Professor Vivienne Marie Baumfield
University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom
As we approach the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the British Educational Research Association, this inaugural Presidential Address is a good occasion on which to reflect on who we are, how we got here and where we are going. On one level the answer to these questions is straight forward. ½¿É«µ¼º½ is a learned society established in 1974 to support educational research by building capacity, advancing quality and promoting engagement with a Strategic Plan identifying priority activities over the next five years. So far, so good but does this tell us what we need to know?
In this address Professor Baumfield explored through these questions some implications of belonging to ½¿É«µ¼º½ as a ‘learned society’ in the 21st century.
Who are we? Our membership has grown and its composition has changed over the past five decades. As a membership association the vitality of ½¿É«µ¼º½ depends on the contribution of members, whether it be attending the annual conference, publishing in our journals, posting on the blog, joining Special Interest Groups, serving on committees or standing for election to Council. What has also changed during this time are the governance structures and the terms and conditions of employment across all sectors of education and research. Schools, Colleges and Universities are not the same now as they were in 1974, and there is increasing divergence in policy across the four jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. We are, of course, well aware of these changes but do we know enough about how they impact on the capacity of our membership to contribute to the promotion of engagement in and with research? How are we positioned, individually and collectively, in regard to research, policy and practice?
Donald McIntyre in his Presidential Address in 1996 draws attention to the problem of ½¿É«µ¼º½ attempting to conduct its activities with limited or inadequate information, ‘ One of the most important things to be said in discussing educational researchers in Britain, …, is that I don’t think we know much about ourselves.’ The State of the Discipline project, instigated by my predecessor Dominic Wyse, responds to the need to address this issue by examining the current situation in Higher Education Institutions. However, the challenge of knowing who we are remains, especially in regard to how we construct the identity of ‘practitioners’ as members of our community. Personally, I have never felt comfortable with a dichotomy between researchers and practitioners, particularly when associated with hierarchies of knowledge. Lawrence Stenhouse in his Presidential Address in 1979 offers a different way of thinking, ‘Our problem is to find approaches to research which produce theory which is of use both to practitioners of education and to practitioners of educational research and which enables both to act in the light of systematic intelligence’. Drawing upon my experience of working in school-university research partnerships, I explore the opportunities and challenges the proposition of the Educational Research Professional might offer.
How did we get here? Despite the apparent confidence with which doctoral students, peer reviewers and Research Excellence Framework panels identify originality, little in education turns out to be new. Here I follow the lead of the German sociologist Elias on understanding the relationship of everyday practices to long-term processes by taking the ‘long view’. I explore the development of the idea of the Educational Research Professional in ½¿É«µ¼º½ Presidential Addresses. Each of the previous thirty six Presidents have taken the opportunity of addressing members at Conference to reflect on the aims and purpose of ½¿É«µ¼º½, offering insight into their current pre-occupations and longer term trends in debates about research in education. Indeed, two Presidents gave their Addresses the title ‘The Profession of Educational Research’.
Where are we going? The ability to predict the future is not, fortunately, part of the ½¿É«µ¼º½ President’s portfolio but it is important to try and discern the direction of travel. One of the concerns is the need to encourage more active participation in the elections vital to ½¿É«µ¼º½ as a democratic institution. We also need to work on being a diverse, inclusive research community; the publication of our Race Equality Policy is a start but we still have a long way to go. The Presidential Address concludes with some reflections on ½¿É«µ¼º½ constituted as a community of inquiry composed of diverse voices and on the need to strengthen links externally with those who share our interest in supporting educational research.