Mobilising Teacher Researchers

Challenging Educational Inequality

Ann Childs, Ian Menter

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138064607
• eBook ISBN: 9781351662154
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica generale

'[A] really important book […] the growth of interest in teachers in England taking part in educational research is significant.'

– John Furlong, Emeritus Professor of Education, Oxford University, UK.

Mobilising Teacher Researchers brings together the results of a research project carried out over a two-year period, commissioned by the National College for Teaching and Leadership and involving over 650 schools in England.

An internationally renowned group of contributors present crucial and intriguing lessons learnt from the 'Closing the Gap: Test and Learn' project, aimed at identifying ways in which to close the attainment gap, raise the achievement of disadvantaged children in England, and introduce new research methods into schools. From the project's policy origins to its implementation, the book captures the diverse range of outcomes from the project, both intended and unexpected. It reveals the ways and extent to which teachers were mobilised as researchers, and how analysis will impact on the future of research-informed practice in schools.

This resulting collection of evolutionary debates focuses on topics such as new forms of governance, teacher engagement and the effectiveness of Randomised Controlled Trials. It foregrounds new approaches to school-based educational research, and is crucial reading for anyone concerned with educational research, and seeking to understand education for social mobility.

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Part 1
Closing the Gap

Test and Learn

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Chapter 1
Who, how and why?

Motives and agendas for key stakeholders in Closing the Gap

Ann Childs, Roger Firth and Ian Thompson

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Introduction

This chapter looks at the motives and agendas of key stakeholders in their initial and continuing involvement in the Closing the Gap: Test and Learn project (hereafter CtG). The chapter draws on training materials and interviews with respondents from: the National College of Teaching and Leadership (NCTL); the Education Development Trust (formerly CfBT Education Trust, hereafter EDT); the Centre for the Use of Research and Evidence in Education (CUREE); Durham University, School of Education (DUSE); the University of Oxford, Department of Education (OUDE); and the trial coordinators in the Teaching School Alliances (all teachers). Key ministerial speeches and policy documents associated with the setting up of this scheme are also drawn on. Bowe, Ball and Gold’s (1992) ‘policy cycle’ model of the policy process and approach to policy analysis is used as a heuristic to ascertain the motives and agendas of stakeholders’ involvement in CtG. These stakeholders had their own motives for involvement in the project, but were also representatives of their particular educational organisation. The first section of the chapter looks at the policy origins of CtG based on three strands in government policy. The second section draws particularly on the interview data to look at the motives and agendas of the stakeholders in becoming involved in the scheme. The third section focuses on the policy text production, and the final section then examines how the original motives, particularly of the Teaching Schools, evolved and changed over the lifetime of the scheme as they became involved in the ‘complex and differentiated activities’ that constitute the ‘policy work’ of CtG (Ball, Maguire, Braun and Hoskins, 2011a: 625). These sections emphasise the ‘policy work’ of the stakeholders, focusing on the roles and positions through which the stakeholders engage with policy and policy enactment, as well as the differentiated nature of their involvement as both implementers and agents of policy (Ball, Maguire, Braun and Hoskins, 2011b).

The policy cycle approach envisaged by Bowe et al. (1992) rejected previous top-down linear models of education policy which separated the generation and implementation phases of policy. They ‘challenge[d] the separation of policy, politics and practice’ (White and Crump, 1993: 415) by drawing attention to the work of policy recontextualisation that goes on in schools and more widely, as well as the need to investigate how interested parties interact and interpret policy. They ‘viewed policy analysis as a process that identified policy as an interactive process rather than an end product that involved a “cycle”’ (Naidu, 2011: 6). Bowe et al. (1992) drew attention to three primary policy contexts: the ‘context of influence’ ‘where public policy is normally initiated’ (p. 19); ‘the context of policy text production’ where policy texts are produced that represent policy (p. 20); and ‘the context of practice’ where ‘policy is not simply received and implemented within this arena, rather it is subject to interpretation and then “recreated”’ (p. 22). In this way, policy can be:

thought of as texts constituted by discourses. Policy is thus seen as a representation which is encoded and decoded in complex ways. Policy texts may be ‘readerly’ or ‘writerly’, according to the degree of interpretation allowed to the reader, but always and inevitably texts are interpreted and thus contested, adopted and adapted in different contexts of work. Thus, policy is constantly being made or remade at different educational sites.

(Bowe et al., 1992: 22)

We are mindful that this approach has not escaped criticism. Hatcher and Troyna (1994), for example, in their critical appraisal of the ‘policy cycle thesis’ and the use of Barthes’ notion of ‘readerly’ and ‘writerly’, argue that the approach ‘obscures more than it illuminates’ (p. 163). While acknowledging processes of reinterpretation, Hatcher and Troyna give much greater weight to the ability of the state to control outcomes and the need for ‘opposition to government education policy … to extend beyond the level of pragmatic micro-political action at the level of the individual and the school’ (p. 168). Here, however, the model is being used as a means of gaining a better purchase on the nuances of the stakeholders’ involvement in CtG and the complexities of the relationships that characterise the policy process within a specific government ‘intervention scheme’ in its cross-sectional micro-political contexts. Our concern is not with opposition/resistance to government policy, but rather with ‘taking context seriously’ (Braun, Ball, Maguire and Hoskins, 2011) through our interest in stakeholders’ motives and agendas for involvement in CtG and the mediated character and complex determinations of policy work within the policy community.

Context of influence

The CtG scheme was described on the DfE website in 2013 as being:

a new scheme from the National College of Teaching and Leadership providing grants for schools and teachers to get involved in rigorous research. The goal is to help improve the evidence-base for what works in closing the attainment gap (CTG) for disadvantaged pupils and also to stimulate robust research and development in schools. The scheme should also strengthen relationships between schools and higher education institutions.

