Beyond the sage on the stage: PubMethods as radical research practice

Colleagues are invited to join an innovative, presentation event by our Research Into Professional Practice in Learning and Education (RIPPLE) network. RIPPLE meets monthly, in a pub, to discuss approaches to researching professional practice. Our PubMethods meetings have fostered a creative, collaborative, inter-disciplinary, participatory, and radical community; one that could be described as typified by thick democracy (Fielding and Moss, 2011), where ‘…a range of voices … [are] heard, not only through the narratives of learning [about our research practices], but also through the leveller of laughter and the eagerness of exploration’ (ibid: 158). We will explore how for us PubMethods enables a distinct opportunity, one which we have come to reflect upon as radical because we ‘“re-see” each other as persons rather than role occupants’ within our university setting (ibid: 79). Our event begins with an invitation to conference colleagues to join a live PubMethods meeting between the final session on Day One of the Conference and the Conference dinner. We continue on Day Two with a symposium-style session, ‘in the round’, beginning in the style of a PubMethods meeting. We will reflect on our personal meaning-making from PubMethods through a range of lenses including: democracy, expertise, and identity/positionality. We invite colleagues to join us in open-discussion of the powerful possibilities of our practice

Democratic parent engagement: relational and dissensual

In opposition to the discourse of silent compliance and the neoliberal colonisation of voice, this article shares research with parents in an English primary school. Drawing on the work of Jacques Rancière and John Macmurray I argue that there is a need for a more relational but dissensual approach to parental engagement and voice, instead of parents being positioned by schools as support acts. Parent engagement, increasingly commodified over recent years within English school policy, has been relegated to responding to questionnaires, dutiful attendance of parents’ evenings and choosing the correct school. Meanwhile the social mobility agenda demands that parents inculcate aspirations in their children unquestioningly. Policies and pronouncement seek to ‘close the gap’ in attainment between the poorest children and their peers in England, Australia, the United States and other neoliberalised countries. Hence, in a context where parent engagement is now an exercise in creating ‘good’ pupils who will become successful economic beings. This article considers how parents have been rendered objects rather than agentic subjects within neoliberal education systems and have lost their democratic voice. It concludes that there needs to be a reanimation of Dewey’s (2013) vision of “education politics” (Moutsios, 2010: 124)

Unpicking the neoliberal noose: working towards democratic parent engagement in a primary school

This research study was driven by a personal frustration at the lack of democratic parent engagement in English primary schools. Charting the framing of parents as ineptitudes and unworthy of political involvement since state schooling began for all children in 1870, I have demonstrated and problematised how parents are expected to carry out individualised, compliant, performative parent engagement in terms of ensuring their child is brought up to be a successful economic being. I then conceptualised the problem as a neoliberal noose comprising three strands, that strangle democratic parent engagement: 1) Lack of agency regarding parents within education. 2) Lack of space for parents to debate within schools, or nationally, education and education policy. 3) Lack of collective parent engagement due to the pervasive individualisation within the education system. I aimed to unpick this noose by seeking new understandings: establishing the conditions needed for democratic parent engagement and trialling a democratic parent engagement project. As part of a participatory action research study, I set up a Community Philosophy group with a small group of parents in a primary school on the Yorkshire Coast. The initial attempt to forge harmonious relationships between participants and the school became problematic and I had to reframe the research; the reframing process took a poststructural turn and entailed developing a new conceptualisation of action research to help me further unpick the noose and splice the comprising strands. Unpicking the noose afforded a much deeper understanding of how the three strands both twisted together and also held each other in tension, forming a ligature. Moreover, with careful problematising, diffractive analysis and ‘plugging in of theory’ (Jackson and Mazzei, 2012), and a coreflexion process with participants (Cho and Trent 2009), I have re-laid the strands of the rope, and offer a possible lifeline for democratic parent engagement

