Nottingham ESRC Doctoral Training Programmes

Meeting the policymakers

Meeting the policymakers

ESRC DTC Student Jodie reflects on a recent visit to the Department for Education

During my doctorate I had the opportunity to work on a project exploring questions of quality in alternative provisions (AP) for young people excluded from mainstream school.  This was commissioned by The Prince’s Trust, and led by Professor Pat Thomson from The University of Nottingham.  The research for this was undertaken in 2014, when we visited 17 case study provisions across the UK and produced a report with a set of recommendations.  However, since then there have been numerous project ‘off-shoots’ and continued research engagements.  Most of these have been writing papers and presenting at conferences. However, last week we were invited to meet with a team of civil servants at The Department for Education, as improving AP is one of their latest White Paper commitments.  They were seeking ideas for programmes to trial to improve outcomes for young people attending AP, and to understand our experiences of researching in such settings.

This was an opportunity to have the sort of input I had envisaged when I decided to research education. However, as a new researcher, it was also a daunting prospect, and one that I approached as an important learning experience.  I was particularly keen to see how our approach related to the way the civil servants spoke and thought about AP.  I did not attend the meeting expecting to have a substantial influence on policy, rather I was mindful that I would get to see how these interactions played out, and learn from Pat Thomson’s experience of communicating with diverse research audiences and stakeholders.  The meeting was less formal than I anticipated and a comfortable environment to share ideas and experiences. I am satisfied that we conveyed the most concerning and important findings from our research.  However, I am mindful that these might get lost and diluted as more ‘stakeholders’ are consulted, and that some were out of kilter with current political sway. It is an experience that I will return to when planning a new project and considering how parts of it might be designed to be useful to policy makers.

Jodie Pennacchia

Doctoral Researcher
The School of Sociology and Social Policy and The School of Education
The University of Nottingham
www.nottingham.ac.uk/sociology/people/lqxjp7



 @jpennacchia

Posted on Monday 3rd April 2017

Nottingham ESRC Doctoral Training Programmes

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