried out in February and May 1998 and published in September 1998. Ofsted’s report, Woods et al. suggest, was ‘damning’: only 26 per cent of pupils gained five or more higher-grade GCSEs, compared to a national average of 43 per cent; only 47 per cent of pupils achieved level 4 in the Key Stage 2 English tests, compared to 63 per cent nationally. These figures, the report concluded, were ‘unacceptable, because they represent lost potential and a denial of the legitimate aspirations of pupils and their parents’ (Ofsted, 1998, para 8). In response to such serious concerns, Ofsted returned after 2 years to reinspect Tower Hamlets. They found that the Local Education Authority (LEA) had achieved a great deal since the first inspection (Ofsted, 2000): for example, although pupil test results remained below the national average, the gap had started to narrow at each key stage, and there had been some significant achievements in raising standards. In addition, data from school Ofsted inspections showed an improvement in the proportion of schools judged to be ‘good’ or ‘very good’ and that there had been a decline in the proportion of schools requiring improvement. Key features of Local Education Authority leadership now included effective consultation with head teachers, governors and other stakeholders, good strategic planning, the development of effective working partnerships with schools and high expectations for the performance of schools and LEA services. The report concluded that in a relatively short space of time the LEA had gone from having significant weaknesses to delivering all of the functions inspected at least satisfactorily and often well. Woods et al. (2013) note that moving forward some 5 years to the first Annual Performance Assessment of London Borough of Tower Hamlets Council’s Education and Children’s Social Care Services (in 2005), there had been dramatic improvements. High-quality data were further strengthening performance management across the service with good use being made of needs analysis to

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inform planning and priorities which were ‘both ambitious and challenging’. The education service had a clear knowledge of its strengths and weaknesses and action was being taken to bring about further improvements. School standards were now described as mainly ‘good’ or ‘very good’. Attainment at key stages 1 and 2 was well above that of statistical neighbours as was the proportion of pupils gaining 5A*–C grades; gaps too were narrowing but still below national averages. Overall, the inspectors judged Tower Hamlets to be a service that ‘consistently delivered well above minimum requirements for users’ and awarded the highest grade (4) on a scale of 1–4. In less than 10 years then, Tower Hamlets had moved from a position where it was heavily criticized for lack of strategic planning, poor management of its services which were not serving well its schools and their pupils and with a culture of low expectations to one in which it was being praised for its high-quality services, sustained improvement in education outcomes, excellent partnership work and its high ambition for its children and young people. Although there has been no overall Ofsted inspection report since December 2008, Woods et al. (2013) observe that the Council education committee minutes, reports from education officers to scrutiny panels together with schools’ evidence and data tell the story of continuous improvement in the performance of the pupils and schools of Tower Hamlets in attainment and progress measures as well as school inspection outcomes.14 The 2012 performance data for the borough’s secondary schools, for example, illustrate that Tower Hamlets had exceeded the national average by over 2 per cent in achieving A*–C grades including in English and Maths (61.4 per cent), and in terms of expected progress between Key stage 2 to Key stage 4 it had exceeded the national average by 4.4 per cent in English and by 5 per cent in Maths. In particular, FSM pupils performed very well: 54 per cent achieving A*–C grades including English and Maths compared to 36 per cent nationally – meaning that Tower Hamlets now has an achievement gap of only 7 per cent compared to a national gap of 23 per cent. In addition, and quite remarkably, by the spring of 2013 every secondary school in Tower Hamlets had been judged either ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted (with seven out of fifteen ranked as ‘outstanding’: over twice the national average percentage). Tower Hamlet’s primary schools too continued to exceed national averages at Key Stage 2 and by level 4 and above; attainment in English was 89 per cent, Maths 86 per cent

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and English and Maths combined, 82 per cent (exceeding both London and national averages). Moreover, there is currently no school below the floor standard of 60 per cent in combined English and Maths and the percentage of ‘good’ and ‘outstanding’ schools is 83.6 per cent (putting Tower Hamlets primary schools in the top-third of Local Authorities). In order to understand how such a dramatic transformation might have occurred, Woods et al. (2013) examined interview and documentary data from Tower Hamlets officials, including: (1) interviews with two former Tower Hamlets directors of Children’s Services (Christine Gilbert and Kevan Collins), who served during the 1997–2012 period; and (2) interviews with five serving LA senior staff who had been in post since at least 1997. It also involved examining minutes from the Borough’s Learning, Achievement and Leisure Scrutiny Panel; copies of the Tower Hamlets Council Strategic Plans; copies of the Borough’s Educational Achievements and Progress Briefings and scrutinizing Ofsted reports, in particular the Annual Performance Assessment[s] of Services for Children and Young and their Inspection[s] of Tower Hamlets Local Education Authority. Combined, this data suggest, in a similar fashion to the schools in the Teach East Teaching School Alliance (albeit directed at the types of actions you would expect from a local authority), that key to Tower Hamlets approach were: (1) the presence of leaders with ambitious aims and a determination to reduce inequalities and improve outcomes; and (2) an approach to school improvement based on a thorough understanding of the needs of individual schools (which represents a combination of points (1) and (2) of the learnings garnered from the Teach East Teaching School Alliance). In addition, however, was a further factor: (3) a confidence and willingness to pursue the ‘Tower Hamlets way’ and tailor central government initiatives to the local context. I now explore these three factors below.

The presence of ambitious and determined leaders Beginning with the first factor, ambitious and determined leadership, I focus specifically on Christine Gilbert (further detail on Kevan Collins can be found in Woods et al., 2013, and to a lesser extent in Chapter 6). Ofsted (1998: 6) remark of Christine Gilbert that ‘she [Gilbert] is unequivocal about the

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need to raise standards urgently, and has won the enthusiastic assent of head teachers to a more challenging and ambitious approach’. Gilbert’s first act on becoming corporate director of Education was to implement a challenging strategic plan for the borough (for the period 1998–2002): Hargreaves and Shirley (2009) argue that, in doing so, Gilbert combined ‘visionary’ leadership with a concomitant strategy to raise performance by establishing goals (within this plan) that were deliberately designed to be just out of reach. The idea here was to take the staff out of their comfort zone and motivate them to extend their capability. Hargreaves and Shirley note that this strategy rested on the philosophy that ‘it is better to have ambitious targets and just miss them than have more modest targets and meet them’ (2009: 67). Recognizing these efforts, Ofsted (2000: 4) attributed much of the initial improvement in Tower Hamlets’ performance to Gilbert: ‘[m]uch of the LEA’s success in implementing the recommendations and improving its support to schools can be attributed to the high quality of leadership shown by the director and senior officers. Head teachers, governors and members all expressed their confidence in the management of the LEA.’ Staff serving under Gilbert too were enthusiastic: ‘Christine led from the front, there were no excuses, only challenges to be overcome’ (TH official 1: Woods et al., 2013: 20).

An approach to school improvement based on a thorough understanding of the needs of individual schools It has been argued that the consistently positive effects of evaluation and monitoring on school performance make data use a promising tool for school improvement (e.g. Luyten et al., 2005; Schafer et al., 2007). This was also reflected in the efforts of Tower Hamlets: for example, the Ofsted Report of 1998 was critical of the performance of schools and of the borough’s Inspection and Advisory Service. It reported that the service was poorly regarded by schools with an overemphasis on checking and inconsistent levels of support. By 2000 Ofsted noted that a radically restructured advisory service had been put into place, which combined monitoring with both clear strategies for supporting and developing schools but also, if required, intervention. Interview data from Woods et al. (2013) suggest that during Tower Hamlet’s

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initial period of turnaround, the number of schools in ‘special measures’ and ‘serious weaknesses’ was regarded as a major concern and challenging targets were set by the Inspection and Advisory Service to reduce this number. As a consequence, over the following years, schools causing concern were subsequently monitored and an understanding of them developed by the service. Furthermore, every opportunity was taken to adopt and purposely implement the very best practice within such schools. For primary schools, the highly focused implementation of the literacy and numeracy strategies (see below) was viewed as vital, and for all schools leadership was placed under particular scrutiny. Where head teachers and governors were found wanting, the authority took decisive action such as suspending delegation or insisting on a change of school leadership. Indeed data provided by the borough to aid analysis for the project demonstrate that between 1998 and 2012, out of the forty-eight schools causing concern, forty-two heads were replaced. Crucially director of Children’s Services and senior officers have been closely involved with the appointment of new head teachers and did not hesitate to use their powers to prevent an appointment where they thought the governor’s recommendation was inappropriate (interview data with Kevan Collins). Certainly, as noted above, the high quality of head teacher leadership, as evident through the Ofsted inspections I detail above, has been a major factor in the rapid improvement of Tower Hamlet’s schools. Interviews with Tower Hamlets officers suggest that, beyond improving the Inspection and Advisory Service, the LA concentrated a lot of effort and resource into school improvement – both human and financial. They characterize the work done with schools over the years as ‘rigorous’, ‘robust’ and ‘relentless’ in pursuit of improvement, before, through and after the era of School Improvement Partners, which were carefully selected by the authority. As Woods et al. (2013) surmise, in such a small borough, with less than 100 schools, the authority knew its schools very well and established a range of consultative forums to make sure that policies and support and challenge programmes are explained and that the views of heads and other stakeholders could be taken into account. In addition to input via the Inspection and Advisory Service, there were and continue to be a range of officers who have everyday dealings with schools related to particular services and partnerships such as attendance, behaviour, special needs

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and social inclusion. Their shared intelligence about schools enabled the authority to offer support where it was required and challenge appropriately (Hargreaves and Shirley, 2009). Interviews and evidence from head teachers also indicate that there are generally positive relationships, with the LA and its schools, despite some cutbacks, still able to access a range of support services to support them in their endeavours to improve their previous best performance.

A confidence and willingness to pursue the Tower Hamlets way Woods et al. (2013) argue that Tower Hamlets, with the confidence of rapid rates of progress and increased attainment in schools and the benefit of sustained local partnership working, was able to promote local initiatives for school improvement. This is also evidenced in the work of others who have examined the borough. For example, in both Performing beyond Expectations and The Fourth Way, Andy Hargreaves, Dennis Shirley and Alma Harris believe that community development has been central to the success of Tower Hamlets’ reversal in fortunes. They argue that while most local authorities had endeavoured to deliver more children’s services to disadvantaged and other communities, Tower Hamlets had gone further and had worked hard to create new capacity to strengthen community relations and engagement. For instance, it had worked with faith-based organizations and made formal agreements with the Imams from this largely Muslim community to counter the effects of children taking several days holiday for religious festivities such as Eid and taking extended holidays in Bangladesh in term time. Another example that strengthened community engagement in Tower Hamlets in support of education was ‘workforce remodelling’, undertaken on the back of legislation designed to place more teaching assistants and other staff in schools to support teachers. The authority has been particularly active in encouraging the development of teaching assistants from the local community: over time as many as half the adults in many schools in Tower Hamlets came from the community

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itself, thus developing strong relationships with teachers and school leaders. The authority also, however, encouraged them to go further and train as teachers to ensure that school workforces had within them staff who could truly understand the context and needs of their pupils. The borough also, however, possessed the confidence to engage in an autonomous approach and has developed the ability to robustly engage with central government policy. As one of our survey respondents affirmed, Tower Hamlets stands out as being at once closer to the ground and with more a sense of its own identity and vision. There is less of a sense that senior leaders are box-ticking against a Westminster agenda. I would go so far as to say that there is a sense of moral purpose about what goes on in Tower Hamlets that I have often found lacking at a senior level in other authorities. (Woods et al., 2013: 46)

This is also reflected in comments made by Hargreaves and Shirley, who suggest that a key factor in Tower Hamlets success was ‘a resilient but not reckless approach to external government pressure and policy [e.g.] resisting the politically motivated pressure to build new high school academies since the authority already had high-trust relationships with its schools that now performed very well’ (2009: 67). At the same time, there was also recognition from LA officers that Tower Hamlets had been determined to make government policies work for them (rather than simply work per se): for instance, the borough became a pilot for some early initiatives at Key Stage 2 and 3 and then robustly engaged with the National Strategies (for literacy and numeracy) setting their own ambitious targets for improvement. Another government initiative from 2000 that the Local Authority took full advantage of was ‘Excellence in Cities’; it was granted £4 million for the first 2 years, which enabled it to plan with head teachers a further range of support for schools such as a city learning centre, specialist and beacon schools, learning support units and learning mentors, support for gifted and talented pupils and three small Education Action Zones in Poplar, the Isle of Dogs and in Globetown. These areas provided a good match with the broad intentions of the authority especially in tackling under-achievement and social exclusion.

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Summary The above analysis would suggest that developing a knowledge of the individual (whether it be pupil, teacher or school) plus vision, drive and the ability to act on this knowledge can lead to outstanding performance. Returning to Chapter 4, this provides an example of ‘long tail’ performance at its best: the value to the schools and to Tower Hamlets LA of pursuing more personalized approaches derives precisely from the fact that they weren’t attempting a ‘one size fits all’ solution or aiming to achieve one big ‘hit’ of value; they were performing by concentrating on individuals, attending to their needs and aggregating small hits, all within the context of a wider ethos. This, then, presents a compelling vision for evidence-informed practice: rather than the costly recontextualization that often accompanies centralized solutions, schools and school districts may be better placed if their leaders can: (1) provide an environment in which practitioners (or managers) regularly use school data along with their practical knowledge to garner an understanding of pupils (or schools), their progress and their needs; and (2) draw down on approaches that research has shown might be effective and tailor these to suit the needs of each and every pupil (school). In addition, however, individualized approaches, through the confidence any resulting success affords, can also lead to effective resistance. This is evidenced best in Tower Hamlets who, as a borough, pursued their own approaches to achieving the aims of central government. Resistance thus facilitates autonomy, and in the next chapter, I will examine how resilience in a fragmented school system might both lead to and result from individual evidence ‘scenes’ and the ways in which scenes, rather than centralized approaches to instilling evidence-informed practice, might be the most effective way to promulgate evidence use among schools (as well as examine the types of approaches to evidence use and capacity building such scenes might engage in). I also juxtapose policy and practice scenes and begin to explore how they might relate and interact with one another.

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Scenes and Scenic Capital

In this chapter, I complete my analysis of functional evidence use. I open by presenting notes I made while staying at a beach cabin in Tofino (British Columbia). I then use these to explore the notion of ‘scenes’ and the implications of scenes for evidence-informed policy and practice. Beginning with my journal notes, of most relevance is the entry I made on 7 June 2013: From here [my cabin] I have an almost perfect vista: paddle boarders learning to catch waves; a young boy staying in the shack next door practicing on his tight rope; the incessant jogger enjoying the feeling of running barefoot on the sand; teens drinking illicit beer by their beach fire; people walking their dogs and couples walking arm in arm back and forth from Long Beach. Later, as I drive into town to pick up some wine, this picture is extended: surfers with their wetsuits half off, boards under their arms, loading up their dilapidated Jeeps for their trip home; the semi-stoned off-duty boarders in the liquor store who speak to me in a slow drawl, their conversation punctuated by surfer slang (‘bro’, ‘nice one!’, ‘awesome’); the young backpackers flooding in for the weekend, looking around excitedly for cheap lodgings and eats. It is also clear to me however that, whilst seemingly connected, with each aspect serving to build a complete whole, what I am observing is comprised of very distinct elements that have simply come together for this moment: a process of temporary confluence that, on any other day, might have played out in different ways. Nonetheless, there does appear to be an overall essence that will still exist tomorrow when I’m gone; and when I return on some future trip, I expect the overall feeling of Tofino to remain much as it is. Since the place itself is merely a geographic setting – something that cannot possess any inherent vibe, this essence must stem from the mostly transient nature of the people that come here: those who seem to share certain characteristics and mannerisms, ways of thinking and behaving and who are attracted to what Tofino can offer them.

