Think Tanks and the Pedagogical Dispositions and Strategies of Socially Critical Researchers

Think tanks and the pedagogical dispositions and strategies of socially critical researchers: a case study of inequalities in schooling

Abstract

This paper is motivated by a shared concern over the apparent lack of inclusion of socially critical research in educational policy intended to address inequitable outcomes from schooling. We recognise that while this is partly (perhaps mainly) a political problem, an effective response by socially critical scholars must also take into account the mechanics of research/policy relationships. We need to understand who else is operating in the contest for ideas, how and why they use research, and how their practices promote and reinforce some types of knowledge and some messages while others are excluded. One example is the work of think tanks. To gain insight into these issues, we construct and consider ‘activity profiles’ of two think tanks operating to influence policy around socio-economic inequalities and education. These suggest some points of interest for researchers working in that same area: points about the differences between different think tanks and about their strengths and weaknesses vis-à-vis the policy process, compared with those of academics. In response, we argue that researchers need to develop a pedagogical not just a critical disposition, and propose a number of potential strategies they could adopt. In order to have an impact, academics must find ways of communicating beyond their scholar peers, in forms that are accessible and digestible, while maintaining the hall marks of robust, peer-reviewed and deeply evidenced based knowledge.

Introduction

This paper is motivated by our concern with the lack of influence of socially critical academic research on educational policy-making intended to redress inequalities in schooling.In a global context in which the impact of academic research is increasingly coming under scrutiny, our aim is to explore some ways in which researchers themselves might address this situation.

Lest readers think that we have entirely suspended our critical faculties, let us be clear that we understand that the principal reason for the marginalisation of socially critical research is ideological. As Gerrard (2015: p5) points out, there is no getting away from the fact that “even when couched within (often well intentioned) notions of best practice, policy is politics and politics is ideological”. Apple (2006), Ball (2007, 2008, 2012), Ball and Exley (2010), Gunter (2013, 2014), Lubienski, Scott and DeBray (2011), Lingard (2015) among many others have given us deep insights into the ways in which ideology, politics and power have shaped knowledge production and policy-making processes in education: for example the proliferation of multiple private and philanthropic interests and networks, think tanks and consultants; global policy borrowing, exchange visits and regulation by measurement and international rankings. So it is not the case that socially critical research is not influential just because researchers have not worked hard enough at their ‘impact strategies’. However,at the same time we argue that it is not enough for academics to illuminate and critique these processes of knowledge production and use. We are also actors within them, trying to fulfil our role as independent, publicly funded and rigorous knowledge producers and to bring this knowledge to bear on policy decisions. We cannot simply continue with traditional modes of academic dissemination, which Lubienski et al (2014) have described as “throw it over the wall” and see what gets picked up, and complain that our lack of influence is someone else’s fault. We have a responsibility to develop our own professional work to make us more effective operators within the knowledge exchange environments that surround contemporary policy-making. This requires us to draw on socially critical understandings of policy-making and more functional ones, such as for example research on the ways in which web publishing and social media have changed the nature and ownership of research knowledge and bypassed traditional routes of knowledge exchange. Put another way, we need to use research to develop our own pedagogical dispositions and strategies towards policy-making. Who is it that we are trying to inform and influence? What do they already know? In what form and when do they look for information? What kind of knowledge is admissible? Who else is influencing them and how? And what should we therefore do in response? Answering these questions should bring us to varied and perhaps multi-faceted strategies including engagement, challenge and opposition.

This paper is effectively a case study of the ways in which strategies for researchers can emerge from an examination of processes of knowledge exchange in a particular policy area. We focus on one policy issue - inequalities in schooling - and one particular set of actors - think tanks. The work of think tanks as policy intermediarieshas attracted attention from critical academic researchers (see for example t Hart, & Vromen, 2008;

Weiner, 2011; McDonald, 2013; Lingard, 2015; Verger, FontdevilaZancajo 2016) and we are able to draw on this literature. However this is not another critical study of think tanks. Our objective is to draw out the implications of the work of think tanks for the work of academic researchers. We therefore proceed as follows. We start with a short introduction to what we see as the problem – a research/policy gap in relation to poverty, socio-economic inequalities and education, which we suggest is common in both our countries (England and Australia). We then look at two think tanks - one in Australia and one in England – that are working in this policy area, but which are different in their political orientation, interests, expertise and modus operandi. We construct an activity profile for each organisationfrom their reports, websites and other outputs, and analyse these drawing on the existing literature on think tanks. We use this analysis to suggestimplications for the strategies of academics working in the same field who are committed to more socially just outcomes from schooling.

