Supplementary memorandum submitted by
Professor John Bynner
In what was a stimulating session last Monday
discussing Educational Achievement, I think one dimension of the
research/policy relationship was overlooked.
We focused mainly on research findings and the
implementations of conclusions drawn from them with respect to
policy shifts. Research findings are principally about, in the
American Psychologist Lee Cronbach's terms, as establishing the
"contemporary facts". Such facts provide what I like
to think of as an "empirical sounding board", against
which the policy process has to be played out. Although policy
decisions are ultimately political in nature, where they fly against
the contemporary evidence, they risk failure if not now then later.
The other main dimension of the policy research
relationship is that of again what Lee Cronbach called establishing
"usable policy concepts". These provide the more substantial
hooks on which to hang policy providing they both resonate with
the evidence and with people's own perceptions. I am thinking
of such ideas as "educational priority zone", positive
discrimination and "compensatory education" in the 60s
and 70s. More recently such ideas as "risk" and "protection"
and "social exclusion" are the anchor points for a policy
agenda, which sees the solution to educational disadvantage in
different terms. A report written for OECD that led to presentations
I gave at the treasury seminars that supplied the foundations
for Sure Start shows how ideas of disadvantage have shifted from
individual failings and impoverished circumstances to obstacles
in the way of educational progress—some based in the education
system (which it is within the powers of policy makers to remove).
For example, viewing the issue of "breaking the cycle of
deprivation and underachievement" in these terms, points
more readily to realizable solutions policy solutions.
Policy concepts of this kind are often criticised
for being unclearly defined (as we saw) and unstable over time;
yet their very fluidity can be a strength. This is because providing
they work with the grain of popular consciousness, a whole head
of steam can be gathered around the implementation of policy associated
with them. Evidence can then be collected to test the implications
of applying them.
In short, in the social and educational policy
fields we may be naive in thinking that scientific models of research
and development can be strictly applied. In these domains there
are much more complex processes at work requiring shifts in cultural
understandings, as well as objective evidence, and bringing the
two together is where the policy breakthroughs are likely to occur.
13 March 2003
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