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The essence of Tofino and my ability to interact and contribute towards it can be said to represent a ‘scene’: a place or set of beliefs or activities that displays or encapsulates distinctive characteristics and so generates particular impressions or outputs. It is the signifying distinctiveness of a scene that sets it apart from existing beliefs or activities or the regular places we frequent: the role of the scene is to disrupt the norm. More generally, we can observe instances of scenes elsewhere in social life: in art or music, for example, and our roles in relation to scenes can stretch from being direct participants to those who observe formally (e.g. as a member of an audience) or simply informally as a voyeur. In political life, the emergence of scenes can be identified by, or typified through, distinctive ideological trends (e.g. austerity) and are driven by the coming together of ‘echo chambers’, the congruence of like-minded people who establish ways of thinking about social issues (e.g. see Ball et al., 2012; Brown, 2011 and below). In this chapter, however, I argue that schools (either individually or in chains or federations) might too represent scenes, while looking at such scenes as vehicles for driving the spread of evidence-informed practice. Specifically, building on the analysis of the last chapter, where I suggest that evidence use is likely to have most impact when employed at the level of the individual, it is clear that those settings employing evidence in this way are likely to be currently small in number and so their actions are distinct from the majority of schools (with this distinctiveness being a function of factors relating to leadership and ethos). At the same time, this approach and its success is likely to attract staff of a particular mind-set, some of whom will subsequently leave to set up their own scenes; it is also likely that visitors to scenes will be influenced to try something similar. In this way, scenes and their inherent vibe can spread. I begin, however, by exploring the notion of scenes, more generally, in detail.

Describing scenes and scenic capital Scenes represent distinctive signifying phenomenon; their existence is recognizable because it can be differentiated from other assemblages of acts or actions. Scenes that are truly vibrant and enduring will survive the coming

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and going of individuals (i.e. they are not cults); they are thus not something that can be artificially implanted or dropped in place from above. Scenes, as a result, are best viewed as being organic, not dictated; they materialize via a coming together of a number of signifying forces (both ideas and activities) created or enacted by a number of people. Each scene is more, therefore, than something that is established by simple ornamental discourse alone: first and foremost, it will begin with an intention to act – the orchestration of discourse directed at change, with corresponding behaviours subsequently materializing as and when opportunities arrive. Although this description of the idea of scenes perhaps sounds a tad grandiose, scenes do not necessarily have to be: speaking to the owners of my favourite coffee shop, for example, they describe how they wanted to create in Crouch End (North London), the type of atmosphere they experienced in relation to the (fika) coffee scene in Gothenburg – here then an initial attempt at signification is established by the owners but is subsequently enhanced and perpetuated by the customers and staff and will remain in place until someone or something serves to shift it. Scenes then can be either grand or small scale (they can represent both punk music and a simple shop), but what they do have to be is identifiable: you immediately know when you encounter or arrive at one. Clearly, though scenes can only be scenes when they stand in contrast to the norm, as soon as they become mainstream, they lose their distinctiveness. An important aspect of any scene is its attractiveness. The idea of cultural capital is employed by Bourdieu (1993) to illustrate how social mobility may be signified by and promoted through the investment made by different social classes in non-financial social assets, for example, the transmission by parents to their children of the attitudes and knowledge needed to succeed in certain walks of life or in relation to certain situations. As a result, those that possess particular forms of cultural capital will be more likely to be attracted to the types of situation in which this capital will enable them to succeed. But the opposite too will apply: sites or settings within which certain capital is required (such as art galleries) will require individuals or groups who possess this capital to frequent them; otherwise the status and relevance of such settings within society become open to question. The idea of cultural capital, of sites where it might be required and of people who possess it also, however, enables me to consider notions of ‘scenic’ capital. Scenes can only have potency if they

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are attractive and can attract people who can perpetuate this attractiveness for others. The existence of scenic capital and its ‘level’ (the amount of capital a scene has) will thus be a function of how scenes are received among potential or desired audiences for them. But scenic capital, like cultural capital, also relates to the desirability to the individual of being associated with the scene in question. For spatial scenes, this may then relate to the signification one achieves by visiting the place in question (like Tofino). More temporal scenes, however, are developed to offer new perspectives. Often such perspectives can be framed in terms of choices: right or wrong, old or new, austerity or bankruptcy, them or us, evidence informed or not. For scenes that seek to require us to make such a choice, scenic capital is accrued by those scenes that are best able to ‘market’ themselves to their desired audience, leading them to want to be associated with one side or another. The aim or purpose of this type of marketing will depend on the activity in question. Within politics, for example, echo chambers, in seeking to develop policies that appeal to the electorate, will be attempting to form a kind of discursive hegemony (Fairclough, 1995), in other words, to convince as many voters as possible that their proposed way forward is the most appropriate, while seeking to ensure (possibly through the hyperreality) that those who oppose such perspectives seem ‘old fashioned’ or even ‘backwards looking’ (Lister, 2000). Within educational practice, scenic capital may accrue from the distinctive activity of a setting, for example, its approach to pedagogy; correspondingly its attractiveness will be not only to teachers but also to pupils and parents. I will return to and explore in more detail school-centred scenic capital, later below.

A typology of scenes As I allude to above, all scenes will posses qualities that are, to a greater or lesser extent, related to time and place. As such, scenes can be predominantly temporal, predominantly spatial or represent a combination of both. This affords the possibility (along with a situation of ‘normality’) of three potential scenic types – these are detailed in Figure 6.1, labelled by the examples I use below as I explore them.

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Spatial element +

Spatial element −

Temporal element +

(1) Tower hamlets

(2) Echo chambers

Temporal element −

(3) Tofino

(4) ‘Normality’

Figure 6.1 A typology of scenes

Typology 1: Tower Hamlets The first type of scene can be characterized by the Tower Hamlets ‘story’ I discussed in Chapter 5, which represents a nexus between time and place: a distinguishable and bounded locale that before the arrival of Christine Gilbert (in 1997) was underperforming and after her arrival witnessed change in thought and activity that would ultimately see the borough turn its performances around. There are three key features of the Tower Hamlets story that, I suggest, effectively illustrate its ‘scenic’ nature, these are: (1) ‘distinctive ideas, acts and behaviours’; (2) ‘an enduring signifying approach’; and (3) ‘an attractive environment.

Distinctive ideas, acts and behaviours In Woods et al. (2013), the authors note that Tower Hamlets possesses its own distinct and signifying ideas, acts and behaviours – corporate discourse and initiatives that serve to shape the beliefs and expectations of its members, guiding them, and so the borough, towards specific goals. This is noted, for example, in the following two excerpts of text from Transforming Education for All … : Excerpt 1 (p. 50: my emphasis): Reflecting upon a considerable range of both written and oral evidence what stands out is a sense of shared values, purpose and endeavour to overcome considerable barriers to achievement. There is a shared language of ‘no excuses’, ‘challenges to be overcome’, ‘high aspirations and expectations’, ‘no cap on ambition’, ‘a relentless focus on improving

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standards’, ‘benchmarking performance’ together with ‘community cohesion and collaboration’. Excerpt 2 (p. 54: my emphasis): Our final explanatory factor [for the success of Tower Hamlets] lies in professional transformation. Inner London has always been an attractive place for young teachers to start their career, but retaining and developing teachers in London has been more challenging. Several of our interviewees talked about the ‘offer’ in Tower Hamlets – hardedged elements such as help with housing costs, but also a strong professional development offer, with outstanding behaviour support, a consistent and coherent programme of professional development, with a strong head teacher programme, a strong middle leader programme, a strong and ongoing teacher development programme, marked by partnership with a university, and a strong newly qualified teacher programme. Many local authorities might make similar claims. In Tower Hamlets these claims were sustained. The local authority built momentum and engagement through and across school communities. As improvement took hold high levels of trust and professional relationships were built. For many of those we have talked to, the combination of moral commitment – to improving the life chances of some of the most deprived children in the country, commitment to place – the commitment to this community on the edge of central London, and the sense of what it meant to be a teacher in that community combined to drive their practice and to shape their thinking.

An enduring signifying approach Not only was this new approach distinctive, but it was also long lived. As I note in Chapter 5, Tower Hamlet’s change indirection and ethos was both established by its leaders and sustained via strong leadership: this began with the arrival of Christine Gilbert but was perpetuated by those that followed, such as Kevan Collins, who took up his role as director of Children’s Services (DCS) in 2005. It was Collins who maintained the focus on individual schools – for example, he personally sent bespoke analytical letters about primary results to the Heads of primary schools and intervened strongly to agree programmes of work needed in Year 6 to secure targets (Woods et al., 2013). In part this continuation was caused by Gilbert and Collins remaining within the borough even after they were no longer directly involved in education: at the time when Collins was DCS, Gilbert had already been appointed as the LA’s chief executive; Collins himself was subsequently promoted as the chief executive four and a half years later. This meant that the personalities and their discourses remained in situ,

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so the approach they began and promoted grew more and more embedded and ingrained; as a result ‘[d]etermined and resilient leadership along with high expectations has built a sustained momentum for improvement’ (Woods et al., 2013: 29: my emphasis).

An attractive environment (scenic capital) Excerpt 2 above also highlights that the borough ultimately became an attractive place to work for teachers and Heads – a place where some could align their moral purpose while also benefitting from the training and development packages on offer. Woods et al. (2013) note that during the mid-1990s Tower Hamlets experienced a massive teacher shortage as a result of which teachers were ‘imported’ from other boroughs or recruited from abroad. Successfully reversing this position and attracting and retaining high-quality teachers can thus be viewed as a major feature of Tower Hamlet’s approach to improving its educational performance (Hargreaves and Shirley, 2009) and testament to the effort and energy directed at this goal. Extensive work was done on stressing the positive advantages of working in Tower Hamlets – of being part of radical change, so that being employed in and for Tower Hamlets was seen as ‘the place to be’ for those committed to urban education. Document analysis undertaken as part of the analysis of Woods et al., for instance, illustrates the extent of the desire of the borough’s Education Directorate to find out what attracted people to Tower Hamlets, what encouraged them into teaching and what persuaded them to stay in the Borough. Heather Zavadsky’s (2010: 272) detailed study of five North American school districts indicates that a vital ingredient, on which all else depends, is the ‘buzz’ that leads to the belief that success is possible and, eventually, establishes trust. Beyond this, ‘reform needs to look different depending on the community – though standards and expectations need to be high and consistent’. This then would seem to reinforce my choice of factors that not only identifies Tower Hamlets as a scene, but that will also apply when seeking to identify other type 1 scenes, or, importantly, when it comes to making suggestions for how they might be established. In other words, I suggest that distinctive signifying beliefs and acts and the attractiveness of such acts form the key elements of type 1 scenes: thus their presence not only is vital for the existence of such scenes but also provides means for recognizing specific cases as scenes.

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Typology 2: Echo chambers While instantly recognizable in terms of art or music, a type 2 scene (one rooted in time rather than space) typically represents the type of scenes experienced in the development of policy, in particular, in terms of the way policy agoras come into being. The notion of ‘policy agoras’ has already been described in detail in Chapter 1 and in previous work (e.g. Brown, 2012, 2013). In essence, however, it relates to the discursive parameters that encapsulate the policy subjects or ideas (and how these topics might be known about) most likely to be considered acceptable by the government of the day. In Brown (2011), I argue that if it is civil servants and ministers who adopt knowledge from within the extant policy agora then it will be politicians, either while in opposition or when forming government, who are in the business of creating the agoras of the future. In other words, it is the ideological or political will of those politicians now in power that led to the formation of the current policy agora, and it will be an ideology of one form or another that will lead to the formation of any future policy agoras. Alternative agoras can only be formed if politicians adopt knowledge and ideas from outside the borders of the current agora, and this type of adoption can be illustrated by the proposed introduction of ‘restorative justice’ disposals into the criminal justice system in England and Wales in 2010: specifically, I argue in Brown (2011) that, as a result of being lobbied by the Restorative Justice Council and the Association of Chief Police Officers as to its efficacy, along with exposure to evidence to reinforce this message (Shapland et al., 2007, 2008), the Conservative Party became switched on to the idea of restorative justice. In other words, the notion of restorative justice became regarded by Conservative MPs as something which research demonstrated had ‘worked’ in terms of reducing re-offending, while it was also seen to fit perfectly into the ‘Big Society’, small government political philosophy being developed pre-election (i.e. restorative justice was regarded as an approach which saved money and that could be run by communities for the benefit of those communities). This is illustrated in a speech made before the 2010 UK general election by Alan Duncan, the (then) Conservative Shadow Minister for Prisons. In it, Duncan states that, restorative justice ‘fits well into the broad philosophy of

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Conservatism because it devolves power down to local communities and local people. Conferences are likely to take place in or near the community where the offence was committed’ (2010: 6). Duncan also quotes the 2008 research undertaken by Shapland et al. and notes that ‘at a time when Government money is non-existent [restorative justice] is incredibly cheap – incredibly cheap, incredibly effective and incredibly simple. Quite simply, what more could one ask for?’ (2010: 7). As a result of the introduction of the concept into their sphere of thought, a commitment to restorative justice was correspondingly made in the (2010) manifesto of the UK’s Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government: The Coalition: Our Programme for Government’ (published on 20th May 2010). Here it is stated that ‘we will introduce effective measures to tackle anti-social behaviour and low-level crime, including forms of restorative justice … ’. The detailed implementation of restorative justice has subsequently been left to civil service officials to progress; in doing so, they are considering not only Shapland et al.’s research but other studies that now reside within the agora.

