An Application of the Social Ecological Systems Framework to Promoting Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice

• In Event: Thinking Ecologically in Education Policy and Research

Abstract

Education policies (e.g., the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act) continue to press for increased use of research evidence in decision-making, yet decades of research point to weak links between research and practice (e.g., Farley-Ripple et al. 2018). In line with this proposed special issue, we see evidence-informed improvement not as a problem with schools, but with a larger evidence use ecosystem, which we argue warrants much deeper exploration in order to build and strengthen multi-directional paths between research and practice. Building from Levin (2013), we focus on three main, and partially overlapping, contexts needing attention: research, practice, and mediation (e.g., the work of intermediary organizations). Research to date points to the importance of each of these contexts in evidence-informed policy and practice (e.g., Malin & Brown, 2020), but rarely are they considered together.

In this paper, we seek to understand the social-ecological systems in which these contexts are situated and to identify problematic disconnects and promising similarities. Accordingly, this study draws on case studies of research production in institutions of higher education, knowledge mobilization by an intermediary organization, and school-based decision-making. We examine and compare “successful” cases representing each of these domains while simultaneously considering the broader system thing which they reside. We use Ostrom’s (2007) Social-Ecological Systems Framework as a lens on each case, attending to governance systems, actors, resource systems, resource units, and the interactions that coordinate and align those systems to achieve positive outcomes. We then look across cases to identify barriers and opportunities to restructure and reorganize the evidence-use ecosystem in order to redesign and strengthen the research-practice infrastructure and more effectively promote evidence-informed policy and practice.

Overall, we find the application of the framework a productive and valuable exercise for exploring evidence-informed policy and practice both at the level of case analysis as well as cross-case analysis. Through the case-based analysis, we were able to understand how the different subsystems interact and to think more deeply about how decisions in and characteristics of subsystems influence other aspects of the system. Additionally, use of the framework helped identify stronger and weaker subsystem influences on interactions which are useful in identifying and leveraging the different parts of the ecosystem in the interactions as well as directing our attention to parts of the ecosystem that need to be strengthened. We also note the need to acknowledge the multiple instances of component subsystems (e.g., resource units, resource systems, governance). Conceptualizing second-tier variables that capture the nature and extent of that interaction may be an opportunity to develop the framework further generally, and in ways that map onto complex social processes such as research use specifically.

Authors

• Elizabeth N. Farley-Ripple, University of Delaware

• Stephen W. MacGregor, University of Calgary

• Joel R. Malin, Miami University (OH)