ABSTRACT

The Department for Education (DfE) in England seeks to determine the actions of educationists in both the public and private sectors through the use of targeted instructive documents and white papers where broader policy intention is presented. Since 2010, as we will show, there has been a shift in the nature of such papers towards justification with ‘evidence’ and transparency through referencing in a ‘scientific’ style, with ramifications for both how policy is justified and the contestation of practices in education. This leads us to suggest that we are in an ‘evidence era’ where a dominant rationalized myth centres on the use of ‘evidence’ to justify practice. Meanwhile, how ‘evidence’ is constructed as research is undertaken, and how it is transformed as it enters a political environment, are important questions that are often overlooked. In this text, we analyse the change in ‘evidence’ practices before and after 2010, consider why the practices changed, and infer the effects the changes have had on the wider education environment.

摘要

英格兰教育部 (DfE) 试图通过使用有针对性的指导性文件和提出更广泛政策意图的白皮书来确定公共和私营部门教育工作者的行动。正如我们将展示的那样，自 2010 年以来，此类论文的性质发生了转变，通过以“科学”风格引用，以“证据”和透明度进行论证，这对政策的合理性和实践的争论产生了影响。教育。这导致我们认为我们正处于一个“证据时代”，一个占主导地位的合理化神话集中在使用“证据”来证明实践的正当性。同时，“证据”在研究过程中如何构建，以及在进入政治环境时如何转化，这些都是经常被忽视的重要问题。