Echo chambers and the policy agora The process of forming a new agora thus begins with the requirement by politicians and the political staff working for them for policy ideas or solutions compatible with their ideological stance(s), and these solutions will usually be supplied by social actors attempting to lobby or influence the direction of future policy. As one academic respondent I interviewed in Brown (2011)1 observed, They [politicians] have many people who are coming to them to convince them of one thing or another who will bring them the evidence and they rely very much on the evidence that they’re brought. (Brown, 2011)

These social actors, collectively, were referred by one respondent as the ‘echo chamber’: The echo chamber is referring to, you know, a small group of people that talk to each other. They go to the same parties and they have the same conversations and they are often quite influential and almost hermetically sealed from the rest of the world. (Brown, 2011: my emphasis)

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Although, despite this notion of the echo chamber being ‘sealed’, referring back to my analysis of the hyperreality in Chapter 3, it is likely that either members of the echo chamber will include those who have influence in relation to the media or that members within it will take into account the types of messages being promulgated by the hyperreality in order that policies are presented in as palatable a way as possible. In addition, as given in my example of restorative justice, echo chambers will also include those representing a myriad of stakeholders, from single issues topics to broader spheres, such as the unions or business. Civil service policy-makers suggested that the influence of the ‘echo chamber’ was particularly pertinent in instances such as the run-up to general elections and, consequently, in the development of election manifestos. This is because pre-election represents the time when politicians are most likely to seek out new thoughts and policy drivers. As one think tank respondent noted, When manifesto development was going on in both [sic] parties, they were coming to us and asking us for ideas. (Brown, 2011)

Often, as a result, the policy actors involved in the echo chamber will also then be invited to act as advisors by the incoming government and/or be given privileged access to policy-makers more generally: So what happens when you have a change of government typically … is that new ministers come in with new friends as it were. So the people that they’ve been talking to in opposition and thinking through policy issues [with] … And sometimes that’s because they’re quite politically sympathetic to start off with, sometimes it’s just because they’ve got interested in their ideas. And this is true of academics and people just working in the system who are professional people that are interesting. … It’s definitely true that a different political perspective means that you are engaged with different people and with different evidence. That’s definitely true. (policy maker respondent, Brown, 2011)

Members of the echo chamber may be international as well as domestic. In Brown (2013), for example, I discuss comments made by Professor Andrew Pollard in his blog concerning Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove’s attempted reform of the national curriculum in England and Wales. In June 2012, The Guardian newspaper announced that Gove’s proposals had

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been decried as fatally flawed by Professor Andrew Pollard, a member of the expert panel involved in advising on the changes.2 The reasons for this, it would seem, include Pollard’s view that Gove and Schools Minister Nick Gibb had already decided upon a desired course of action. Pollard argues in his blog,3 for example, that ‘the voice that has really counted from beginning to the end has been that of an American educator, Ed Hirsch … ’ and that ‘When I first met Nick Gibb, Hirsch’s Core Knowledge Sequence was open on his desk, heavily stickered with Post-It notes’. Subsequently Professor Pollard suggests that ‘it is Hirsch’s very detailed year-on-year model that has prevailed’. The above example also, however, serves to illustrate the often problematic nature of echo chambers: that in actuality they can serve to operate as closed cliques which exclude or include social actors according to criterion regarded as desirable or undesirable. This means that they can be difficult or impossible to gain access to and will exclude knowledge providers whose messages are not ideologically compatible with their own views. In this sense, an echo chamber may be seen to perform an analogous function to that of the policy agora, but in a more nascent form; it will serve to admit those whose knowledge is compatible with the ideology of concern and exclude politicians’ exposure to evidence that is not. At the same time, it will serve as a forum to determine which ideas or knowledge may be considered socially robust and will put in place the mechanics to ensure that relevant policy actors, that is, those seeking to influence policy, have the required access to, or are privileged by, politicians on their ascension to government. In this sense, the echo chamber may be regarded as a proto-agora, which develops and forms and ultimately shapes the agora of the day should those in opposition come into power.

Typology 3: Tofino With purely spatial scenes, their attraction is based on a local feature that encourages normally disparate groups of people to congregate and behave in particular activity (e.g. to surf, ski and climb), as well as the other ‘peripheral’ activities that surfers (or others) do when not surfing (or skiing, etc.). As such, spatial scenes will draw in people who are attracted to the activity in question

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and/or are conversant with what is required to participate within it. It is the pre-existence of this activity, the mobility of those who wish to engage in it and the signification that is achieved when its ‘participants’ come together to do so that give these scenes their enduring vibe. At the same time, however, it is clear that if everybody dressed and acted as a surfer no matter their location then spatial scenes would lose some of their distinctiveness. Unlike with type 1 and type 2 scenes, purely spatial scenes are difficult to influence: unless we are able to up sticks and permanently reside in the location of the scene, our impact will typically last only as long as we are present and will fade when we leave. Even where members of the scene dwell there for longer periods, any influence they might have on the scene will be dependent on their ability to influence the nature of the activity (or peripheral activities) in question. The influence of the scene upon us, however, may be much more long-lasting: as tourists we often buy knick-knacks or souvenirs, or pick up a special shell or pebble from the beach or a stick from the forest to remind us of the potency of the scene, how it made us feel and the way it affected our attitudes or behaviours. A truly potent scene might also inspire us, if it is possible and should it not already exist, to attempt to establish something similar, something which encapsulates the vibe but recontextualizes it so that it suits our ‘home’ situation.

Typology 4: Normality As I note above, scenes are alternatives or disruptions to the cultural norms we are used to experiencing. Therefore, when we are not in or witnessing a scene, we are existing in normality. It is within normality, however, that we can ascertain scenic capital: a glance across the fence to assess the attractiveness of scenes means we can judge scenes compared to our own normality. From this we can judge whether our situation is one that we would like to remain in or whether another offers more possibilities: do we want to align with a particular ideology, fit in or contribute or associate with or view new modes of art or music? Do we want to relocate or, more pertinently to this analysis, might practitioners seek out opportunities in settings where their motivations are sympathetic to the nature/activity/values of the scene in question, and where there is an offer in place that is attractive to them?

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Influencing scenes In all three cases of scene I detailed above, it is clear that, to be part of the scene, you have to be part of the scene – but the consequence of being there means different things for different scenic types. For instance, with time bound (‘type 2’) scenes, such as echo chambers, being ready at the right moment (i.e. having ideas or content available as the scene in question is hitting the mainstream) can maximize both individual and group influence and power. For example, in terms of how society comes to be governed: as my example of restorative justice illustrates, influencing decision-makers before an election, as policy ideas are being developed, can result in given individuals having a say with regard to the key decisions that will affect the country. Based on the arguments I put forward in Brown (2011), I suggest that a predominantly time-specific scene may be affected, assuming: (1) that one shares the values and characteristics (or styles or genres) of those inhabiting or populating the scene; and (2) that we have something ‘ready’ to contribute towards it (i.e. for the purpose of this analysis, some content or ‘policy ready’ ideas that can be quickly introduced). In a sense, both points (1) and (2) are susceptible to the use of contextualizing strategies (Brown, 2013) or the manipulation of the hyperreality, that is, strategies that seek to shift the relative position of the researcher with regard to how ‘privileged’ they are by policy-makers (which affects the ease with which they can access or influence them), or how policymakers perceive the policy context to which their research pertains. I have dealt with this in Chapter 3, while discussing the potential use of semiotic guerrilla warfare to shift the weight of opinion towards a tipping point.

Evidence use in type 1 scenes In many ways, echo chambers have always been there, and generally we have a good understanding of how they operate and how they might be influenced (e.g. see Haas, 2007). What we know less about, however, is the potential importance of ‘type 1’ scenes for evidence use within the English school system. As has been well documented elsewhere (e.g. see Hadfield and Chapman, 2009; Earley and Higham, 2012), the education system in England

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is now both fragmented and, through the introduction of academies and free schools, increasingly autonomous (Gilbert et al., 2013); simultaneously, there is an expectation for it to become ‘self-improving’ (Hargreaves, 2010, 2012), with autonomous schools supporting each others’ progress and development, and through such collaboration ‘unleashing greatness’ (Gilbert et al., 2013). Arrangements to support collaboration include formal federations, chains of connected schools and national teaching schools, with a remit from the National College for Teaching and Leadership to develop Teaching School Alliances with other schools, as well as many informal networks and clusters. Underpinning rationales for such arrangements draw on and extend previous policy and practice initiatives such as the London Challenge Leadership Strategy and National Leaders of Education, in which outstanding head teachers support improvement of struggling colleagues (Berwick, 2010). Should fragmentation and autonomy continue, it seems likely that the future totality of England’s schools will most likely resemble a patchwork of approaches towards and perspectives on teaching and learning. Within this mishmash, some schools or umbrellas or federations of schools may do little more than act in very instrumental and pragmatic ways: for example, ‘teaching to the test’ – coaching pupils how to pass Key Stage and other examination papers. Others, however, are likely to be characterized more by activity akin to those schools I examined in Chapter 5 and/or by Tower Hamlets Local Authority. In other words, they focus not just on results but on maximizing social capital: developing ethos that ensure that care and attention to detail is given so that every pupil and member of staff is understood and supported to reach their potential and/or enhance their life chances. Correspondingly, such scenes, depending on their success and the attractiveness of their approach, are likely to accrue scenic capital, attracting staff and even parents and pupils with powerful messages concerning notions of meaningful and effective education and how this might be achieved. It is in these scenes, characterized by their strong brand of signifying activity, their focus on the individual (so that the outcomes of the whole might be maximized) and their high levels of scenic capital, that the exchange value of evidence has the highest potential to be maximized through the long tail of research use (i.e. because there will exist a higher propensity to develop an understanding of and to act in relation to the

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individual). Correspondingly, it is within these scenes that evidence-informed practice has the most chance of flourishing.4

Scenes and the promotion of evidence use Embedding a normative culture of evidence use at system level represents the type of massive, once in a generation, change that is not easily brought about. This is nicely illustrated in the work of Stoll et al. (2014), who posit that a core issue in bridging evidence/gap practice is the need to influence teachers’ values and beliefs which, in turn, will change their practice. Simultaneously, however, they argue that changing teachers’ practice is much harder than many people assume. This suggests that evidence use is most likely to develop at the microlevel, borne from the combination of the shaping influence of any given setting’s ethos and the propensity of its practitioners to develop an enquiry habit of mind (Earl and Katz, 2006). As a result, it is unlikely, then, to be something that can be quickly implemented across the piece (i.e. for a whole country’s or district’s workforce), even if introduced through an immediate mandate. Stoll et al. (2002) note that enquiry-minded leadership may be significant as a means to promote reflective enquiry: those currently leading schools and who favour an evidence-informed approach must, therefore, ensure this is reflected in their expectations, but they must also bring together staff who are most likely to share this mission and work towards its success (and analogies here can be made with other approaches: Wilson (2012), for example, discusses the approach taken by Pep Guadioloa in developing Barcelon’s ‘tika tika’ style of football). Over time, this can mean that the efforts of staff lead to synergies being developed in this area, with the whole of a school’s staff striving towards a common goal. At this point, the behaviour of staff acting in this way becomes distinctive and signifying: it is different to schools not acting in this way, and a school-level scene is thus formed. It is clear, however, that my assertion above is dissonant from a number of other current positions as to how a self-improving school system might selfimprove. Specifically, I am using scenes to differentiate my argument – that meaningful evidence-informed practice is only likely to grow in an organic self-determined way – from those (e.g. Jackson and Temperley, 2007, or

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Hargreaves 2010, 2012) who argue that the alternative to top–down solutions must be a change to networked solutions: clusters of schools engaged in orchestrated and collaborative ‘networked learning’. While it is undoubtedly useful and beneficial for schools to engage in this way, I would suggest that any changes to practice that emerge from a networked approach to evidence use will be less likely to result in deep or sustained differences in practice for all of the teachers within a setting, as that which occurs when change is successfully implemented within an individual school – or in the case of Tower Hamlets within one local authority; and certainly not without the type of high level such as that provided to Teaching School Alliances to undertake cross-alliance research and development projects – see Chapter 4. This is because of various reasons: 1. Much literature on implementing change (such as becoming informed by evidence) suggest that new initiatives will only ever be sustainable when their implementation is accompanied by a permanent shift in behaviours and activities, and, within schools, such shifts must be led, in the first instance, by those who lead specific settings. In term of evidence use, then, as Earl and Katz (2006: 20) argue, it is ‘leaders [who] have the challenge of convincing everyone who works in a school of the merits of using data for productive change and creating the conditions in which data can become an integral part of school decision making’ (also see Kotter, 1990; Fullan, 1991; McLaughlin and Talbert, 2006; Hallinger, 2011). A minimum level of leadership buy-in and commitment within each school is thus likely to be essential for networks to have any success as networks. 2. Stoll and Fink (1996: 74) suggest that ‘schools are like small societies’, who display their own unique political dynamics and individual motivations. Each school then will privilege certain actions and beliefs and a given ethos; these are likely to be context specific and so different to the overall preferred actions, beliefs and ethos of the network, which will likely represent either a compromised conclusion, something developed externally (e.g. the Teaching School Alliance research themes that were developed by the National College for Teaching and Leadership), or something that cannot be enforced and so is not binding. 3. The strength of group action is affected both by homophily and close physical proximity (people will be drawn to those with which they have

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something in common and who are situated nearby: Coburn et al., 2010). Change will thus be more likely to result in both improvement and synergies when everybody is pulling in the same direction and towards a common and commonly understood goal. Even with a network of schools, allied towards a specific cause, any common direction is likely to have more stickiness as a concept within a school (where homophily and geographic proximity are highest) than across schools. People are thus more likely to strive for their school than for a wider aim, which might resonate less. 4. Learning or commitment to specific actions that occur within interorganizational networks is rarely given a chance to survive when individuals return and the priorities of that setting will once again surface as the front of mind drivers of activity (Sultana, 2008). Alternatively, those involved in network activity may not possess the authority to implement what has been agreed at a network level, within their schools. In addition (assuming that not every member of a setting will be involved in networking activity) and knowledge created within the network will then have to be shared within an individual’s setting if a wide-reaching difference is to be made, this again can only occur if supportive ethos and structures are already in place to do so. 5. Coburn et al. (2010) argue that networks across schools are subject to the whims of policy/organizational initiatives: when policy support is removed, such networks whither and decline. 6. Sultana (2008) argue that there may be a multitude of reasons why schools engage in networking activity, with many of these not related at all to the aims of the network. For example, to build or maintain relationships, to capture resource (which can be allocated to other areas of priority) or to engage in some form of capacity building (i.e. an opportunity for lowercost continuing professional development). Within a network there will, therefore, be numerous takes on and commitments to what comprises evidence informed (both as a concept and in terms of how it materializes in practice), based on what has occurred before in a setting and the combined socio-historic locations of those working within it. Thus while networks might be useful in enabling individuals to identify or even construct effective practice, this is not the same as schools embedding this

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practice such that it forms a core and distinctive aspect of their way of being – this can only be done by schools themselves and crucially by school leaders.

Scenic transfer Christakis and Fowler (2009) suggest that when people are free to do as they please (as to an increasing extent English schools now are) they invariably imitate each other. Simultaneously, however, it will be the most attractive ideas that spread furthest and fastest. But often ideas can only spread through direct experience: Fullan (2011) argues that ‘realized’ effectiveness (not inspirational pamphlets or discourse) is what causes people to change. So how do people realize the effectiveness of a scene? It is clear that schools that enable evidence use currently exist in some settings (e.g. see Greany, 2013; Bubb, 2014), but the presence of these schools diffuse if we are to witness/experience more widespread evidence use. Again this will take time: historically, the spread of knowledge about scenes or even the growth of scenes themselves and the ideas they embodied occurred via the mobility of people. While for many temporal scenes (such as music or political movements), this mobility has been augmented or even replaced by the role played by the hyperreality and other forms of communication technology, where scenes involve strong spatial elements, the movement of people is still vital in perpetuating scenic capital or in propagating a scene’s ethos. In many respects, then, the number of evidence-informed scenes are most likely to grow when either the people within them leave to establish new scenes or visitors to them are inspired to establish something similar in their own location. Returning to the historic, both are akin to the itinerant sculptors of the renaissance: it was the lot of such sculptors that they would and must travel. Many studied in Tuscany, inheriting the techniques of Benedetto Antelami and then leaving Como in search of new ideas. Others were attracted by continental rulers eager to attract to their courts those sculptors who might serve to best enliven their artistic scene; while later calls from the German courts caused a general artistic diaspora. As a result, despite their diverse origins, the commonality of their training and the intermingling of such artists on major projects for various noble houses led to a widespread but distinct

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European art movement. The change required for evidence use is thus likely to be driven by the itinerant head teacher who wanders from site to site providing leadership in order to direct the ethos and behaviours towards evidence use (Day et al., 2010). Any behaviour shift may also involve academies, academy chains, free schools and others now using the powers available to them to set in place professional requirements with regard to evidence use, perhaps as part of the terms and conditions of employment (see Chapter 4): in other words, like the European rulers of the Renaissance, those who run schools may be in a position to attract those most likely to enliven their scenes, directing them towards evidence use.

