ResearchED is a growing organisation which says it exists to bring research to bear on the everyday practice of education. It doesn't conduct research, although some of its staff and associated teachers do write 'how to teach' or 'where education went wrong' type books. Here's founder Tom Bennett.
In broad terms ResearchED runs events which put scholars and writers from Education and other scientific fields in front of regular teachers; the idea is very much 'evidence-based' teaching. The organisation is strongly favoured by Education ministers of the present day, and it tends to take a highly critical position on university educational research.
ResearchED is particularly active amongst Multi-academy Trusts (MATs), academics and free schools. It's well-funded and influential, and it's increasingly producing a new kind of literature which by-passes university education department and focuses very much on Education as a driver of economic success a la PISA orthodoxy.
The organisation does have considerable support from faculties such as the University of Durham's Education department, where there is a thriving consultancy wing.
Scholars in traditional faculties often deprecate the academic quality and thinking of ResearchED. Its epistemology is sometimes felt crude and conservative, and it is often seen as essentially an ideological project of the right. But quietly ResearchED is becoming a force to reckon with. As more and more teacher training takes place in schools and schools are perhaps eventually given the powers to licence their own staff, providing and delivering content in the way ResearchED does may well shift the ideological models and assumptions which have underpinned the teaching profession for many decades.
ResearchED isn't going away; readers here might wish to bone up on it and think about what this trend may mean for them and their work.
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