Education for All: Mobilizing Knowledge for Equitable Policy

• In Event: Demystifying knowledge production and transfer in education policy

Proposal

Education for All (EFA) by UNESCO (2000) was the first of multiple global initiatives looking to create a commitment to better schooling for all children around the globe. The goals to be achieved by 2015 were decided on at the World Education Forum in Dakar, attended by political and private actors, as well as leaders of various organizations. Despite all efforts, UNESCO’s 2015 Global Monitoring Report (2015) states, that only about a third of the countries had reached their goals. Thus, the EFA campaign’s effect on education policy seems ambiguous. However, EFA was successful in bringing education to the forefront of the global agenda: “Education for All” has inspired a multitude of academic publications and policy reports. A search of the dimensions.ai database results in roughly 50,000 academic publications mentioning the campaign.

Even though not all research is informative for policymaking, with the demand for data for evidence-based policymaking it becomes increasingly important to investigate the mobility of knowledge between (academic) research and policy (e.g. Sanderson, 2003; Lingard, 2013). This raises concerns about the policy impact of EFA, given its origins as a political proposal by an intergovernmental organization (IGO); the mobility of (academic) knowledge created with EFA in mind; and where policymakers gather knowledge for policy aimed at EFA goals. What is now unknown is if and how the aforementioned academic papers will influence policy reports. This contribution is intended to fill that gap.

Levin's (2013) model of knowledge mobility underpins this study. According to this model, knowledge transfer from research to policy is mediated by people, organizations, or processes. Organizations are more likely to cultivate relationships with policymakers, potentially influencing what kind of research by whom is mobilized to the policy agenda. This implies, that knowledge mobility from research to policy might be driven by a few leading scholars or organizations, depending on the context. This potentially limits the breadth of knowledge and perspectives which could be informing policy.

I approach this issue from a network perspective. First, I present a field overview of research on EFA published between 2000 and 2022. Then, I take a closer look at the interplay of these publications with policy reports, by analyzing policy documents for their uptake of research publications. Preliminary findings show, that the association of researchers with renowned universities or organizations such as the OECD or the World Bank greatly increases the likelihood of the use of their academic work in policymaking, creating a potential bias towards academic publications from very few leading institutions being used in policymaking.

Author

• Helen Seitzer, University of Bremen