On Saturday April 18 BERA presented at AERA’s annual meeting. BERA members presented the symposium “How Can Education Policy Respect Children and Young People? British Social Justice Researchers Seek New Ways to Inform Public Debate”, a paper that introduces the BERA Respecting Children and Young People project.

SYMPOSIUM CONTRIBUTORS: Papers/Presenters:

1. Ruth Boyask, Plymouth University  & Katy Vigurs, Staffordshire University Convenors of the BERA Social Justice Special Interest Group (SIG)
2. Ruth Lupton, Professor of Education, University of Manchester
3. Jocey Quinn, Professor of Education, Plymouth University
4. Liz Todd, Professor of Educational Inclusion, Newcastle University

Discussants:

1. Michael Apple, John Bascom Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison apple@education.wisc.edu
2. Christopher Lubienski, Professor of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign club@uiuc.edu

Symposium Abstract

This symposium reports upon different ways British educational researchers committed to social justice are engaging with issues of policy in consideration of the upcoming parliamentary election in the United Kingdom. It emerges from a public engagement project of the British Educational Research Association (BERA) that seeks new ways for educational researchers to address the challenges of global change and social inequity impacting on the lives of children and young people. In this symposium we explore using research to inform a public consensus on social justice in education and its potential for fairer education policy. We stake a claim for a wider range of legitimate participants to take a central role in constructing education policy, including researchers committed to social justice.

Session Summary

This symposium reports upon different ways British educational researchers committed to social justice are engaging with issues of policy in consideration of the upcoming parliamentary election in the United Kingdom (UK). In this symposium we extend the work of a BERA public engagement project in which the authors of the four papers have all been involved. The BERA Respecting Children and Young People project is putting educational researchers to work on addressing the challenges of global change and exacerbating social inequalities that diminish the lives of many children and young people (see BERA, 2014). The symposium looks for commonality between this project and other work undertaken by the presenters. A common feature of our work is our interest in using research to inform a public consensus on social justice in education. National policy has come to represent public consensus on education, yet we are mindful that the legitimacy of such policy is questionable (Fraser, 2014). The voices engaged in the construction of national policy are limited and the similarities between national education systems, such as high-stakes testing, narrowing of curriculum and privatisation of schooling, betray oftentimes hidden, undemocratic, transnational influences. We stake a claim for a wider range of legitimate participants to take a central role in constructing education policy, including researchers committed to social justice.

We demonstrate through presentation of four papers how we are negotiating the interface between educational research and policy in light of the troublesome history of this interface and our hopes for the future. The BERA Respecting Children and Young People project is reported upon in the first paper from the perspective of the Social Justice SIG convenors who have led on its organisation. The symposium goes beyond this project however, with the remaining three papers reporting on involvement in this and other initiatives at the interface between research, policy and public engagement. All of this work is situated within the wider socio-political context of neoliberalism, globalisation and evidence-based education.

The papers are followed by comment from two invited discussants who have been asked to consider the issues raised by our presentations in respect of the educational research/policy interface in the United States (US), and how we might work together to find new ways to inform public debate and influence policy. We then open up discussion with questions from the audience on the role educational research may play in informing policy that has social justice for children and young people at its heart. This symposium is of relevance to an audience in the US because it recognises the global dimension of social inequality and its proposed solutions, even while the research we report upon illustrates the “complex realities” and cultural specificity of the lives of children and young people in 21^st century Britain (Apple, 2010). The symposium draws parallels between the experiences of children, young people and the educationists who are working towards resolution of social injustice in both the UK and US, recognising that we have some shared histories of power and privilege.

References:

Apple, M. (2009) Global Crises, Social Justice, and Education, in M. Apple (Ed) Global Crises, Social Justice, and Education, Oxon; New York: Routledge.

BERA (2014) Respecting Children and Young People: Learning from the Past, Redesigning the Future, Retrieved 1 October 2014 from: https://www.bera.ac.uk/project/respecting-children-learning-from-the-past-redesigning-the-future

Fraser, N. (2014) Transnationalizing the Public Sphere: On the Legitimacy and Efficacy of Public Opinion in a Post-Westphalian World, in K. Nash (Ed) Transnationalizing the Public Sphere, Cambridge; MA: Polity.

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