Democratic Parent Engagement

Within the literature regarding parental engagement I have identified three problematic strands that effectively twist together as rope to strangle democratic parental engagement. These strands are: lack of agency, lack of space (physical and mental) and individualisation. The neoliberalisation of education has led to a responsibilisation of parents which colonises voice, demands consensus and producing economically successful adults. There is little space for questioning the status quo and viewing education from a more community orientated viewpoint. This poster will communicate these strands and how my research has led to a re-visioning of these strands; a relaying of the rope. The strands of agency, space and relationships hold each other in tension to provide a lifeline to democratic parental engagement

Parent Engagement: Beyond Instrumentalisation

The neoliberalisation of education policy has led to the valorisation of particular parents and the consequential demonisation of others. Whether it is through apparent grading of parents (Ough T 2016), or encouraging northern parents to become as pushy as their southern counterparts (Saner 2016), it can be seen that the current educational discourse has individualised, responsibilised and residualised parents. This has had the effect of sidelining parents’ voices; voices are only heard with regard to their child’s progress, rather than the wider educational public sphere. My doctoral research, a Participatory Action Research project, with elements of discourse analysis, has involved working with parents in a Yorkshire primary school to co-deconstruct concepts of parental engagement. The project particularly addressed the role of parents promulgated by OFSTED (2013) and the Government in closing the attainment gap between the poorest children and their peers. For example, participants deconstructed what it meant to support their child’s education and the notion of ‘disadvantaged’ parents. Through this deconstruction, it was found that ‘knowing’ staff and the consequent relationships are more important to parents than more traditional instrumentalist parental engagement initiatives. Furthermore, far from the initial aim to maintain harmonious relationships, dissensus became widely valued by the participants and the headteacher. The culmination of the project was an articulation of parental engagement that is both relational and dissensual; a counter to the current instrumentalist, individualist discourse. This paper will explore how these conclusions were drawn and then argue that it is vital not to reduce parental engagement to an instrument for children’s attainment, or indeed social mobility. Rather, a relational, dissensual approach to parent engagement is essential to the democratic life of the school. References OFSTED (2013a) Unseen Children, HMCIs Speech 20 June 2013, London, Department for Education OFSTED (2013b) Unseen Children: Access and Achievement 20 years on Evidence Report, London, Department for Education. Ough T. (2016) School grades its parents on their support of children's education. [Internet] available from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2016/12/02/school-grades-parents-support-childrenseducation/ [accessed 11/12/2016] Saner E. (2016) Want to help your northern child? Become a pushy southern parent. [Internet] available from https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/shortcuts/2016/dec/05/want-help-northern-childbecome- pushy-southern-parent [accessed 16/12/2016

Evaluation of Biodiversity 2020. Evaluation report [Final report]

In the 25 Year Environment Plan, published in 2018, the Government committed to publishing a new strategy for nature to take forward international commitments on biodiversity and build upon the current Strategy, ‘Biodiversity 2020: a Strategy for England’s wildlife and ecosystem services’. This report provides an evaluation of the outcomes and actions under Biodiversity 2020 to provide an evidence base for ensuring any new strategy is targeted and effective. The evaluation aimed to: 1. assess progress towards the Outcomes set out in Biodiversity 2020 (relating to land and freshwater only); 2. evaluate what worked well and why, and the factors that have influenced progress; 3. identify lessons and opportunities to improve delivery in the future (i.e. under a new strategy). The evaluation was carried out at a Theme level. Evaluation was based on: (i) a synthesis of existing quantitative indicators, (ii) evidence from evaluations and reports of activities undertaken since 2011, and (iii) expert opinions drawn from questionnaires, interviews, and four workshops with stakeholders. The workshops were a key component of the evaluation, and comprised participants from the project team, Defra, other government agencies (usually involved in delivery of activities directly supporting the Strategy), NGOs, businesses (Theme 2) and research and academia. Facilitated discussions amongst workshop participants provided further insight into progress and the factors that have influenced progress, drawing on participants’ experiences and knowledge

Cultures wars in education: a war within or on education?

There is a culture war between educators who identify as either traditionalists or progressives, which has become increasingly bitter. This war continues to play out with vitriol on Twitter fuelled by key names in education. We make a plea for a more relational way of working to protect education from becoming collateral damage in this war