When is a scene truly evidence informed? The mechanics and processes of evidence use are likely to vary from setting to setting; they will also be dependent on the level of capacity that exists now and that which is likely to be required moving forward (as well as the resources available for capacity building). This then raises a question as to when might a scene be considered truly evidence informed. In part my answer here stems from a serendipitous experience: between March and August 2013, I spent a significant amount of time visiting Queen Alexandra hospital in Portsmouth. While there, I saw the following sign (Figure 6.2), which provided to visitors and staff guidelines on how to wash their hands. I immediately connected this to my earlier analyses of expertise (e.g. see Chapter 2): a twelve-stage guide might be fine for novices but expert hand washers will intuitively apply those stages that correspond best to the situation in hand. But this sign also caused me to think in a slightly different direction: (1) how do we know when our hands are clean? and (2) how do we identify clean hands? The notion of expertise would suggest that not all twelve steps must necessarily be engaged with and, simultaneously, that there will be a general ethos that relates both to the ideal process and the context in which the actuality of this process is being enacted. Scenes can and will, therefore, ‘be’ evidence informed in a variety of ways: we may have an ideal process but scenes cannot be castigated if it is not exactly followed. Indeed, this is what developing expertise is about – we might capacity build and demonstrate to

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Duration of the entire procedure: 40–60 sec.

Wet hands with water

Right palm over left dorsum with interlaced fingers and vice versa

Apply enough soap to cover all hand surfaces.

Palm to palm with fingers interlaced

Rotational rubbing of left thumb clasped in right palm and vice versa

Rotational rubbing, backwards and forwards with clasped fingers of right hand in left palm and vice versa

Dry thoroughly with a single use towel

Use towel to turn off faucet

Figure 6.2 A twelve-stage guide to washing hands

Rub hands palm to palm

Backs of fingers to opposing palms with fingers interlocked

Rinse hands with water

…and your hands are safe

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practitioners within a setting what a process for abduction might look like (e.g. see Stoll, 2009b), or in terms of how to use data and evidence (e.g. see Schildkamp and Hubers, 2013), but we can’t forever oversee and control: therefore, moving forward it must be the ethos of being evidence informed that matters – that, like with the distorted reproduction (Chapter 3), we can perceive the overall idea, even if the end result is not an exact replica of our proposed approach.

Future scenes? If some scenes can be successful in establishing high levels of scenic capital based on an evidence-informed approach (i.e. through establishing an attractive evidence-informed ethos which also leads to outstanding results for individuals), with the result that they experience virtuous circles of attracting and retaining staff who can perpetuate the ethos or approaches of the school and its success, then they are likely to experience a return on any initial investment made in capacity building (i.e. resource spent on efforts to ensure practitioners both can and are able to use research). Not only this, but if scenes can achieve scenic capital via means that might be successfully emulated by others, then ultimately, in the longer term, they might serve to inspire others to develop similar approaches suitable to their own contexts and settings. This, as a result, provides a new perspective on what ‘self-improving’ might entail: rather than enable networks of schools to learn from or about each other’s best practice without a meaningful shift in normative culture that will be required to embed and sustain it, the presence and construction of scenic capital can result in a force for good, with practitioner scenes and those involved in them affecting and truly inspiring others to act, either encouraging like-minded people to move location or to, at some point, establish their own scene. Not only this but, as I discuss in Chapter 5, focusing on the individual and importantly having knowledge of what can work for the individuals you have responsibility for can also facilitate scenic resistance: that is, the ability to achieve outcomes through ways and means that might be preferable to the context in question, rather than via methods and means prescribed elsewhere. Here then, the self in ‘selfimproving’ truly means ‘self ’ – the ability to determine one’s own approach by illustrating that it is the most effective.

Part Three

Implications

7

What Does This Mean for Rationality?

Having considered luxury, ornamental and functional evidence use in some detail, I now return to think about evidence use in a holistic way. In particular, I engage with the, often-implicit, understanding that the notion of evidence use is one steeped in what is commonly regarded as ‘rationality’. By this I mean that, since the premise behind evidence use is that acting in this way can enhance the efficiency, equity and value for money of policy or practice decisions, it would seem sensible for policy-makers and practitioners, when they are able, to use available quality evidence. This notion of underpinning rationality is perhaps best reflected in the number of initiatives and signifying activity that have been established to better ensure evidence use (e.g. see Gough et al., 2011; Brown, 2013): in other words why, in an age of austerity, would governments invest time and money encouraging a specific activity if there is no benefit to doing so? As I note in Chapter 2, however, evidence use is not widespread in policy, and as I suggest in Chapter 4, neither is this the case in practice. I also, in Chapter 1, describe the concept of ornamental evidence use: that is, evidence use that provides discursive defence rather than meaningful input. A key question then for any analysis of evidence use concerns what we know and understand about rational behaviour and whether current conceptions should be revised in line with actual observed behaviours (i.e. the non-use of evidence). This question also leads me to consider how, as researchers, we might engage in enhancing an optimal level of rational behaviour – in other words how to encourage more instances of action deemed to be rational. In this chapter, I seek to address such considerations: I begin by examining and critiquing Aristotelian and Kantian notions of rationality (while there are numerous others who have considered this subject, I have allowed myself only

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one chapter on this topic, so have restricted myself to those whose work I believe has been seminal in this field). I then illustrate how a reversioning of Aristotelian rationality results in an understanding of rationality as the actual actions we engage in as they relate to maximizing our well-being; correspondingly, how optimal rational behaviour represents the extent to which our actions are congruent with more culturally contextualized and widely promulgated notions of what rational behaviour might entail. As a result, this analysis enables me, in Chapter 8, to consider how cultural understanding in terms of rational action and its relationship to evidence use might be influenced by researchers.

Aristotelian ethics My examination of rationality starts with Aristotle, who, like Socrates, was concerned with how people might best live virtuously: how people might acquire and come to act through excellent and well-chosen habits – a situation he regarded as being synonymous with a state of happiness or ‘human flourishing’. It was Aristotle’s assertion that, at the time of his writing, popular accounts concerning what might comprise a happy life could be divided most easily into one of three common types: a life dedicated to vulgar pleasure; a life dedicated to fame and honour; or a life dedicated to contemplation. To judge these, Aristotle employed the concept of reason to define the ‘natural’ function of a human in action: the ability to use reason or logos, he argued, serves to act as the essential attribute characterizing what it is to be human. At the same time, Aristotle opined that reason may be exercised in two ways: theoretically and practically, that is, both in thoughts and in deeds. Happiness, therefore, can emerge only through rationality – the appropriate exercise of practical reason so as to ensure our actions are congruent with human nature (theoretical reason), rather than work against it. Since actions and thought can be married in all three typologies of happiness, however, Aristotle also argued that the question of how one maximizes happiness equates to the question of which activities of the human soul represent the ‘highest’ excellence in using reason. Correspondingly, the Aristotelian solution for a virtuous happy life is to live the life of philosophy and contemplation, since this truly realizes man’s

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purpose or nature as found in the reasoned soul. At the same time, however, Aristotle argues that achieving such a life also requires the cultivation of ‘virtues’, such as justice, courage, temperance and phronesis (practical wisdom) in relation to the practical act. Doing so thus ensures that how we behave is at all times in alignment with the highest level of theoretical reason. Aristotle suggests that such cultivation can occur via habituation: ‘the virtues we get by first exercising them … we learn by doing them … we become just [by] forming habits in them’ (Book II, 1). In other words, to live a truly reasoned life we must train ourselves to enjoy engaging in ‘good’ actions and to develop the right emotions ‘at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right motive and in the right way’ (Book II, 6). Aristotle’s notions of rationality and ethics remained broadly accepted until the time of the Enlightenment. In part, this may have been due to the compatibility of the broader Aristotelian position (for instance, Aristotle’s study of the ‘fundamentals’ or first causes, and his contribution to the process of deductive inference and reasoning: e.g. see The Metaphysics) with a number of Christian philosophical traditions that emerged during this time. These include St. Anselm’s ‘ontological argument’ for the proof of god and, to an extent related to this, Descartes’ system of reasoning, one based on the idea that self-evident truths should form the basis of all scientific argument. This was a position also held, albeit in a modified form, by Spinoza, who argued for the existence of a priori truths: in other words, that the fundamental premises of human knowledge can only be established by the use of reason, rather than experience, in order to establish the basic ‘essence’ of things. Such views were also later championed by other ‘rationalist’ philosophers such as Liebniz, who claimed that a priori truth in fact amounted to objective knowledge, that is, knowledge of the world as it actually is. During the eighteenth century, however, the rationalist perspective endured substantial challenge and critique from ‘empiricists’ such as David Hume. A fundamental aspect of the empiricists’ argument was that the only thing we can truly know is what our senses tell us; correspondingly, we can have objective truth of nothing and certainly no understanding beyond that of the individual. It was not until the arrival of Immanuel Kant more than a century after Spinoza’s death that these opposing schools of thought were reconciled; and in successfully combining empiricist and rational positions, Kant served to usher in a new epoch in terms of how

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we might come to view rational and reasoned behaviour. Specifically, Kant’s work re-centred notions of rationality by focusing on two key aspects: (1) how we might come to know the world; and (2) how we should act in relation to it.

Kantian epistemology and ontology In The Critique of Pure Reason, Kant begins his reconciliation of Leibniz and Hume by restating their opposing rationalist and empiricist positions. The former, he argued, situates understanding as something that is dependent on the existence of innate principles that the self knows intuitively to be true and that do not depend on experience for any sort of verification. The rationalist position thus ultimately stems from the idea that reality is accessible to reason alone, since ‘only reason can rise above the individual point of view’ (Scruton, 1982: 16). Similarly, Kant sets out Hume’s diametrically opposed position as one that denies the possibility of knowledge through reason. This is because reason must be situated within ideas and, in themselves, ideas can only stem from sense data. Ultimately, however, sense data is only ever experienced at the level of the individual and so knowledge of the world can only be as each individual perceives it. As a result, empiricists argue that objective knowledge becomes a spurious concept and phenomenon that appear to operate independently of our perceptions (e.g. causal effects) should be viewed as nothing more than sets of experiences that we come to regularly perceive in consistent ways. Kant effectively combines these two positions through his argument that neither experience nor reason by themselves is able to provide knowledge: no knowledge can exist without it being some combination – some synthesis – of reason and experience. The natural extension of Kant’s analysis is that judgement results from the application of reasoning to data: experience provides concepts with meaning and, in doing so, provides the grounds for the application of a concept. That judgements might be objective, in other words, provide externally valid explanations rather than simply represent subjective interpretations of the world, can be derived from proving the existence of objects in time and space, a notion that had been thrown into doubt by the sceptical empiricism of Hume and by Liebniz’s desire to explain the world as existing as a form of abstract reason. In other words, objectivity could be

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proved by demonstrating that the world conformed very much to the laws laid down by Newtonian science for all perceivable things. A key aspect of Kantian analysis thus involves his treatment of cause and effect: Kant posits that it is only by finding causal relationships that we can believe in the objectivity of the world. In turn, causality is dependent on the endurance of things in time and space: their ability to exist even when we are not experiencing them, which in itself can be assessed by observing their altered state over time. As a result, Kant’s work on epistemology and ontology provides one of the first ‘modern’ philosophical backings to scientific method as a means of investigating and making sense of the world.

A universal moral code But Kant’s work also provided a universal moral underpinning for rationality: while Kant rejected the idea of pure reason as a means to understand the world as is, he did believe that a form of pure ‘practical’ reason (in the Aristotelian sense) could serve to guide people’s actions within it. It was Kant’s argument that people exist not only as self-conscious centres of knowledge but also as agents: that is, people possess agency – they can and do make choices. Kant held, however, that, despite this, objective practical reason could be established independent of agency, with it being possible to employ such reason that it might recommend both means and ends to choices while simultaneously justifying and motivating our actions. Such motivation, Kant argues, materializes through the idea of the moral imperative: imperatives that tell you what to do uncategorically (typically signalled by the presence of an ‘ought’: Scruton, 1982). A moral imperative is thus something that we are intuitively drawn towards, knowing that it is right – that we have a ‘duty’ to do it. Since the autonomous being is both an agent (i.e. can act) and someone who possesses values, categorical imperatives as universal ‘law’ must relate to both these attributes. For Aristotle, those acting at the highest form of rationality develop virtues so as to enjoy their good actions. Kant argues, however, that emotions (such as happiness) should be regarded as irrelevant: actions can only have moral worth if undertaken with a sense of duty. Kant describes the subject of this duty as the protection of freedom of self and others: ‘freedom is

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the alone unoriginated birthright of man, and belongs to him by force of his humanity; and is independent on the will and co-action of every other in so far as this consists with every other person’s freedom’ (1836: 202). In other words, we have a duty to respect the existence and endeavours of rational beings and the constraint of our freedom is that we must respect the freedom of all. In this sense, Kant’s universal code encapsulates concepts such as justice within an intuitive understanding of what is right. It is, as a result, a compelling dictate, but one quite different from interest or desire – we know we should follow it, rather than necessarily feel rewarded for doing so.

The end of Enlightenment? Kant’s work helped serve to usher in the Enlightenment, a movement concerned with progress and the Baconian ideal that developing and organizing empirical knowledge could immeasurably improve mankind’s lot in life (e.g. see Schmidt, 1989). Enlightenment thinkers promoted the banishing of traditional philosophy (an amalgam of Christianity and Aristotelian philosophy), replacing it instead with scientific method. Specifically, the types of epistemology and ontology were generally thought of as being realist/positivist in nature, that is, that which views the world as knowable and prone to being accurately explained via the application of scientific method and the development of universal explanatory theories. The privileging of the scientific and universal, and so of top–down generalized deductive theory that followed Kant, has not been without problem, however. I note this in Chapters 4 and 5 with regard to the needs of individual contexts and the costs of recontextualization. Later in this chapter, I also discuss the notion of social constructivism, and, while there may be social ‘facts’ which can be examined objectively, in relation to other social facets such as opinion and belief, there can be no all-encompassing understanding of the social world (Brown, 2013). Extensive critique of the impact of this aspect of the Enlightenment is also provided by the critical theorists of the Frankfurt School, for example, that set out by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, who concern themselves with the Enlightenment’s ‘self destruction’. In discussing the Enlightenment,

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Horkheimer and Adorno suggest it has ‘always aimed at liberating men from fear and establishing their sovereignty … The program of the enlightenment was the disenchantment of the world; the dissolution of myths and the substitution of knowledge for fancy’ (1972: 4). Somewhere on the ‘road to modern science’, however, such ideals became lost: ‘men renounce[d] any claim to meaning. They substitute[d] formula for concept, rule and probability for cause and motive’ (1972: 5). In other words, Horkheimer and Adorno argue that, as the Enlightenment became enveloped by empiricism, scientism and ultimately positivism, verification and falsification became the bywords and supposed features of good science (both social and physical) and so of good understanding generally. This, as a result, served to stifle new, original and so unproven or untested thought: the ability to critique and reason – to engage in creative philosophical acts – became lost. So too, however, did values: ‘substance and quality, activity and suffering, being and existence: to define these concepts in a way appropriate to the times was a concern of philosophy after Bacon – but science managed without such categories. They were abandoned as idola theatri of the old metaphysics’ (1972). Rationality, they suggest, thus became a concept associated simply with attempts to understand and verify claims to the universal, to test for cause and effect at a macro-level and to develop ways of explaining the world that subsumed the complexities of the individual: essentially rationality came to represent a concern for ‘what is’ not ‘what ought to be’. Simultaneously, the unexplicated or implicit concepts that underpinned these universal theories became elevated to the level of true social real: the status quo became rigidly locked in place, but done so unassumingly and in a way disguised by the neutrality of scientific discourse. Falsification of such assumptions (e.g. in relation to the inferiority of those of specific class, gender or race) subsequently took time, since this process both represented and required discursive challenge to the status quo: a revolution of ideas. The analysis by Horkheimer and Adorno helps illustrate how the notion of the scientific ideal, the universal explanation of phenomenon, came to prominence in terms of how it was expected social science should contribute to the production of solutions (e.g. in terms of policy and practice). More than this, however, Horkheimer and Adorno suggest that in privileging a scientific

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approach, the notion that social scientists might also contribute to society’s conceptions of ethics and values (the things that are good or bad for society) has been diminished and undermined and that these things have become the domain of the politician. That the current situation facing social science might be considered problematic is illustrated by Flyvbjerg, who argues social science is not able to develop the types of theory considered ‘normal’ (in a Kuhnian sense) in the natural sciences. Conversely, social science is better placed than the natural sciences at providing aspects of practical wisdom, that is, the notions of ethics and values described by Horkheimer and Adorno. As I will now explore, however, Kant’s moral legacy, the notion of the imperative that might guide us all, also appears in the modern world (specifically in relation to consumption) to be both increasingly difficult to enforce and adhere to. Social scientists would, therefore, seem to find themselves facing the irony that they are being asked to produce the types of scientific knowledge they are ill placed to provide, while being unable to contribute to wider value-laden notions regarding the roles of rationality and morality in a post-Kantian world.

