Abstract:
The role and impact of research on educational policy and practice has attracted considerable scholarly attention and debate in recent years (Nisbet and Broadfoot, 1980; Lawson and Linke, 1981; Husen, 1988; Tripp, 1990). This interest has been prompted by a concern that for all the educational research conducted over the past decades, the apparent pay off for educational policy and practice has been less than expected. Indeed, it has been suggested that researchers' credibility in addressing the ongoing problems of policy and practice, and the connections between the two, is in decline because they cannot come up with clear answers to those problems (Husen, 1988, p. 176). Many reasons have been advanced in attempts to explain this state of affairs. One of the most commonly stated is that the interests and agendas of researchers on the one hand and policy-makers and practitioners on the other often do not coincide, leading to charges of philistinism by the former against the latter and suspicion, even outright rejection, by the latter against the former. Another commonly stated reason is the inappropriateness of research models adopted in the study of education which, being a complex, value laden enterprise embedded in social, cultural, political and economic contexts, does not surrender its secrets easily to research particularly where research designs encompass the experimental manipulation of variables and their massage by statistics. Finally, it is argued, research accounts tend to be written up in a style and in a language not easily understood by the non-expert and disseminated through academic journals which often are outside the reach of policy makers and practitioners. So the question properly can be raised, what difference does research make to educational policy and practice? This paper takes up this question and seeks out answers through a case study of the role of research in the Disadvantaged Schools Program (DSP). The reasons for choosing the DSP as a case study are twofold. Firstly, Connell, White, and Johnston (1990, p. 5) have pointed out that the policy pay-off of recent published research into poverty and education, including evaluation studies of the DSP, has been disappointing. According to these authors, there has been little cross-reference or cumulation of research findings; an abstract research methodology predominates; user-friendly reports are rare; and key terms such social class and disadvantage are inadequately conceptualised. Secondly, the DSP, as a key, special focus anti-poverty program of the Commonwealth government aimed at education systems, teachers, schools and their communities provides a manageable case study through which to weigh up the issues and to assess the claims made about the limited impact of educational research on policy and practice. The paper begins with a review of the issues surrounding the question, "what difference does it make?" raised in recent writing on the role of educational research. The review aims to identify and clarify the main issues at stake, expose their assumptions and to draw out implications for the role of research in educational policy and practice. The paper then reviews recent writing on policy and practice in the DSP with a view to making some overall observations about the role of research in shaping these processes and discussing it in terms of issues raised in the previous general analysis with a view to extending understanding of them. This discussion then will be brought into closer focus by analysing how the concept of empowerment in the DSP's policies has been taken up in practice at the school level and what role research has played in the process. The paper concludes by returning to the question, "what difference does make?" and suggests that research can make a difference to educational policy and practice provided certain conditions are fulfilled which might make research a more powerful ingredient in the mixture of competing interests seeking to influence the directions of educational policy and practice.