Three strands in government policy seem to have come together to influence the setting of the CtG scheme: a stated commitment to social mobility and improving the attainment of disadvantaged students; a preference for randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in educational research; and the ambition to develop Teaching Schools and Teaching School Alliances into ‘robust’ leaders on research and development.

Strand 1: Government stated commitment to social mobility and improving the attainment of disadvantaged students

The Coalition Government made a clear commitment to social mobility as the principal goal of their social policy, which complemented the agenda for social justice. Together, they were seen as ‘inseparable components in [the] fight against poverty and disadvantage’ (HM Government, 2011: 11). Five broad principles underpinned the government’s policy:

• a long-term view;

• a progressive approach;

• an evidence-based approach;

• a life cycle approach from the foundation years through school life and into the working world;

• and a recognition that Government does not have all the answers.

The aim of the life cycle approach was to ‘make life chances more equal at the critical points for social mobility’, the ‘crucial moments, where government can make the most difference’ (HM Government, 2011: 6).

A research review published by the Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People’s Services (funded by the DfE) emphasised that:

There is an extensive amount of research in the UK analysing the link between poverty and attainment, and in relation to other factors (gender, ethnicity, schools etc). However, there is much less quantitative evidence available in terms of ‘what works’ for specific interventions and strategies. There is a much larger evidence base available internationally in this area.

(Sharples, Slavin, Chambers and Sharp, 2011: 1)

The aim was to summarise the best available evidence to help the government and service providers improve services and, ultimately, outcomes for children, young people and their families.

Work to close gaps in attainment between pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers is a high priority for schools. There is targeted additional funding available for schools, through the Pupil Premium (introduced in 2011), and accountability, through greater scrutiny from the new Ofsted inspection framework (2012). The growth in Teaching School Alliances (see below) and the steady rise in the numbers of national leaders of education is at the forefront of the move to a ‘self-improving school system’ (Rea, Hill and Dunford, 2013: 3).

Key political figures in the coalition government (2010–2015) from the Conservative Party (Michael Gove, Education Secretary) and the Liberal Democrats (David Laws, Schools Minister and Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister) were seen to consistently express concerns over social mobility and a failure of schools to educate the poor and most disadvantaged in society. For example, in a speech to the Association of School and College Leaders, David Laws stated:

Over the last decade, there has been a welcome focus on raising standards in English education. Schools with poor levels of performance have been under great pressure to improve – and rightly so. We still have some way to go to raise levels of attainment to acceptable levels in all schools. Only half of the journey is yet completed. But today I want to focus particularly on the issue of closing the achievement gap. Even as overall attainment has risen over the last decade, the attainment gap has remained stubbornly wide. It is unacceptable that in our country there is such an enormous gap between the life chances of children from poor backgrounds and other children. Last year only 38% of disadvantaged pupils achieved 5 good GCSEs, including English and Maths, or equivalent qualifications, versus 65% of other pupils. That is one of the widest achievement gaps in the world, and it is one of this Government’s key objectives to dramatically narrow that gap. We want schools, local authorities and Academy chains to focus not only on overall attainment but on narrowing the attainment gaps.

(Laws, 2013)

The need to ‘close the gap’ in educational attainment was also a recurrent and passionate theme for the then Education Secretary, Michael Gove. For example, in a speech in 2010 Gove said:

The gap in attainment between rich and poor, which widened in recent years, is a scandal. For disadvantaged pupils, a gap opens even before primary school. Leon Feinstein’s research has shown that the highest early achievers from deprived backgrounds are overtaken by lower achieving children from advantaged backgrounds by age five. Schools should be engines of social mobility – the places where accidents of birth and the unfairness of life’s lottery are overcome through the democratisation of access to knowledge. But in the school system we inherited the gap between rich and poor just widens over time.

(Gove, 2010)

This view of schools as potential ‘engines of social mobility’ was also echoed by David Laws:

Breaking this stubborn attainment gap between richer and poorer pupils is my party’s key objective in the Department for Education. It is what drives me as a minister.

(Laws, 2014)

However, respondents from the National College had slightly different perceptions of who was actually the key player in the Coalition government that influenced the setting up of the CtG scheme. One respondent perceived that a speech from Nick Clegg in May 2012 was the key influence. As Clegg put it:

And we need teachers to help in this effort too – they’re the real experts. One idea I’m keen on, and I’m looking at, is giving more teachers the chance to do some proper research with universities. When an individual teacher excels at breaking this link between poverty and educational failure they’ll help maybe 5, 10, 15 pupils. But if we can turn their real life successes into hard research, into lessons that can be shared we can massively multiply the benefits – helping thousands of pupils. And, in the process, we can build new links between state schools and universities too.

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However, another respondent from the NCTL perceived David Laws as the chief instigator.

Nevertheless, what certainly seems to be the case is that the Liberal Democrats in the coalition had a key influence in promoting policies that had the potential to close the gap and Michael Gove would most likely have been supportive given his clear commitment, in numerous speeches in his time as Education Minister, to social mobility and reducing educational inequity.

Strand 2: The preference for randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in educational research

A second key influence in the formulation of the CtG scheme was a focus on the use of randomised control trials (RCTs) in educational research. This focus was heavily influenced by a paper by Dr Ben Goldacre (2013) titled Building Evidence into Education. This paper was commissioned by the then Education Secretary Michael Gove and examined the role of research evidence ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• List of figures
• List of abbreviations
• Notes on contributors
• Introduction
• Part 1 Closing the Gap: Test and Learn
• Part 2 Teachers and research methods: some wider issues
• Part 3 New approaches to school-based educational research
• Afterword
• Index