The end of a universal moral code? As I note above, the Kantian notion of the universal moral code faces difficulties both in there being no meaningful way in which it can be enforced and also that it is now increasingly difficult for individuals to adhere to it. Beginning with the former, I suggest that contemporary conceptions of power and of its distribution serve to illustrate the difficulties in establishing any kind of mechanics that might be employed to police the moral code. This is perhaps best illustrated by juxtaposing the work of political thinkers such as Jürgen Habermas and Michel Foucault, who both agree on the need for reason and also the importance of Kant (e.g. see Foucault, 1984). Their analysis differs, however, in their treatment of power and its effects on rationality, in other words, if and how a universal moral imperative can be upheld. I begin by examining the work of Jürgen Habermas, which is principally concerned with how rational decision-making can be facilitated in modern democratic societies: Habermas’ implicit argument is that a rational decision is that which

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mature reflective individuals, guided by the Kantian moral imperative, would reach the same conclusion about (Stamford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2011). Habermas’ thesis is dependent on his theory of ‘communicative action’: action oriented towards reaching agreement, which, Habermas contends, is the fundamental type of social action. In turn, communicative action depends on a further premise, that is, the notion that discourse is used by people as an everyday process of making claims to validity. These two premises enable Habermas to conceive of civic life as comprising networks of relationships that display two principal characteristics: first, they are cooperative – this is because the success of any interaction depends upon the interdependent activity of both narrators and audiences (respectively as producers and receivers of the communicative act), and, second, that discourse must have a rational dimension: a narrator will seek to provide reasons for the validity of their communicative act, knowing that their counterpart (the audience) may either accept it or counter it with a better argument. Habermas’ twin premises of mutual agreement and discursive validity also allow him to set out a vision which positions valid and rational arguments as the basis for all major decisions. In other words, in a Habermasian-based society, public acts of praxis are ultimately determined by what Habermas describes as ‘the force of the better argument’, which represents a ‘cooperative search for truth’ (1990: 198: my emphasis). Habermas thus conceives of power as something that is constantly ameliorated by rationality: power is only afforded to individuals or institutions in instances where they can successfully argue their case. The notion of the better argument, meanwhile, is ‘policed’ by rules established by Habermas to uphold the validity of arguments (Habermas’ five ‘tenets’ of discourse ethics: see Habermas, 1999). A counterposition to Habermas’ democratic utopia is provided by Michel Foucault. Habermas’ notion of power and its amelioration by legal and democratic frameworks contrast significantly with that of Foucault, who argues that his own analysis is only possible because it has ‘abandon[ed] the juridical model … [that] makes the law the basic manifestation of power’ (Foucault, 2004: 265). While Habermas argues for a system governed by universally accepted and applicable democratic principles (i.e. which involve processes

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for establishing consensus around and the normative validity of arguments), Foucault argues that such principles do not exist. Instead, Foucault suggests that the worldviews of social groups are contextually grounded (and so truth, ‘perspectival and strategic’: 2004, 268). Such a position not only rules out Habermas’ invocation of the general principle of ‘the better argument’, since there is no neutral or a priori way in which this can be judged, but also negates the possibility of social groups or institutions operating in ways that might be considered ‘value neutral’ or in accordance with any universal imperative. Subsequently, rather than concern himself with the construction of mechanisms which provide a blueprint for how utopian government might operate, Foucault’s work is ‘genealogical’; it describes the genesis of a given situation in order to illustrate how it was arrived at. This enables Foucault to demonstrate that what is often taken for granted has not always been so and that alternatives are possible. Foucault specifically describes the task of laying open norms and the identification of alternatives as ‘criticiz[ing] the working of institutions which appear to be both neutral and independent; to criticize them in such a manner that the political violence which has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that one can fight them’ (Chomsky and Foucault, 1974:171). A natural extension of this line of argument is that those in power are better placed to promote their perspectives as ‘normal’. Foucault describes this notion as the ‘will to knowledge’, the desire by social groups to advance their version of events. Key to the successful operation of the ‘will to knowledge’ is how knowledge might be disseminated: this affects how power is enforced or maintained and how it is undermined. Foucault suggests that this role is played by discourse. For instance, in terms of maintaining power, Foucault (1980) argues that each society has a ‘regime of truth’: discursive realities which are not only accepted as true, but which are also made to function as true (e.g. via affording status to those charged with pronouncing the truth). In such cases, the dissemination of discourse facilitates control over what those in power wish to promote as the truth: power is synonymous with the promotion of the ‘true’ knowledge of the status quo and the discourse that results is specifically designed to uphold the current, specific ‘regime of truth’. Foucault (1978: 100–101) also notes, however, that ‘discourses are not once and for all subservient to power … discourse can be both an

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instrument and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling block, a point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy’. Discourses formed as part of the appropriation of knowledge can also be used, therefore, to seek to undermine existing power relations through the promotion of alternative ‘truth regimes’. It is clear then that for Foucault, power determines both rationality and truth, with the result that rationality and truth are contextual not universal in nature. In other words, these notions are subject to competing discourses which work to promote given ideologies, while also serving to remove others from general circulation. This leads Foucault to suggest that the Kantian notion of a universal moral imperative is no longer tenable: ‘perhaps too, we should abandon a whole tradition that allows us to imagine that knowledge can exist only where power relations are suspended and that knowledge can develop only outside its injunctions, its demands and its interests’ (1977: 27).

Code There are other concepts that serve similar functions to the ‘regime of truth’ inasmuch as they suggest that rationality is contextualized by the milieu within which individuals operate. For example, as I note in Chapter 3, Baudrillard (1998) conceives of code in a similar way as Foucault positions discursive power: as something that serves to program reality (via the construction of simulacra which subsume the real) in ways desired and preferred by those in power. In other words, codes equal the subordination of existence within given forms of representation. Baudrillard’s notion of power differs from that of Foucault’s in a number of ways, however, for example: (1) Baudrillard conceives of power as produced through signs and this allows for a wider conception of discursive control. In other words, it allows for the influence of brands, branding and advertising; also (2) he states that ‘code’ can construct both physical and social reality (e.g. the former would be achieved via the production of original DNA, the production and overlaying of virtual reality onto the social real and so on). Within this analysis, I concentrate solely on power as it relates to the social,1 and while Baudrillard presents a more extreme and unbending position, I prefer to engender people with a certain amount of agency and so regard the

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notion of the code as something that can be resisted (i.e. via the acts/actions described by Foucault as ‘ethics’).

The impossibility of consuming in line with the moral imperative Remaining with the notion of (social) code for the moment, Baudrillard perhaps failed to anticipate the economic and social situation that would face the West in the 2010s and that might accompany his notion of code: he does not posit, for example, in the same way that Foucault does, that there might be a number of different codes struggling for hegemony, or at least requiring action. In a globalized and connected world, however, the multitude of perspectives that are transmitted via the hyperreality mean that we are often faced with a myriad of conflicting messages. Not only this but in the West, our consumer society and the marketing machine that accompanies it also means that we are faced with a constant bombardment of a multiplicity of signs, seeking to influence our thoughts and behaviours. In terms of consumption (which I have already suggested is how the use of research might best be conceived), we are also faced with numerous choices, often provided by the same supplier, for every consumer object imaginable. Perhaps more importantly, however, is that in a world of globalized mass consumption, there are ‘externalities’: our acts of consumption have implications for others (both in the future and geographically). Examples of such externalities include the size of our carbon footprint, the pollution that more generally accompanies the process of production, the conditions of the labour force producing the work compared to more expensive Western labour and so on. In the modern world, then, in the act of consumption, the notion of freedom and respecting the freedom or rights of others becomes almost impossible: almost all acts of consumption have a consequence and have implications for others. As individuals, we are often left wondering which source of information (or signs) to believe and how to act since there is no perfect value free information upon which we might make our choices: the moral imperative thus becomes an unobtainable ideal and we are left instead with pragmatic compromise – trying to live life in the Kantian tradition, while balancing an almost infinite number of lifestyle choices.

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What next for rationality? Through my analysis above, I have suggested that the application of the two types of Kantian universal that have previously underpinned notions of rationality (the moral imperative and the ‘scientific’ approach to theory) is now increasingly untenable as hallmarks of rational behaviour in relation to the social world: (1) a moral imperative is something that can only exist with regard to local not universal discourse and it is, in terms of consumption, impossible to act in ways fully congruent with it; and (2) the social world is not fully amenable to the scientific method and acts as though it negates or relegates the other roles social science can play in suggesting what is good or right for society. As a consequence, I suggest we need to revisit conceptions of rationality to ensure their relevance to contemporary society. In particular, we need, first, to remove the notion of the universal from the moral imperative and, instead, consider that which works best to guide context-specific situations at a given point in time. Second, we need to remove the notion of the universal from the development of social theory by acknowledging that cultures, subcultures, groups or institutions are likely to work in a way that suits their setting best: thus the ability of any theory to explain a given phenomenon will be more effective the more grounded it is within that phenomenon. This is not to say that more generalized theories cannot be produced, but simply that their explanatory power will wane the more detached they become from the empirical. In many ways, this ontological/epistemological position is congruent with that of ‘constructivism’, with detail on this position and how we might understand the research process and policy-making in light of it covered in detail elsewhere (e.g. Dunne et al., 2005). As such, rather than repeat this here, I have summarized it in the Appendix, below.

Returning to Aristotle Given the need to also remove the universal moral imperative, a second ironic twist is to argue that, for acts of consumption, the way forward for rationality is perhaps located in the past, specifically, via a repositioning of Aristotelian ethics. This repositioning is not undertaken, however, with a view to emulate

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the past but to learn from it. In other words, I am in agreement with Foucault when he suggests that ‘this idea that the Greek civilization is something like a model, which has been forgotten … doesn’t make a lot of sense because history is history. There is no way, no hope, no positive meaning in turning back on something’ (Maas and Brock, 1983: 21). Nonetheless, it is also Foucault’s observation that in the ancient world we can find a civilization where values and the philosophy of ethics are strong as well as rooted in different sociohistorical contexts (e.g. in terms of contemporary religion, civil law or science – see Flyvbjerg, 2001). Foucault cautions, however, that our solutions have to be very different from those proposed by the ancient Greeks (Maas and Brock, 1983). As a result, I argue that although we can learn from Aristotle, we also need to depart from him in a number of ways. What might best be learned from Aristotle is twofold: first, that reason may be exercised both theoretically and practically, with each being separate and distinct. We intuitively know that we regularly fail to consume in ways we know are ‘best’ for us and I will illustrate this with concrete examples below. Second is the lack of the universal in Aristotle’s notions of theoretical and practical reasoning. That is, Aristotle makes no attempt (as Kant did) to distil via reasoning a universal moral imperative designed never to be refuted; he simply suggests that there are states of practical and theoretical rationality, some of which may be regarded as ‘better’ than others. Specifically, Aristotle argues that these states may be judged based on the level of happiness and flourishing they provide. With Aristotle there is, therefore, no binary right or wrong, just more or least preferred behaviour, with the nature of these types of behaviour and how they might be judged being dependent on context (Brown in Aristotle, 2009).

Departing from Aristotle My repositioning also departs from key aspects of Aristotle’s position in three key ways. First, unlike Aristotle, who considers the activities at which people might direct their efforts in order to achieve happiness, I consider rationality in terms of both time and with regard to who might be affected by particular actions. In other words, I argue that we should conceptualize

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and judge rationality in terms of both when the results of actions are likely to materialize and who they might impact upon. Thus, conceptions of rationality likely range, on the one hand, from universal rationality (which is concerned with behaviour in relation to society as a whole) to individual rationality (how individuals might behave); and, on the other, from short-term behaviour to that which concerns the long term. Second, I argue that, whether in terms of when or who, in all cases rational behaviour is that which is concerned with maximizing ‘wellbeing’. By this, I do not mean, however, the type of welfare maximization described by economists who equate it directly to economic action/activity; instead, my suggestion is that acts to enhance well-being represent actions that individuals ‘know’ are ‘needed’ at a given point in time. For example, if I am thirsty, it is clearly rational for me to reach for water; but equally, I am suggesting that it is rational for me to kick a chair in anger if I think it will make me feel better or to fix a White Russian if I want an alcohol buzz. Our day-to-day actions, our acts of practical rationality, thus represent the actual courses we take in life and are as much driven by emotion, feeling, snap decision-making, expertise (in a Flyvbjergian sense) and unconscious desire or motive as any conscious decision we may think through in detail: it is how we behave on a minute-by-minute, hourby-hour and day-by-day basis no matter what our state of mind – we might be drunk, stoned or sober, but attempting to meet our desires and maximize our welfare in these states will, nonetheless, represent rational behaviour in the practical mode. In other words, unlike Aristotle, I treat emotion as a valid motivator of rational behaviour, not something that gets in the way of it. Third, I relate to the need to incorporate concepts designed to explain society’s role in instilling values or norms into individuals, in order to provide a wider milieu within which actions play out and are contextualized, for example, those such as Foucault’s regime of truth or Baudrillard’s concept of code. It is these, I suggest, that provide the theoretical yardstick of reason, which I will re-term cultural rationality, that which producers, society, groups within society or perhaps even more localized cultures such as schools or government departments (as well as those seeking to establish scenes) deem as vital to the wider well-being and have embedded (or seek to embed) in practice and to enforce via discourse or through signs. This third notion serves to complete our understanding in terms of the need to deviate from

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both universal understandings and imperatives. That is, we can now see that as well as different groups having different perspectives (meaning we cannot provide theoretical understandings that can accurately describe or predict beyond that groups) neither can we necessarily require or expect other groups with different norms to adopt external moral imperatives that are essentially external to their worldview.

