In playing with the concept of 'credibility', this article presents a critical examination of the discourse of evidence and the programming of upbringing in early intervention policy and practice. The truth claims of the evidence discourse in policy are explored through a single complex case study of an early intervention city in Northern Ireland.…

Policy and research engagement is a timely topic for researchers, decision-makers, and higher education institutions that aim to promote engagement and impact. Examination of the complex research-policy relationship in the higher education sector has been largely overlooked. This paper addresses this issue by presenting findings from in-depth…

There is increasing interest in research-based education in the Western World as it is assumed to strengthen school improvement capacity. Previous research shows that school principals play a pivotal role in realising such vision. The aim of this article is to explore the influence of principals on research-based education in their local municipal…

The growing use of artificial intelligence in education extends and intensifies technologies of governing, including datafication, performativity and accountability. In this article, we outline how the use of AI and data science has the disruptive potential to create new norms in education policy and governance. We report on an ethnographic…

Background: Despite the growing attention given to the political process of evidence-based policymaking (EBPM), we still know little about how evidence is processed at the early stages of the policymaking process, especially at the agenda-setting stage. Whether and when political elites pay attention to evidence-based information is crucial to the…

Purpose: School leaders are critical to organizational change and school improvement, particularly through their role in facilitating teacher development. Yet the literature is thin regarding the extent to which various sources of evidence influence school leaders' decisions and regarding conditions that may shape differences in school leader…

In Ireland as elsewhere, the value of putting evidence and scientific advice at the centre of public policy-making, has rarely been more evident. The prominence of the science-policy interface has renewed interest in the prospects for evidence based policy (EBP) in education. Notwithstanding the political rhetoric around EBP in education, little…

This is the protocol for a Campbell evidence and gap map. The objectives are as follows: identify and map all existing primary studies, systematic reviews (published and unpublished), guidelines and policies on education during the COVID-19 pandemic, creating a live, searchable and publicly available evidence and gap map.

Interest in the field of career and technical education (CTE) has experienced a resurgence over the last decade, as the global economy has grown increasingly competitive while students have continued to leave school underprepared for well-paying twenty-first century jobs. Together and separately, the education and workforce sectors have sought to…

We begin by arguing that the continuing dominance of 'evidence-based' thinking in educational policymaking does serious harm to the notion of evidence itself; also that it brings a loss of coherence to education as a practice that might wish to be regarded as a coherent and research-informed one. The second section of the article suggests that the…

Extremism in special education has been an endemic feature for decades but its most recent iteration, the full inclusion movement (FIM), is pushing special education toward a radical ideology in which placement in mainstream schools, rather than providing effective instruction, is becoming the main focus of efforts to meet the needs of students…

This systematic review examines the extent to which educational policy and practice in Turkey are informed by research evidence. Drawing on national and international literature, the review explores the theoretical foundations of evidence-based policymaking, the current status of research-informed policy in Turkey, and the challenges faced in…

Evidence-informed change (EIC) has gained attention recently because it is seen as a lever to enhance the effectiveness and sustainability of educational change. Important questions are: how is EIC conceptualized, what counts as evidence, and what factors can support EIC in practice? Because of the complexity of EIC, we aimed to understand these…

Does empirical evidence or ideology most influence homeschooling policy? It depends. Where empirical research and social experience abound, regulations seem less restrictive but where there is less data or experience policies seem more restrictive and ideologically driven. By comparing Europe and the United States with a look at South Africa,…

Research at the intersection of social science and genomics, 'sociogenomics', is transforming our understanding of the interplay between genomics, individual outcomes and society. It has interesting and maybe unexpected implications for education research and policy. Here we review the growing sociogenomics literature and discuss its implications…