How to take sides
and sometimes
influence people
Tristram Hooley
Why are you doing an
Ed.D?
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Research and politics
“In researching one’s own workplace, one is
inevitably positioned by the prevailing political
ideologies, as indeed are research participants,
respondents, colleagues and friends. Thus people’s
behaviour is driven by political strategy and this
means that research in these settings can never be
‘clean’, ‘neutral’ or ‘objective’ ”.
Drake and Heath (2011: 23)
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WHAT IS POLICY?
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Policy
A plan or course of action, as of a government, political
party, or business, intended to influence and determine
decisions, actions, and other matters.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/policy
Policy is a set of ideas and proposals for action, which
culminates in government decision. Typically policy will
become a rule or regulation, enforceable by law.
http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/what-policy
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The policy agenda
in careers work
Further
Education
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Demand led
Professionalisation
Co-location
Adult career guidance
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Welfare to
Work
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Increase
employment
Decrease
time on
benefits
Co-location
Professional
staff
Jobcentre Plus
Co-location
Universal careers
provision
Face to face for adults
Telephone and web
Professionalisation
School based
careers education
•
•
School autonomy
Independent
impartial careers
guidance
What public policy
impacts on your
practice?
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How policies impact: Education Act 2011
Context
Text
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“Must secure that all registered pupils
at the school are provided with
independent careers guidance during
the relevant phase of their education”
Statutory duty lies with the school –
head teacher autonomy,
New statutory guidance released
(2014)
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Changing qualification and labour
market structures.
Raising of the participation age.
High youth unemployment.
National Careers Service only provides
telephone and web based careers
services for young people to age 19.
End of the Connexions service (funding
not transferred to schools).
No requirement to provide careers
education.
End of Aimhigher and Education
Business Partnerships.
Text and context
“One of the fundamental differences between me and such
fatalistic intellectuals….lies in my never accepting yesterday
or today, that educational practice should be restricted to a
“reading of the word”, a “reading of text”, but rather believing
that it should also include a “reading of context”, a “reading
of the world”.
Pauo Freire (1998). Pedgagogy of the Heart. p.43.
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How do you analyse
policy and its
implication?
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Analysing policy
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What do the documents say?
What do policy makers say in speeches etc.?
Who is proposing the policy?
Who is disagreeing with it?
How does it relate to what went before (better, worse,
makes no sense)?
• Will the policy actually be implemented?
• Where is the money?
• Who are the beneficaries?
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How do you influence
policy?
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Our engagement with policy
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As learners
As workers/professionals in the education system
As citizens
As voters
As activists
As lobbyists
As politicians
As researchers
But what is this role?
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Is there a role for researchers?
“The philosophers
have only interpreted
the world, in various
ways; the point is to
change it.”
(Marx, 1845)
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What is an appropriate role?
Linking to the big picture
Connecting to evidence
Describing
Publicising and agitating
Scrutinising
Offering solutions
Providing vision
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What would Antonio Gramsci say?
“All men are intellectuals, but not all
men have in society the function of
intellectuals.
One must speak for a struggle for a
new culture, that is, for a new moral
life that cannot but be intimately
connected to a new intuition of life,
until it becomes a new way of feeling
and seeing reality.”
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Change actors in education policy
Intellectuals
Public opinion
Media
Education practice
Education policy
Government
Knowledge
brokers
Civil society
Employers
Schools
organisations
Professional
associations
Individuals in the system
Trade unions
Etc.
Example: Economic benefits
• Timely
• Relevant
• Produced through close working
with Careers England
• Passed it to MPs/politicians
• Continued to make use of it
after it was published.
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Further Reading
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BERA. (2003). Educational Policy and Research across the UK. Report of a BERA
Colloquium held at the University of Edinburgh, 7–8 November
2002. Nottingham: British Educational Research Association.
http://www.bera.ac.uk/educational-research-commissioned-byfor-policy-audiences/
Bridged, D., Smeyers, P. and Smith, R. (Eds) (2008a). ‘“Evidence-based Educational
Policy”: What Evidence? What Basis? Whose Policy?’. Journal of Philosophy of
Education, 42 (1). http://www.tlrp.org/pub/documents/Bridges%20RB74%20Final.pdf
Nutley, S., Davies, H. and Walter, I. (2000) Evidence Based Policy and Practice: Cross
Sector Lessons From The UK. ESRC UK Centre for Evidence Based Policy and
Practice:Working Paper 9. http://www.kcl.ac.uk/content/1/c6/03/46/00/wp9b.pdf
Robertson,S. (2005) Re-Imaging and Rescripting the Future of Education: Global
Knowledge Economy Discourses and the Challenge to Education Systems.
Comparative Education. 41 (2): 151-170.
Taylor, S. (2004) Researching Educational Policy and Change in ‘ New Times’: Using
Critical Discourse Analysis. Journal of Education Policy 19 (4): 433-451.
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For examples of our policy-focused work
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Hooley, T. and Dodd, V. (2015). The Economic Benefits of Career Guidance. Careers
England.
Hooley, T., Shepherd, C. and Dodd, V. (2015). Get Yourself Connected:
Conceptualising the Role of Digital Technologies in Norwegian Career
Guidance. Derby: International Centre for Guidance Studies, University of Derby.
Hooley, T., Watts, A.G., and Andrews, D. (2015). Teachers and Careers: The Role Of
School Teachers in Delivering Career and Employability Learning. Derby: International
Centre for Guidance Studies, University of Derby.
Hutchinson, J., Dickinson, B., Hooley, T. and Vickers, R. (2015). The D2N2
Employability Framework: Employers and Schools Supporting Young People’s Routes
to Work. Nottingham: D2N2.
McCarthy, J. and Hooley, T. (2015). Integrated Policies: Creating Systems that Work.
Adel, IA : Kuder.
Hooley, T. (2014). The Evidence Base on Lifelong Guidance. Jyväskylä, Finland:
European Lifelong Guidance Policy Network (ELGPN).
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Conclusions
• Your research should pay attention to the wider context.
• Your research can have an influence on policy and
practice.
• However this is not “knowledge transfer” but rather a
process of participation in a wider social and political
conversation.
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About me
Tristram Hooley
Professor of Career Education
University of Derby
www.derby.ac.uk/icegs
t.hooley@derby.ac.uk
@pigironjoe
https://adventuresincareerdevelopment.wordpress.com/
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