The interplay between cultural and practical rationalities A fundamental difference between the practical and cultural forms of rationality relates to the ‘aspects’ of rationality they are concerned with and so the types of welfare they are aimed at increasing. Broadly, although not exclusively, practical rationality will tend to be concerned with the individual and the short term: often we act in ways that suit our own immediate needs for the here and now. Cultural rationality then relates to the wider group and/or the longer term: how do our actions affect the well-being of our co-workers, neighbours, friends or family; and/or how will our behaviour today affect our well-being tomorrow? In considering how the two modes of cultural and practical rationality interrelate or affect behaviour, it is clear that an individual may consider and act in accordance with either one or both at a given point in time. It is not unreasonable, for instance, that we might seek to pursue an entirely practical path (which will likely amount to individuals focusing on the welfare of the short-term self), nor simultaneously that we might criticize individuals (from an external standpoint) for pursuing this type of action – indeed, it is in an individual’s interest that everyone else in society adheres to behaving in ways entirely consistent with what its cultural reasoning suggests, since these are likely to be selfless in nature and so beneficial to others. An approach that is not only rational but also optimal, however, from both the standpoint of the individual and the group (which ultimately will be the same) ensures that on aggregate there is balance or alignment between the two. This is because at a point of balance, when an individual or sub-group pursues their desires, they do so in ways congruent with approaches that also benefit either society or themselves in the long term. In this sense, the nature of optimal rationality is harmonious with the highest levels of Aristotelian happiness

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since it may well take some individuals a great deal of mental and/or physical effort to move beyond acting in an entirely practical way (Aristotle’s notion of training virtuous behaviour). Perhaps a better way to explain this contemporary reinterpretation of Aristotelian rationality is to relate it to real-life examples: thus, if we assume that being rational is to consume in a way that maximizes our well-being, then we equate it to improving the positive experiences we have. Personally, I enjoy eating at gourmand restaurants or going to gigs, and I also like drinking Corona and eating Ben & Jerry’s. While doing these things in the short term might be fun, I know that if done, say daily, these actions will not be conducive to my long-term well-being: I might become obese, die younger than I ordinarily might do from a heart attack, get tired from too many long nights and so on. So what is needed here then is a balance between what I know will give me short-term well-being and what is probably best for my future well-being – my ability to consume longer term. At the same time, I may also do things which might not necessarily give me pleasure now, but act to benefit me in the long term (e.g. save money or go to the gym four times a week). Simultaneously, while the well-being I maximize is personal, it is done within familial and cultural norms and the ‘structural’ influences that exist at societal level: the maximization of my welfare is thus contextualized by both signs (transmitted by the producers of consumer goods: brands, marketing activity, etc.) and the norms of the wider groups to which I belong (family friends, work colleagues, bosses, stakeholders, customers, religious perspectives, etc.). I do not, therefore, act or consume in entirely selfish ways, or solely influenced by messaging: I understand the societal requirements related to my acts of consumption and bear them in mind as I act. In other words, my understanding of the long-term negative consequences of beer and ice cream is part informed by the messages and signs promulgated by certain parts of society, which have a vested interest in my staying sober and healthy (e.g. the National Health Service and the Police who would otherwise have to spend money on remedial activity such as heart by-pass operations or prosecution). My wife too would probably prefer me to stay trim, lean and coherent. This notion of balance and optimality thus requires individuals or groups to act as often as possible in ways sympathetic with society’s notion of reason,

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but simultaneously it requires society to provide incentives to do so, for example, by setting in place disincentives to dissuade people from pursuing their whims too often (or to excessive levels) and/or to the detriment of others, or by educating (e.g. with regard to health and fitness) the individuals so that they themselves seek a balance in their acts of consumption. At the same time, ‘abandoning’ Kant in this way does not necessarily need to result in social relativism or extremist dominance (as relates to cultural rationality), since it is clear that the universal itself can be bent to meet the needs of a particular will to knowledge: for example, Foucault has previously illustrated how the Kantian position itself was adopted by those sympathetic to Nazi Germany (in particular Foucault refers to Max Pohlenz: see Tully, 1999). In other words, espousing a theory doesn’t necessarily mean adhering to it. Instead, what comprises cultural rationality must be continuously revisited and challenged in order to ensure that the dominant discourse or the prevailing code is not allowed to be unconsciously or unwillingly perverted so that it affects people’s ability to maximize their well-being, or ensure that we act without the best available understanding of the implications of our actions. Perhaps, the best way to envisage such challenge is via the idea of a discursive feedback loop between practical and cultural rationalities: acts of practical rationality, directed as they are at maximizing the wellbeing of the individual can, should they deviate significantly from current cultural rationalities, be positioned as instances of resistance. Where there are consistent commonalities and themes, this deviation might then be put forward as alternative regimes of truth and so serve to challenge the discourses that form any given cultural rationality. It can be seen that the notion of promoting discursive challenge directly addresses both Horkheimer and Adorno’s (1972) and Flyvbjerg’s (2001) critique of the Enlightenment and its effects on social science. In the next and final chapter, then, I will seek to take my analysis above and apply it to evidence use: specifically, I will address what rational behaviour ‘looks like’ as it relates to employing evidence and what the role of social science might be in promoting more specific versions of rational behaviour. In other words, I will examine the role of researchers in affecting the cultural rationalities of society and groups and organizations within it in relation to evidence use.

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Appendix: Constructivism Constructivism is a concept rooted in the notion that the social world and the self, and, correspondingly, knowledge of the social world and self, are constructed through interaction and interpretation. Epistemologically speaking, adherence to the constructivist position equates to an acceptance that the social world can only be depicted in abstract form. More precisely, the closest we can get to portraying social reality through research is more akin to an impressionist print than a high-resolution photograph (or a distorted rather than a faithful reproduction). In other words, through research we can describe a world that looks broadly identifiable (often though, just to certain sub-groups of its inhabitants) and that spotlights some of the commonalities and norms that exist. What we can’t do, however, is present a picture of the social as it actually is, because in terms of opinions and beliefs there is no one such version. It is also clear, however, that if the social world is subject to constructivist ontological and epistemological considerations, then acts of praxis such as teaching or policy-making must also function in ways commensurate to those considerations. For example, in terms of policy-making, this is why policies vary in the success with which they achieve their aims and why we can rationalize, post-hoc, why a given policy has failed. In other words, some policies will inevitably resonate with some individuals (i.e. will cause them to react in the ways desired or envisaged by the architects of that policy) more than others. The knack of effective politics and so policy-making, therefore, is to maximize the effectiveness of policies in terms of their reach and ability to cause the desired result: it is here that research and evidence have a role – to create a picture that is as recognizable to as many people as possible, so that it can guide policy as accurately as possible. Evidence use in policy-making thus moves policy-making away from a situation where the success of policy is dependent on a corresponding matching of perspectives between electorate and the elected and towards a situation where policy-makers, more often than not, are able to fulfil their policy goals.

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I now use this, the final chapter, to summarize my analysis. Specifically, I set out and explain Figure 8.1, which provides an overarching model of evidenceinformed policy and practice. I then augment the model by incorporating the revised conception of rationality I set out in Chapter 7, which, I suggest, also serves to provide an indication of the role of researchers/research within this schema and for the promulgation of evidence-informed policy and practice more generally. Beginning at the top of the model, the level of policy-making, it can be seen that there are three main concepts in operation. First, at the centre of the diagram sits the policy agora – the amalgam of evidence and the producers

Echo chambers

Policy agora

1

2

Media hyperreality

Schoollevel policy Resistance

3

Schools

Figure 8.1 A schematic of evidence-informed policy and practice

Scenes

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of evidence likely to be considered by policy-makers in the development of their policies. As noted in Chapter 1, the policy agora essentially represents the ideological and epistemological bounds of luxury research use; therefore, it essentially serves to limit what evidence will be considered by policy-makers (① on the diagram). If policy-makers are not minded to consider evidence at all, the agora essentially becomes one dimensional: policy-makers make decisions driven purely by ideological considerations. (I do not, however, pursue this line of analysis here.) Top-right of the model sits the media hyperreality, whose re-creation of social fact serves to galvanize social opinion and action. Where the operation of the hyperreality is seen to have negative or unwanted consequences for government, luxury research use will invariably be replaced with ornamental research use as policy-makers seek to defend their positions and to promote their own interpretations of social meaning (② on the diagram). Finally, to the top-left are the echo chambers – those ‘type 2’ scenes that represent a coming together of like-minded people seeking to provide policy solutions with which to lobby government. In the period of preelection, echo chambers can often serve to aid the development of manifestoes and can be viewed as nascent or proto policy agoras. To the extent that the hyperreality can champion or derail either electioneering or lobbying efforts, the myriad of echo chambers that exist also sit within the hyperreality’s sphere of influence. The combined function of the model’s top row is (in part) to produce evidence-informed policies designed to affect and be implemented by schools. In the bottom row then – the level of practice – two things are likely to happen in response. First, schools may have developed as ‘type 1’ scenes: in other words, they have developed a desire and the capacity to use functional evidence in an abductive way in order that they can understand and act at the level of the individual pupil or teacher within their schools (③ on the diagram). The result of such evidence use is both outstanding practice and outcomes, as well as schools also developing a sense of confidence in affording primacy to their own ways of working. Correspondingly, this leads to resistance: type 1 scenes feel emboldened to reject the slavish adoption of policy; instead they meet policy aims by implementing solutions that best suit the needs of individual contexts. In tapping into the notion of ‘long tail’ exchange value I set out in Chapter 4, type 1 scenes will therefore each provide smaller chunks of

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exchange value but chunks that, on aggregate, equate to something impressive and meaningful. For those schools that have not yet become type 1 scenes, they will be expected to adopt the top–down evidence-informed solutions produced by government. Doing so, however, will incur a cost, as evidence/ policy is recontextualized, that is, reconfigured so that it can be employed within the context in question. As I note in Figure 4.1, the extent of this cost and the success of the recontextualization process will ultimately impact the level of exchange value research can provide.

The role for researchers/research in this schema Flyvbjerg (2001: 125) argues that the principal result of the enlightenment has been to shift the role of social science away from contributing values and ethics to the social debate and towards a focus on the production of ‘scientific’ understanding. As a result, Flyvbjerg contends that ‘social science [now] concerns [itself] with ideal social models for the functioning of society, with abstractions, basic principles, utopias, theories and general criteria for the evaluation’. More recently, a requirement for ‘impact’ has been layered on top of this instrumentalism, with UK academics now also actively incentivized by the Research Excellence Framework to work to ensure their output carries influence outside of academia. I also note in Brown (2013) that often the best way to achieve impact (in cases of policy-making at least) is via the production of ‘policy-ready’ outputs, that is, outputs that, as a minimum, relate to the implications of findings and the recommendations or possible solutions for policies which stem from them. Ultimately, however (and ideally from the perspective of users), such outputs may also detail how recommendations might be fulfilled and how the education system may need to be altered to remove any blockages to their implementation (in itself this has been driven by the ‘marketization’ of social science). Policy-ready outputs, therefore, result from the researcher acting more as a pseudo policy-maker than simply being able to communicate their research effectively. The impact of these forces in shaping the output of social science would seem to indicate that educational research has an active practical rational function, but one, perhaps, that is attempting to align its output to a cultural rationality

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that does not exist – one moulded in the Habermasian tradition, where it is thought or hoped that truth will prevail. Yet as the policy agora shows and as I have laid out in Chapters 4–6, policy and practice do not necessarily operate in this way. At the same time, It is clear from both my analysis in this book and also in Making Evidence Matter (Brown, 2013) that the use of evidence in policy and practice should be concerned with enhancing the consequences of decisions and so actions, both for the welfare of the self and others. As such, the production of evidence and the notion that it might be employed to optimize well-being may be viewed as something that also relates directly to cultural rationality: it could form part of any benchmark for reasoned behaviour, with the actions of research ‘users’ therefore representing the extent to which they meet this benchmark – a way of judging how their own (practical rational) behaviour stacks up. In other words, rather than simply focusing on one side of the equation, our acts of evidence production can also be married to efforts relating to values and ethics concerning its use. At the same time, just as with Aristotle’s idea that three approaches to life can lead to certain levels of happiness, it is also clear that there will be a broad spectrum along which a position of an ‘evidence-informed’ cultural rationality can lie. In the case of policy-making, this is likely to range from decisions driven purely by ideology at one end of the spectrum to the purely technocratic at the other. Neither is necessarily wrong if it is something that is willed by society at a given point in time. Contention emerges, however, where the actions and behaviours of politicians and policy-makers do not align with what we require from them: for example, if we wish that they be non-partisan in their use of evidence so that their policies are well informed and instead all their decisions are made with scant regard to anything other than whim and intuition. The very same is true for practice: in England’s increasingly autonomous and fragmented school system, schools may range in their use of evidence from the types of (type 1) scenes I describe in Chapter 6 to those which undertake a very pragmatic approach (a kind of teaching by numbers); which approach is ‘right’ is simply an expression of societal judgement. Any attempt to encapsulate what such societal judgement is, however, is likely to be problematic, since there is unlikely to be any meaningful or accurate way to measure it, nor that the requirements of society can be reduced to a single knowable expression. Nonetheless, voters can express their desires in the

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ballot box, and as I note in Chapter 3, perhaps, influencing decisions, even through the media, is the closest we have to the type of Habermasian challenge function, which I critique in Chapter 7.

The end result of my analysis to date Combined with my suggestion in Chapter 7 relating to the need to keep cultural rationalities in check and relevant (through a continuous process of challenge and questioning), I argue that my analysis in this book should help orientate educational researchers in terms of the direction we should take in relation to this new conception of rationality and my suggestion that cultural rationality may be influenced by discourses and new scenes, rather than represent something universal and fixed. Specifically, educational researchers (and indeed social scientists more broadly) can act as the catalysts for creating and mobilizing alternatives discourses. Whether or not we can divest from politicians some of their guardianship of societal values is debatable: in the modern world, there is both a value vacuum and, because of the legacy of the enlightenment, also an intolerance to listen to the views of those not regarded as fully rational (those whose arguments are grounded in metaphysics such as the church, those branded as ‘out of date’ such as the unions or those seen to be out of touch with reality such as academics). Nevertheless, what we can do is to promote what researchers are regarded as doing well: the production of knowledge. In knowing this, the role for educational researchers in the schema set out in Figure 8.1, at once becomes clear: as well as produce research and promote its use, we must also champion more generally the value of social science and work to influence society’s expectation as to how it is used. Specifically, we must conceive of and then champion what we believe to be optimal, for instance, seeking to ensure policy agoras are maximized while lending our support to echo chambers that embrace engagement with a multitude of research. We must help type 1 scenes develop cultures that ensure they can fully understand and so support each individual within them. Crucially, we must work to banish research as something that exists merely as ornament, while, at the same time, develop capacity when it comes to research use. Simultaneously, we must promote not only evidence use per se but ways

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of understanding that are most helpful to the context in question. In other words, we should consider removing the one-size-fits-all solution and of positivist/realist notions of how research can be used and, instead, promoting constructivist understanding. The potential ways to achieve this include working with administrative government (i.e. the civil service) to establish policy-learning communities, where doing so can develop expertise in relation to evidence use, simultaneously acting to informally widen the scope of the agora (Chapter 2). Researchers too must seek to employ semiotic guerrilla warfare (Eco, 1967) to influence (1) the creation of social fact and interpretative critique produced by the hyperreality; and (2) the social consciousness, enabling alternative regimes of truth to develop, which can then be adopted by the hyperreality. The result in either case is to ensure that both current policy-makers and echo chambers take note and act accordingly. At the level of practice, we must work with schools to develop their ability to use and employ research in an abductive way as well as to see its demonstrable value. This means not only assisting schools to become type 1 scenes and realizing the power of resistance but showcasing these so that other schools seek to develop scenes of their own. Naturally, our role will not be an easy task especially when, first, the practical rationalities of government will be focused (and from some perspectives, reasonably so) on undertaking activity that concerns politicians remaining in power and doing so by achieving discursive hegemony; and, second, in a similar vein, the focus of teachers will be on practice – managing a process of teaching and learning that improves outcomes for pupils. As I argue in Chapter 3, researchers will therefore be required to develop new skills, for example, to work more closely with schools in relation to research and development, helping head teachers and teachers to see its value and to build their ‘enquiry habits of mind’. In other words, their skills should extend beyond simply possessing an ability to conduct research and stretch into the realms of communication and advocacy. It, perhaps, also means extending the breadth of our project partners: as well as working with research colleagues, we need to engage with (for example) graphic designers and facilitators – those who can help bring our research to life and ensure that it is engaged with and learned from. In other words, if research truly is a consumer good, what we are currently lacking is an effective Marketing and

What Does This Mean for Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice?