The paper is exploratory in nature and in scale. Nevertheless it contributes to international understandings of new landscapes of knowledge production and use, as well to current debates about the role of academics in policy environments in which the value of their accumulated knowledge and expertise is increasingly being questioned.

Socio-economic inequalities in education: a research/policy gap

The problem of the gap between research and policy-making, which this special issue addresses, is abundantly evident in the field of research in which the authors work – that of socio-economic inequalities and poverty and their relationships to education.

In England, Australia, the US and many other advanced industrial nations, which have high levels of economic and social inequality and high levels of relative poverty, inequalities in educational experiences and outcomes are also marked and persistent (Raffo et al. 2009).Politicians across the political spectrum identify inequality in education as a problem – whether because it represents a waste of human capital and a drag on growth, because ‘educational failure’ causes other social problems and costs on welfare states, because it hinders individual opportunities and social mobility or because it is seen as socially unjust.

While policies obviously vary between countries and political parties, and over time, there appears to be a recognisable cross-national consensus that the policy solutions to these problems lie in a suite of policies increasingly regulated by numbers (Ozga & Lingard, 2007),and by parental choice, standardised testing and privatisation (Sahlberg, 2015). Some regimes place more emphasis on compensating for perceived deficits in students’ home environments and relationships (for example through longer school hours or mentoring programmes) and some on compensating for material disadvantage and more limited opportunity (for example through funding for books, computers, food, clothing and enrichment opportunities). Some have emphasised standardisation and accountability, ‘naming and shaming’ as a way of improving school quality. Others have promoted market solutions, diversity of schooling and school autonomy.

Arguably research of many kinds is being ignored in different parts of this policy agenda. The current debate on the expansion of academically selective schooling (grammar schools) in England is a good example, with the government insisting that such schools promote social mobility in the absence of any evidence to this effect and plenty to the contrary. However we want to draw particular attention to the persistent marginalisation of two kinds of research in particular. One is the body of evidence that shows the close connection between socio-economic inequalities and inequalities in educational attainment, when this is used to argue that the solution cannot be found entirely in school system reforms or compensatory programmes but in the more equitable distribution of resources in society generally (Anyon, 2005; Berliner, 2013) and multi-agency support – not just a focus on school improvement and cognitive outcomes (Thomson, 2002). This tends to be dismissed as ‘excuse-making’ for poor professional practice and a distraction from the job of raising academic standards. The other is the body of evidence that suggests that current policy solutions may be having adverse effects: that narrow curriculum and performative pressures consolidate failure in disadvantaged students (Reay 2006: Gutiérrez, Morales, & Martinez, 2009); that residualisedschool systems constrained by a focus on standards, high accountability and insufficient resources exacerbate inequalities by proliferating a ‘pedagogy of poverty’ (Haberman, 1991, 2010), and a ‘diet of low-expectations curriculum’ in residualised settings (Comber & Woods, 2016: 205). While much policy effort goes into funding quantitative research on ‘interventions’ that ‘work’ within the dominant policy paradigm and getting teachers to ‘implement’ them; research on teachers’ broader professional practice and pedagogic relationships is much less well supported, cited or acted on. This research tends to suggest solutions rather contrary to those typically promoted: for example that strength-based approaches drawing upon young people’s lifeworlds work better than blame-based approaches that perceive them in deficit terms (Comber & Kamler, 2004); and that teachers given room to develop as professionals (Connell, 1994) can deploy ‘productive pedagogies’ which engage disadvantaged students and enable them to achieve (Hayes, Mills, Christie, & Lingard, 2005).

This gap between research and policy is, we argue, important. The consequences of getting this type of education policy wrong are severe since schooling remains a vitally important resource for young people with limited access to other economic and cultural resources likely to support their success in and beyond it. So it matters that critical academic research becomes more visible and influential in this policy area than it currently is.

The workings of think tanks on issues of poverty and educational inequalities

To explore some of the ways by which this might come to pass, we look at the work of think tanks in this field. To be clear, we do not claim that think tanks are always heard in policy, nor that they are solely responsible for current policy directions or for the neglect of relevant academic research. Existing studies certainly provide evidence of their influence (Medvetz, 2012; Cooper, 2014) although it is also the case, as Pautz(2014) points out, that a direct causal relationship between think tank activity and specific policy decisions is hard to establish. Proof of influence is not our central concern here. Rather, we identify think tanks as one important type of ‘intermediary organisation’ in what Lubienski et al (2011: p3) describe as ‘a new political economy of knowledge production and use in education’. They are potential collaborators and/or competitors for academic researchers in the contest of ideas around how to achieve more equitable outcomes from schooling. We could also have looked at the work of other policy intermediaries or at policy-makers themselves. Think tanks are offered as one case study to illustrate how looking closely at the work of other actors leadsto reflection on our own professional work and potential future strategies.

