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Professor Gemma Moss¹, Dr Una O’Connor Bones², Professor Siân Bayne³, Professor David James⁴, Professor Emeritus Ken Jones⁵, Professor Sally Power^4
1 UCL Institute of Education, London, United Kingdom. ² School of Education, Ulster University, Coleraine, United Kingdom. ³ Centre for Research in Digital Education, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. ⁴ School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom. ⁵ National Education Union, London, United Kingdom

This symposium considers the role of research in tackling questions in education policy and practice that are not easy to resolve. The 4 nations and jurisdictions of the UK vary in the extent to which education policymakers seek to steer policy centrally, the policy tools they use to achieve their ends, and the extent to which they see consultation with the profession and the wider community as an integral part of policy design and implementation. The role envisaged for research alters accordingly.

The range of papers in this symposium step back from policymakers’ immediate concerns with directing large-scale reform programmes to reflect on the varied contributions that research can make when working in partnership with others and at a different scale. Each of the papers reports on dilemmas faced and questions raised by putting research to work in a range of specific settings.

Defining research agendas in collaboration with others, and recognising that ways forward might be contested, creates a different dynamic to the research process and alternative ways of thinking about outcomes and impacts. By unpacking the processes employed as researchers tackle complex questions in interaction with others, the symposium will explore some of the issues involved in working across the boundaries between research, policy and practice in education and the possibilities of doing so differently.

Convenor: Gemma Moss
Discussant: Gemma Moss

Paper 1: Education and deliberative democracy in Northern Ireland – Una O’Connor-Bones
The Community Conversation is an innovative methodology designed to empower parents, schools and communities to have a stronger voice and input in decision-making on issues affecting them. As a mechanism for deliberative democracy and civic engagement, this approach has particular value in a divided society where divergent views on education provision prevail. This paper explores how the approach was used in discussions on area-based sustainable primary school provision and its potential application in a wider range of policy settings and contexts.

Paper 2: Building collective vision for the future of digital education РSi̢n Bayne
The Near Future Teaching project at the University of Edinburgh developed a method for co-designing a preferable future for digital education across a large and diverse institution. Its aim was to understand how a large academic and student community can re-claim the narrative around digital futures for teaching. This is a narrative which is often dominated by tech sector, policy and industry players, and framed in terms of an inevitable, highly technologised, datafied and surveillant future for teaching over which educators and students themselves have relatively little control. This paper will discuss processes and methods by which academic communities can collectively define their own narratives for the future of higher education.

Paper 3: Building an education evidence eco-system in a small country: lessons from Wales – David James and Sally Power
In the last three years, as a way of establishing a more connected ‘evidence ecosystem’ in education, a major reform of teacher education in Wales has put research at the very heart of teacher education provision and the professional learning of teachers. Despite assumptions that Wales might provide the perfect environment for such a development, given the Welsh Government’s commitment to evidence-informed policy, the political consensus about the direction of policy, and the small size of the country, progress thus far has been very limited. This session will question aspects of the ‘ecosystem’ narrative and examine how a combination of internal constraints and external pressures are limiting Wales’ capacity to build, refresh and enhance relationships between education research, policy and practice.

Paper 4: The place of research in education trade union strategy-building – Ken Jones
The National Education Union is involved in knowledge production of many kinds, including policy commentaries and frequent public statements. It is also a user, commissioner and producer of ‘research’. The paper will discuss these questions: What ‘research’ means for an organisation which is already committed to a certain direction of travel? What kinds of relationship does this entail with academic research and academic researchers? What kinds of resource and constraint might engagement with a trade union present to researchers? These questions will be considered in relation to the Union’s work on curriculum and pedagogy and on the condition of education during the pandemic.

• References
  Bates, J., and O’Connor Bones, U. (2021). Community Conversations: deliberative democracy, education provision and divided societies. SN Social Sciences 1: 45 https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-020-00048-8
• Bayne, S., and Gallagher, M. (2021) Near Future Teaching: Practice, policy and digital education futures. Policy Futures in Education. 19: 5. 607-625. https://doi.org/10.1177/14782103211026446
• Near Future Teaching (2019) Near Future Teaching Report. University of Edinburgh, UK. Available at: https://www.nearfutureteaching.ed.ac.uk/outcomes/
• Shepherd, J. (2014) How to achieve more effective services: the evidence ecosystem. Cardiff: What Works Network, Cardiff University.
• Royal Society/British Academy (2018) Harnessing educational research. (London: Royal Society)