Quality Research in Education

Madeleine Arnot

Faculty of Education

University of Cambridge

Democratic Values, Gender and Citizenship

o The contexto Initial premiseso Democratic research: themeso The language of researcho Quality criteria, levels and relevanceo The conditions of educational researcho The challenge

The Context

• Bengt Molander, Professor of Philosophy, Norwegian University of Science and Technology Trondheim.

• Stefan Hopmann, Professor of School and Educational Research, University of Vienna.

• Madeleine Arnot, Professor of Sociology of Education, University of Cambridge.

Initial premises

(a) The research is capable of being internationally recognised by peers as making an original contribution to the field of knowledge.

(b) The research offers high level conceptual thinking and/or rigorous, ethical, empirical investigations into education.

(c) The research provides strong, sound evidence on which to base educational policy and practice.

Democratic Research Themes

Citizenship Spaces and Values Teachers’ political values, civic society, national identities, global

contexts

Pedagogic Research Democratic learning, classroom research and participatory,

democratic pedagogies

Social Inequalities Social class, race and ethnicity, identity research, gender theory,

social exclusion.

Democratic Values Integrative research and international debates about democracy

The Language of Research

• What is the major scholarly intellectual contribution (or result) so far?

• What (empirical/conceptual) challenges did you face and how did you meet that challenge?

• Were any of your findings unexpected?• What is particularly valuable/important about your

research for the international field? • How do you intend to make your results

accessible nationally and internationally?

Democratic Values, Gender and Citizenship

International and future prospects strengthened by interdisciplinarity.

National reform agenda is strong but can be too normative, with strong safety nets.

Possibilities of a Swedish school of thought about educating for democracy within globalised knowledge economy.

Larger studies needed, wider audiences for research

Some findings

• Strong normative culture taking democratic values and curricular for granted.

• Seeming lack of familiarity with language of research or lack of engagement with research epistemology and methodology.

• Narrow national audience with reliance on doctoral outputs.

Quality Criteria

• Rigour

• Originality

• Significance

• Criticality

• Reflexivity

• Impact

The Conditions of Educational Research

• The need to fund ‘high quality basic research’

• The need for research to‘correspond to the needs within teacher training and professional pedagogic activities’.

• Research would need to build research capacity across educational institutions.

The challenges

1. How best can educational research serve the educational community?

2. What is the best way to promote research cultures amongst teacher education?

3. What is the proper place for graduate research? 4. How might internationally recognised research

be encouraged?5. What other ways can high quality educational

research be promoted?

Defining the Quality of Research

• Is the model appropriate for the culture and political goals of Swedish educational faculties and teacher training institutions?

• How does such a goal mesh with the national imperatives of restructuring educational teaching and research communities?

• What are the implications of this model for promoting research in the educational community?