Trying to do Socially Just Educational Research: Doing Things Differently

Abstract

In this paper I want to think about some of the issues involved in trying to do inclusive and socially just education research. I draw on two education research projects that I am involved with. The first project is a small-scale exploratory study with twelve Education academics who are ‘staying on’ post retirement. The second is a major investigation that explores how England’s vocational education and training (VET) system could better support the transitions into further education, training and work of those young people aged 16-20 not taking the university route. Drawing on these two studies, the intention is to ask questions about what is meant by socially just research – that is, research that is both socially just in the way it is carried out (for example, doing research with participants instead of to them and including marginalized voices) and that seeks to contribute to more socially just educational practices in the future. There is some danger in claiming that education research should always have some practical utility; there is also a danger in thinking that more socially just research, without any wider political commitment to social change, will ‘make education better’. But trying to do ‘research differently’ and promoting a more deliberate socially just perspective in our research methods and design may be part of a prefigurative politics where we start to contribute towards more equitable social change.