159

Communications department as well as salespeople who might show how it can be used most meaningfully. The most complex of the skills we will need to learn, or to find partners to help us understand, is how the hyperreality might be effectively employed in order to promulgate alternative discourses: in other words, to use the hyperreality as a way of amplifying our messages concerning what should comprise cultural optimality. This is because researchers will also have to accept that, at the same time, engaging in this way adds another layer of interpretation to the messages we are seeking to transmit and that the focus of the hyperreality is about attracting attention (in the form of viewers, listeners, readers, followers, page impressions and so on) rather than promoting ‘truth’: it will thus be a tricky endeavour and one that takes practice in order to perfect.

Conclusion In this book, I have used semiotic, sociological and empirical analysis (both existing and my own) in an attempt to provide a theoretically rich and detailed, but also hopefully recognizable, depiction of what characterizes and affects the world of evidence use. In this world, then, I suggest research is viewed as a commodity, with concomitant use, exchange and signifying values; correspondingly, these values mean that research is likely to be consumed in different ways and in accordance with different needs. For example, evidence use will be influenced at a macro (policy) level by the discourse and critique of the hyperreality as much as any desire to steer policy in an instrumental way. At a micro-level, use value (in terms of context) and the cost of recontextualizing macro-level evidence come into play; simultaneously, in a school system that can now to some extent determine its own future pathway, leadership (and the value leaders place on understanding the individual) will play a large part in determining whether and how schools might embrace the use of data and the production of their own understanding. There is also a tension when the consequence of consuming evidence can be either the development of top– down policy-making or result in the formation of new localized practice; here I argue that this tension will be played out in different ways as scenes develop their own confidence to resist policy and pursue their own evidence-informed direction. In also examining how rationality might be viewed in this world of research consumption, I have suggested that most types of research use, from the perspective of maximizing welfare, are likely to be rational but not necessarily optimal (when considering welfare in terms of society or the longer term). Correspondingly, I have suggested that educational researchers have a role in affecting both practical and cultural rationalities. In terms of the former, we can act to produce research that lends itself to being usable and used; in terms of the latter, rather than simply act as the producers of what is to be consumed, researchers also have a responsibility to suggest values relating to knowledge use – in other words, to also promote consumption of the types of evidence and the ways of consuming evidence which accord best to our individual and collective ethos and values.

Notes

Chapter 1 1

Stokes (1997) sets out a classification of research types based on whether research knowledge comprises a search for ‘fundamental understanding’ and the extent to which it has been driven by considerations regarding its potential use. In relation to this, for my analysis I have in mind that in which use or application is the main driver, rather than any quest for fundamental understanding: i.e. research that has been produced in order that it might be taken away and used to improve policy or the practice in a given setting.

2

Semiotic analysis has been described by Eco as being something that is ‘concerned with everything that can be taken as a sign. A sign is everything which can be taken as significantly substituting for something else’ (1979: 7: emphasis in original): a comprehensive list of what might constitute signifiers may be found in the Introduction section to Eco’s A theory of semiotics.

3

As Baudrillard (1990: 82) notes, ‘the truth of objects and products is their trademark’.

4

See: http://www.nestle-nespresso.com/about-us/strategy/creating-long-lastingconsumer-relationships

5

See: http://www.bialetti.com/coffee/moka/

6

This also applies to ‘negative’ instances of consumption (or Baudrillard’s notion of the discourse of anticonsumption) combined with an ever-increasing differentiation of production (Baudrillard, 1968). This is because even when we think we are beating a new path, or turning our back on current fads or trends, there are suppliers who can provide the goods we need to do so and who ensure that these goods are positioned in such a way that they appeal.

7

Not all products are required to be useful in the conventional sense, however, and for less conventional consumer goods, such as fine art or wine, we can assume that the price is essentially driven by reputation (of the artist or label) which also serves as a proxy indicator to individual consumers regarding their personal taste (e.g. with regard to the likely taste of the grape or the style of the artwork).

Notes 8

163

The model assumes a certain element of what economists term ‘perfect information’: i.e. consumers are aware of what might comprise or constitute useable research and the range of suppliers that exist. With policy-making, the ‘alongside to’ researcher (Brown, 2009) is likely to possess such information; it is less likely, however, that there will be individuals who possess this knowledge in practice settings.

9

My analysis here differs significantly from Baudrillard (1990), who simultaneously suggests that ‘gadgets’ are both the result of an object’s sign value being greater than its functional value and also a result of over-functionality. I argue that with research, there are no ‘gadgets’, simply ornamental and functional types that are of use to different consumers in different circumstances.

10 This is nicely illustrated by an article in The Guardian, illustrating how claims by the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, were based on PR surveys designed to promote hotels and TV stations rather than on what the paper describes as ‘concrete’ research: See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/may/13/ michael-goves-claim-teenagers-ignorance, accessed on 13 May 2013. 11 Johnson (2013) provides a number of examples and vignettes of how research has been commissioned by ‘alongside to’ researchers (Brown, 2009) in order that it might aid or augment policy development. It is clear, however, that such research will neither be ‘blue-skies’ in nature, nor will its conceptual parameters be situated outside of the policy agora. As a result, the purpose of such research will be, ‘at best’, to help improve aspects of pre-determined policy decisions and, ‘at worst’, serve to reaffirm the policy decision itself. 12 This is not to decry the importance of leadership and the ability of leaders in schools and other organizations to display vision and drive (i.e. to take advantage of the external environment), but if the situation they reacted to was unique, then by definition, their actions cannot be repeated/replicated elsewhere.

Chapter 2 1

See: http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Civil-ServiceReform-Plan-acc-final.pdf

2

See: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/ file/136227/What_Works_publication.pdf

3

The aim of the review was to provide an overview of existing theory and an understanding of the type of empirical studies previously undertaken in this

164

Notes area. Literature was initially searched for in two ways: (1) a search of four prominent databases (JSTOR; Academic Search Complete; Web of Knowledge; and Ingenta Connect) using search terms synonymous with that of ‘evidenceinformed policy making’ and ‘knowledge adoption’ (these included, for example, ‘knowledge mobilisation’, ‘knowledge transfer’ and ‘knowledge brokering’, and were taken from the definitive list provided on The University of Toronto’s Research Supporting Practice in Education website: http://www.oise.utoronto. ca/rspe/KM_Products/Terminology/index.html); and (2) recommendations on seminal literature were also sought from (and provided by) colleagues, authors identified from the search above and experts in the fields of evidence-informed policy-making and knowledge adoption. The references cited by the authors of these studies were then also reviewed. This approach to sourcing literature, combined with the screening criteria, resulted in a total of 228 papers, studies, reports and books being reviewed over a one-and-a-half-year period.

4

These levels are (1) novice, (2) advanced beginner, (3) competent performer, (4) proficient performer and (5) expert.

5

See http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/about/improving/psg/framework

Chapter 3 1

The BBC provides the exemplar of an organization that works relentlessly in its creation of the hyperreal. In the UK alone, for example, it produces a constant supply of news, both national and regional (some 120 hours of content per day) that can be accessed via the internet (http://www.bbc.com/news/ and its mobile equivalent), television (specifically BBC News, but during major stories it will also simulcast to its main entertainment channel, BBC One) and radio (BBC Radio 5 Live). The organization’s news output is also available via Twitter, where (as on 25 May 2013) it had produced some 189,000 tweets to 1.5 million followers. Wikipedia notes that BBC News (the department specifically responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of BBC news and current affairs) is the world’s largest broadcast news organization, with a budget of some £350 million and that it employs 3,500 staff, 2,000 of whom are journalists.

2

The use of semiotic guerrilla warfare stands in contrast to engaging in total research/policy warfare, the result of which would see either policy being totally based on research or research totally subservient to policy – neither of which being desirable in reality (e.g. see Pielke, 2007; Brown, 2013).

Notes 3

165

This is because the only other tactics at a government’s tactic disposal are for it to have no explicitly stated aims: i.e. for it to exist simply in order for it to react to or implement the discourse of the hyperreal, a position that is neither tenable nor desirable for the electorate or democratic process.

4

England’s newly launched Education Media Centre (EMC) is one example of an initiative that does provide relevant academic research for the media on the education stories they are covering at any given moment: a role that would seem in keeping with my discussion within this chapter. The EMC suggests that its ‘ultimate goal is to raise awareness and knowledge of this research among the public as they turn to the media for up-to-date information about education issues’ (http://educationmediacentre.org). Yet while this is valuable and needed, and assuming the centre has acknowledged that any research messages it does provide are likely to be distorted or spun by the media, my later discussion in Chapter 8 illustrates how the EMC could be doing more with its mandate, namely, championing the use of evidence in policy and practice more generally, thus raising this agenda within the psyche of the general public and making it an expected norm. In other words, the provision of evidence to the media is a surface-level solution that involves simply stating ‘what is’. If, however, as researchers, we consider our much neglected role in contributing to society’s values and cultural norms, and consider that it is our responsibility to promote perspectives here, then it is clear the EMC should be using its position and its access to the media to galvanize public opinion regarding ‘what should be’ – a much more powerful approach long term.

Chapter 4 1

Deductive research is often criticized for its realist positivistic underpinnings: see

2

For example, this approach represents the divergent approach to ‘grounded

Brown (2013) for a detailed critique. theory’ introduced by Corbin and Strauss (1988). 3

I note in Chapter 1 that one interpretation of exchange value can be the actual purchase cost of research.

4

Here I suggest that the production costs of practitioners growing their own evidence are low because such endeavours will be small scale, do not require that types of resource and overheads that larger or university-driven projects will require and will not incur the costs of recontextualizing initiatives.

166 5

Notes Teachers Law of the People’s Republic of China (enacted 1993–1994), Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. See: http://www.moe.gov.cn/ publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/moe_280, accessed September 2012.

6

See: http://www.rcgp.org.uk/gp-training-and-exams/gp-curriculum-overview/~/ media/Files/GP-training-and-exams/Curriculum%20previous%20versions%20 as%20at%20July%202012/curr_archive_3_6_Research_v1_0_feb06.ashx, accessed 16 May 2013.

7

See: http://www.nationalcollege.org.uk/

Chapter 5 1

In many ways, the ‘individual focus’ I describe here is similar in nature to the policy idea of ‘personalised learning: envisaged as a whole school process involving the use of evidence and dialogue to identify pupils’ learning needs, then engaging in learning strategies to develop their competence and confidence (Pollard and James, 2004). Championed by the then secretary of state, David Miliband, this approach was criticized by Ball et al., (2012) as a policy initiative that was a ‘big hit’ with government but received ‘scant attention’ from schools. What I outline above, however, was actually witnessed at the school level: i.e. it represents personalization that is actually happening in practice.

2

Full details on method may be found in Higham et al. (2013).

3

Data use has begun to become a focus in different European countries (Downey and Kelly, 2012; Schildkamp and Ehren, 2012; Schildkamp and Handelzalts, 2012). In the Netherlands, teachers in a number of schools use an eight-step data team procedure for improvement. A data team consists of 4–6 teachers, a data expert, a school leader and a researcher. They work together to solve an educational problem following a structured approach involving, defining the problem, coming up with hypotheses concerning what causes the problem, collecting data to test the hypotheses, analyzing and interpreting data, drawing conclusions and implementing measures to improve education. A pilot study investigated the functioning and effects of five data teams solving problems such as low mathematic achievement and a high percentage of grade repeaters.

4

Ofsted inspection report for Bonner (February 2007: 2).

5

Ofsted inspection report for Morpeth (December 2007: 6).

Notes 6

167

Ofsted inspection report for Morpeth (June 2013: 4).

7

Ofsted inspection report for John Scurr (April 2009: 4).

8

Ofsted inspection report for Globe Primary (February 2008: 6).

9

Ofsted inspection report for Bonner (February 2007: 3).

10 Ofsted inspection report for Morpeth (December 2007: 5). 11 Ofsted inspection report for Morpeth (June 2013: 4). 12 Ofsted inspection report for John Scurr (April 2009: 4). 13 Ofsted inspection report for Globe Primary (February 2013: 4). 14 In addition, it is noted by Hargreaves and Shirley (2009: 64) that ‘on standardised achievement tests, GCSE examination results, and rates of students going to university, the Borough ranks as the most improved Local Authority in Britain’.

Chapter 6 1

As part of Brown (2011), a large-scale project investigating the use of evidence within policy-making in the English education system, twenty-four semistructured, in-depth interviews were held with educational researchers and policy-makers working in England and Wales. Those classed as policy-makers were either politicians (current or ex-ministers) or civil servants in central government. Researcher respondents comprised those working for universities or think tanks. Further details (including the approach to analysis employed) can be found in Brown (2011) and Brown (2013).

2

The full article may be accessed at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/

3

The blog entry may be accessed at: http://ioelondonblog.wordpress.

jun/12/michael-gove-curriculum-attacked-adviser com/2012/06/12/proposed-primary-curriculum-what-about-the-pupils/ 4

This may be illustrated by looking at the alternatives to this position. These might include a total absence of individual focus, possibly through schools simply focusing on aggregate outcomes rather than the quality of outputs (i.e. results rather than the overall teaching experience). Alternatively, schools might simply accept centrally imposed solutions. As I note in Chapter 4, however, these are likely to be implemented with varying degrees of ‘success’ depending on the exchange value for the setting in question and/or whether those within a school can see the value of the initiative, which will influence the likely effort directed at implementing it.

168

Notes

Chapter 7 1

While the physical is regarded as less relevant for this analysis, there is, however, one aspect where it may have salience: if copies of reality (simulacra) can one day be perfectly constructed, then might we not use these resultant virtual realities to test out the efficacy of and media/public reaction to government policy in situ – to examine how these play out in context and when combined with other initiatives and social phenomenon. Similarly, we could do the same with classrooms and so evidence-informed practice. Surely this would provide the ultimate in evidence informed.