In preparing this paper, we looked at the work of a number of education-specific and generic policy think tanks in both England and Australia, including the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and the Sutton Trust in England, and the Centre for Independent Studies and the Grattan Institute in Australia. All of these have engaged in some activity around issues of poverty and educational inequalities. Some of them have already been the subject of in depth critical case studies: for example Mendes, 2003; Pautz, 2013; Lingard, 2015; Savage 2015.

Here we present two ‘activity profiles’, which we have constructed from the websites and written outputs (reports, blogs and articles) of the Education Policy Institute (EPI) in England and Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) in Australia. While much of the existing literature has focused on a particular kind of think tank (right wing, advocacy), these two organisations have been chosen to illustrate the range of different work that think tanks are doing in this ‘policy space’ and different opportunities and challenges presented for critical academic researchers. The profiles provide a brief coverage of the following areas, which existing literature suggested should be relevant for understanding the work of these policy intermediaries: their political/ideological stance; their policy interests in general and in relation to education; their organisational structure and staff expertise; the nature of their research activities (eg conducting or commissioning research) and their predominant research methods; their relationship to the academy; and, in the case of the CIS, the means by which it attempts to influence educational practices. We also look at selected activities and outputs in relation to educational inequalities to understand how these organisational factors come into operation to shape what is said (and not said) to what end in this specific field.

The Centre for Independent Studies

CIS is a long-established organisation whose agenda is broader than education. It was formed in 1976 for the purpose of influencing ‘the climate of opinion’ towards its libertarian agenda (Norton, 2006), which is clearly stated on its website “to encourage/provoke debate that promotes liberty, the rule of law, free enterprise and an efficient democratic government” ( Its board of directors is currently made up principally of senior personnel in investment banks, financial and legal services, property investment, management consultancy and other private sector business concerns. Initially concerned with economic issues, it moved away from these in the mid-1980s when strong synergies emerged between it and the economic policies of the Hawke/Keating Labor government (1983-1996), which were reflected in the increasing influence of neo-liberalism on government policies and a break from the social-welfare agenda of the previous Whitlam Labor government (1972-1975) (Kelly 2016).

CIS’s staff is made up of ‘research scholars’ (about 18 at the time of writing this paper) and ‘adjunct fellows’. Other individuals are also listed as contributors but its papers are mainly prepared ‘in-house’. There are also ‘Academic Advisers’made up of mostly retiredProfessors, across the range of fields in which CIS operates.These Advisers are predominantly male and reflect narrow cultural diversity. The think tank’s work on education has been spearheaded by Jennifer Buckingham. For more than fifteen years, Buckingham has written on a range of topics including school choice, school funding, literacy, international assessments (including PISA),NAPLANandMySchool,religiousschools,boys’ education, teacher training and employment, class size, and educational disadvantage. She is the author of CIS reports, a regular newspaper columnist, and media commentator. Recently she completed a doctorate on literacy and social disadvantage, and she is now publishing in the academic literature.

TheCIS has long maintained the position that there is no relationship between increased funding and improved student outcomes - a stance that Lingard (2015) takes strong issue with in his case study of the organisation. The CIS has consistently campaigned against education programs designed to redistribute funding based on need. In recent years, the Review of Funding for Schooling Final Report(Gonski et al., 2011) renewed calls for equity-based funding. The major recommendation of the report, that schools be funded according to the needs of their students and what is required to educate each one of them to a high standard, is yet to gain the support of major political parties in Australia. The Disadvantaged Schools Program was created by the Whitlam Labour Government in 1975 to provide additional funds to schools with young people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds but this was dismantled by the Howard conservative Government in 1996, and the CIS has mounted a sustained attack on the Gonski proposals (CIS 2016).

A consequence of the winding back of equity programs was that social justice in schooling has been reconceptualised as the achievement of literacy (Comber, Green, Lingard, & Luke, 1998). The CIS has buttressed this policy shift by enthusiastically supporting the teaching of reading by explicit instruction, and most recently it has extended its role in promoting the teaching of reading through explicit instruction in phonemic awareness by brokering an alliance of philanthropic organisations and individuals to establish the Five From Five website [ which hosts resources and publications for teachers, principal, parents and policy makers. The involvement of the CIS in actively supporting the adoption of a particular approach to the teaching of literacy is a departure from its long-term focus on policy advocacy around a set of core principles, and a move that re-positions its interests closer to practice.