Introduction: ‘embedded research’ as an approach into academia for emerging researchers

Abstract

In July 2012 a doctoral seminar was held at the University of Manchester, School of Education, which debated the challenges and implications of ‘embedded research’ as an approach into academia for emerging researchers. At this seminar eight doctoral students presented reflexive accounts about their conceptualizations of embedded research and raised issues regarding the ways in which they developed and designed collaborative research agendas with their host organizations. They also critiqued the potential embedded research partnerships can offer for the development of policy and practice within educational organizations. The keynote speakers at the seminar reflect the multidisciplinary nature of the embedded research; in his critical analysis, Michael Apple (University of Wisconsin Madison) mapped out the landscape of societal power relations and raised important questions regarding the ethical implications of undertaking embedded research specifically in educational settings. Megan O’Neill (University of Salford) on the other hand drew from her experiences in criminal sociology to discuss the practicalities of conducting embedded research with other types of public sector groups and organizations. Although this special collection focuses upon the activities of embedded researchers from an educational perspective, we recognize that such arrangements arguably have roots within both anthropological and sociological traditions, and thus are not tied to either a specific methodological approach or to a singular discipline. This special edition is a collection of papers from three of the presenting doctoral students: James Duggan, Sam Baars and Harriet Rowley, along with contributions from Professor Helen Gunter, University of Manchester and Kevin Hollins, Principal of an Academy that has hosted an embedded researcher. The contributors were selected to reflect how the arrangement of embedded research is experienced from the researcher, supervisory and host institutional perspectives. Before introducing each of the papers within this special edition the following section of this introductory paper will firstly set out a working definition of embedded research and situate the approach within existing literatures. Secondly, it moves on to highlighting the challenges and implications embedded research has for policy, practice and educational research.