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Index

abductive approach 80–1, 83, 89, 91, 158 academic research 1, 25, 35–6, 66 acts of antisocial behaviour (ASB) 33 Adorno, T. 138–40, 150 Alton-Lee, A. 33 Anderson, C. 81 Annual Performance Assessment of London Borough of Tower Hamlets Council’s Education and Children’s Social Care Services (2005) 101, 103 Arab Spring 66 Aristotle concept of reason 134 on ethics 134–6 notion of rationality 5, 9, 133–5, 137–8, 145, 148–9 Aristotle 38, 134–5, 137, 145–7, 149, 156 attendance 99, 105 austerity 110, 112, 133 autonomy 79, 108, 122 Ayer, A. 79 Ball, S. 15, 48, 110, 166 Baudrillard, J. 5–6, 16–18, 20–1, 26, 30, 52–3, 55, 65, 143–4, 147, 162–3 behaviour 2, 5–6, 16–17, 34, 39–40, 46, 49, 53, 57, 68, 79, 85, 95–8, 105, 111, 113–14, 120, 123–4, 127, 133–4, 136, 144–50, 156 Bell, M. 79, 81, 83–4 Berwick, G. 122 Biesta, G. 1, 28 Blair, Tony 23 bottom–up approach 8–9, 79, 154 Bourdieu, P. 111 branding 19–20 British Museum 52 Brock, D. 146

Brown, C. 1–2, 10–11, 15–16, 24–5, 28, 34, 37–8, 40–1, 43, 62, 64, 67, 80, 110, 116–18, 121, 133, 138, 146, 155–6, 163–5, 167 Bryman, A. 65 Bubb, S. 126 Cameron, D. 59, 69, 70 Campbell, C. 28, 83–5, 98 Campbell, S. 34, 62, 66 Canadian Health Services Research Foundation 10 capacity building 108, 125, 127, 129 definition 84 research 85 Carlson, D. 98 Cartwright, N. 77, 83 cause and effect links 5, 77, 137, 139 Chapman, C. 121 Cherney, A. 37, 43 Chomsky, N. 142 Christakis, N. 126 civil service code 60 competencies 47 evidence use in 34, 158 role of policy makers 62, 92, 117–18 Civil Service Reform Plan 34 classroom 29, 43, 63, 76 coaching 95–6, 122 Coburn, C. 38, 125 collaboration 8, 48–9, 87, 114, 122 Collins, H. 45 Commission on the Social Sciences 65, 67 Commons Public Accounts Committee 68 competition 16, 49 Conservative Party 69, 116 constructivism 138, 145, 151

Index consumer behaviour 17 consumption Baudrillard’s definition 20 branding and 19–20 definition 18 feature-dependent 15 functional 28 long tail economics 8 luxury research 23, 24, 31 ornamental research 26 postmodern features 16 research ‘object,’ 21 signifying values 20–1, 27 symbolic value 19 Veblen’s definition 16 Cooper, A. 1–2, 11, 27, 141 Corbin, J. 165 Cordingley, P. 81 core competencies, policy-makers 47–9 costs of production 30, 81–2 Court, J. 23 creativity 48, 49, 96 Critique of Pure Reason, The (Kant) 136 Daily Mail 57, 68, 70 Darby, D. 1, 29, 38 Davies, P. 1, 38 Day, C. 127 Deacon, N. 65 deductive approach 78–81, 135, 138 Department for Education (DfE) 24, 34 discussion on cognition 35–6 Disneyland 51 distorted reproduction 52, 129 distributed cognition 42 Dowling, P. 42 Downey, C. 166 Duncan, A. 116–17 Dunne, M. 78, 145 Earl, L. 48, 84, 89, 123–4 Earley, P. 121 Eco, U. 17, 26, 51–2, 63, 65, 158, 162 Education Action Zones 107 Educational Achievements and Progress Briefings 103 Ehren, M. 166 Eid 106 employment 97, 127

183

English as an Additional Language (EAL) 93, 94 Enlightenment 135, 138–40 enterprise 47, 49 European Model (Eco) 65 evaluation 63, 85–6, 98, 104, 155 Evans, R. 45 evidence based policy making active leadership support 34 implementation issues 76–7 in medicine 76 practices or guidelines 29 reasons for failures 77 in social work 76 Evidence Informed Policy in Education in Europe (EIPEE) 34 evidence informed policy-making current assumptions 36–8 empirical projects 91 hyperreality 61–2 implications, school improvement 89–90 implications of scenes 109–10 luxury research in 44–5 practical understanding 7 specific complexities 2–3 evidence-informed solutions 73, 78, 80, 89, 91, 155 ‘Excellence in Cities’; 107 exchange values 17, 20–2, 30 acts of consumption 21 product functionality 20–1 Exley, S. 66 Facebook 66 Fairclough, N. 16, 112 faithful reproduction 52 feature-dependent consumption 15 Fink, D. 124 Flyvbjerg, B. 38–40, 42, 140, 146, 155 foreign aid (Britain) 69–70 formal knowledge 31, 46, 80 formal research 10, 44, 80–1, 89 Foucault, M. 140–4, 146, 150 Fourth Way, The 106 Fowler, J. 126 Free School Meals (FSM). 93, 97 Fullan, M. 30, 124, 126 functional consumption 28

184 functional evidence use 27–31, 50, 67, 73, 91, 109, 133, 154 functional research 27–31 Ganesh, J. 58 gay marriage 69 general practitioners (GPs) 77, 86 Gibbons, M. 15 Gilbert, C. 100, 103–4, 113–14, 122 Globe Academy 93, 94–6 Goldacre, B. 73 Gough, D. 34, 133 Government Office for Science 34, 35 government policy-maker 28, 40, 58, 62, 64, 91, 107 Greany, T. 126 Greening, Justine (International Development Secretary) 70 Guardian 55, 58–61, 118 Gulf War Will Not Take Place, The (Baudrillard) 65 Haas, E. 67, 121 Habermas, J. 24–5, 38, 56, 64, 140–2, 156–7 Habermasian tradition 24, 25, 56, 64, 141, 156–7 Hackley, C. 37 Hadfield, M. 121 Hallinger, P. 124 Handelzalts, A. 166 Hannay, L. 48 happiness 134, 137, 146, 148, 156 Hargreaves, A. 27, 29, 48, 83, 87–8, 97, 100, 104, 106–7, 115, 122, 124, 167 Hargreaves, D. 1, 38, 83, 89 Harris, A. 29, 100, 106 Hattie, J. 91 headship 49, 92–3 head teachers 8, 74, 92, 97, 101, 104–7, 122, 158 Higham, R. 92, 121, 166 Hillage, L. 1, 29, 37–8 Hogam, D. 79 Holden, G. 84 Hollis, N. 16, 18 Horkheimer, M. 138–40, 150 Huberman, M. 45

Index Hubers, M. 84, 129 Hume, D. 135, 136 hyperreality concept 51 evidence-informed policy-making 61–2 in geography 51–2 interpretative criticism 56–7 media 53–6, 68–70 policy development and 56–61 individual schools 8, 91, 103, 104–6 inductive approach 78–81 informed evidence, notion of 27, 61, 133 innovation 30, 48, 49 Inspection and Advisory Service 104–5 instances of evidence use 3, 38, 45, 47 Institute of Education 88, 92 Jackson, D. 123 James, M. 166 Johnson, J. 163 journalists 60, 65 Kant, I. 135–8, 140, 146, 150 notion of rationality 5, 9, 133, 136–7, 140–1, 143–5, 150 universal moral code 140–4 Karlekar, K. 55 Katulis, B. 55 Katz, S. 84, 89, 123–4 Kelchtermans, G. 76 Kelly, A. 60, 166 Knott, J. 35 knowledge adoption 2, 10–11, 164 exchange 10 mobilization 2, 11, 66, 85 ‘Mode 1’ and ‘Mode 2’ 15 Kotter, J.P. 124 Kuiper, W. 97 Kuksov, D. 19 Landry, R. 2, 35–6, 38 leadership ambitious targets 103–4 Civil Service competencies 47 enquiry-minded 123 policy development 40

Index resilient approaches 91–3, 115 schools 2, 97, 99–100, 105 specific activities 8 support for evidence-based policymaking 34 visionary 104 lead schools 74, 97 Learning, Achievement and Leisure Scrutiny Panel 103 learning communities competency framework 47–9 level of practice 158 organizational culture 49 ornamental research 50 process of creation 45–7 Leibniz 136 Leithwood, K. 99 Lemov, D. 41, 96 Levin, B. 28, 66, 81, 83–5, 88, 98 Liabo, K. 37 Libération 65 Lister, R. 112 Literacy and Language Policy, The 99 Local Education Authority (LEA) 101, 103, 104 long tail economics 8, 31, 81–3 luxury research evidence-informed policy making 23, 31, 67 levels of functionality 22 non-rational uses 25 policy system 24 Luyten, H. 104 Maas, P. 146 MacBeath, J. 73 MacLure, M. 1 macro-level, policy 91, 139, 161 Martell, L. 16 Martineau, P. 25 März, V. 76 masking of absence (Baudrillard) 52–3 Mason, J. 80 mass media 54, 63, 66 McIntyre, D. 28 McLaughlin, M. 124 media guerrilla tactics 63–7 hyperreal rationality 53–4, 56–7

185

misinterpretation 62–3 social opinion, mobilising 62 social reality 54–61 think tank research 67 meso-level policy 58, 108 micro-level policy 91, 100, 123 middle leader 92, 114 Mitton, C. 2 Mode 1’ knowledge 15 Mode 2’ knowledge 15 Moss, G. 62–3, 75, 80, 83, 89 National College for Teaching and Leadership 87, 92, 122, 124 National Literacy Strategy (NLS, England) 75, 83 National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH) 49 New Labour administration 23 Newman, M. 48, 73, 81 Nonaka, I. 46 Nowotny, H. 15 nursery 74, 97 Nutley, S. 1, 34, 37, 79–80 Oakley, A. 33 observed behaviour 133 Ofsted 29, 75, 92–5, 97–105, 166–7 inspections 101, 105 ontology 136–7, 138 optimality 7, 21, 24, 26, 149, 159 organizational culture 49 ornamental research 25–7, 61, 154 hyperreality effects 51 Osborne, G. (UK chancellor) 58 Paavola, S. 42 participation 42, 47, 49 partnerships 89, 101, 105 Patton, P. 26 performance management 48, 101 Performing beyond Expectations 106 Perry, A. 37 Phoenix school 99 Pielke, R. 26, 164 Pierson, L. 48 policy agora concept 24–5 echo chambers 64, 116–19, 157

186 in evidence-informed policy and practice 153–4 structural limitations 45 policy development 2, 5, 26–7, 33, 38, 40, 42–4, 57 policy influence 15, 24, 64, 66, 119 policy-learning communities 7, 47, 50, 158 policy-makers consumers of research 15 core competencies 47–9 evidence-informed approach 24 policy texts 41–2 Pollard, A. 48, 73, 81, 118–19, 166 postmodernity 16 practical knowledge 28, 46, 81, 108 practitioners best practices 129 enquiry-minded leadership 123 evidence-based guidance 76–80 formal research 89 functional research issues 28–30 knowledge adoption 10–11, 84–6 pressure groups 66 primary schools 75, 102–3, 105, 114 principal 92–6 Professional Skills for Government (PSG) 47 Punch, K. 91 pupils 4, 6, 10, 27, 63, 75, 82–3, 89–90, 93–5, 97–102, 107–8, 112, 122, 154, 158 pure simulacrum (Baudrillard) 52–3 rational behaviour 5, 57, 133–4, 145, 147, 150, 156 realist positivist perspectives 45, 138 real people 52, 70 real world 70 recontextualization 8, 29, 30, 67, 75, 77–8, 81–2, 89, 108, 120, 138, 155, 161 reference on discussion 35–6 ‘regime of truth,’ 142, 143 reproduction of arts 51–3 research as consumer object 15–16 findings 11, 29 marketization 16 objects 17, 22

Index ‘ornamental’ use 26 scales 35–6 researcher in residence 74–5, 96–7 research findings 11, 29, 63, 67, 79 research objects 17, 22, 61 research-producing organizations 66 resistance 108, 129, 143, 150, 153, 154, 158 Rexvid, D. 28, 76–7 Ribbins, P. 40 Rich, A. 66 Richter, Gerhard 52 Riddell, P. 40 Russell, B. 78–9 scale of research 35–6 scenes construction of scenic capital 129 echo chambers 116–19 effective use of 126–7 influencing factors 121 normality 120 promotion of evidence use 123–9 signifying phenomenon 110–12 temporal 112, 126 Tofino type 119–20 Tower Hamlets model 113–15 twelve-stage guide (washing hands) example 127–8 scenic capital 110–29 Schildkamp, K. 84, 97, 129, 166 Schmidt, J. 138 Schon, D. 73 school(s) capacity development 45, 47–8 governance 49 improvement 88, 89, 99–100, 103, 104–6 individual 8, 91, 103, 104–6, 114 leadership 97, 99, 105 modernisation, workforce 49 self-improving system 8, 27, 48–9, 68, 87–8, 122–3, 129 teaching practices 27 topdown solution 8 Scott, S. 33 Scruton, R. 136–7 Seashore Louis, K. 99 Sebba, J. 27, 85–6, 88

Index secondary schools 74, 84, 97, 102 self-improving school system 8, 27, 48–9, 68, 87–8, 122–3, 129 semiotic guerrilla warfare (Eco) 63 semiotics 17 senior leaders 93, 107 Shapland, J. 116–17 Sheffield Hallam University 88, 92 Sherratt, B. 40 Shirley, D. 97, 104, 106–7, 115, 167 social exclusion 33, 107 social inclusion 106 social media 27, 54, 57, 60, 66 social reality 5, 54, 57, 64, 74, 143, 151 social science 38, 139–40, 145, 150, 155, 157 social scientists 7, 65, 140, 157 social world complexity of 2 conception of 3 constructivist perception 5, 151 deductive research 78 differing values 26 inductive research 78 policy-makers’ understanding 25, 38, 74 postmodern 16 rational behaviour 145 social facets and 138 types of reproduction 52 sociocultural modes 42 Socrates 134 Special Educational Needs (SEN) 93, 94 special needs 105 Stake, R. 10 stakeholders 33–4, 44, 92, 101, 105, 118, 149 Stewart, R. 37 Stokes, D. 162 Stoll, L. 1, 45–6, 84, 123–4 Stoll, S. 98, 123 Strauss, A. 165 Sultana, R. 125 Sutcliffe, S. 23 symbolic values branding 18–20 sign and 17–18 specific objects, example 18 System of Objects, The (Baudrillard) 17 tacit knowledge 1, 11, 46–7 Takeuchi, H. 46

187

Talbert, J. 49, 124 taxpayers 34, 68, 70 Teach East Teaching School Alliance 96, 103 teachers 96 career stages 86 classroom involvement 76 fast-track programmes 92 feedback quality 95 high quality 115 official support 85, 106 pedagogic practice 63 professional development 89–90 progress for pupils 98 Punjabi 73–4 role-play 96 Tower Hamlets 74 values anf beliefs 123, 158 Teacher Training Agency 37, 83 teaching practices 2, 27, 48, 95, 98 teaching profession 27, 49, 73, 86 teaching school alliances (TSAs) 87, 88, 122, 124 Teaching schools approach 87–9 Temperley, J. 123 Theory of the Leisure Class, The (Veblen) 16 think tanks 15, 38, 66–7, 118 Timperley, H. 84 Tooley, J. 1, 29, 38 top–down approach (evidence-informed solutions) 48, 73, 75, 79, 83, 124, 138, 155, 161 Tower Hamlets Council Strategic Plans 103 Tower Hamlets school 74–5, 97, 100–8, 113–15, 122, 124 training 74, 84, 88, 115, 126, 149 transformation 49, 103, 114 Triantafillou, P. 64 Trowler, P. 16, 37 Tully, J. 150 Twitter 60, 66 universal moral code 137–8, 140–3 university research 35, 36 values 2, 17–23, 26, 50, 53, 75–6, 82, 113, 120–1, 123, 137, 139–40, 146–7, 155–7 Veblen, T. 16 virtues 135, 137

188 Washington Academy 93–4 Webber, D. 35 Weiss, C. 11, 26, 35 Wildavsky, A. 35 Wilkins, R. 23, 85, 87

Index Wilson, S. 123 Wingens, M. 2 Woods, D. 100–7, 113–15 Zavadsky, H. 115