Politically silenced academics should not retreat into echo chambers

There is a distinctly Orwellian note to a recent report alleging that England’s Department for Education has been “monitoring” the social media profiles of academics who criticise its policies. It is, however, not much of a surprise.

For a start, friction between governments and academics is a story as old as universities themselves. I myself have often criticised government policy, especially on teacher education. When academics share these insights on social media, we invite scrutiny in an open and often ill-tempered public sphere. In that context, the DfE’s use of academics’ posts on X (formerly Twitter) to identify known “troublemakers” seems rather predictable, although one might reasonably argue that officials should have better things to do than maintain exhaustive watchlists.

The same report also alleges, however, that the DfE tried to cancel a government-sponsored conference featuring two of these “troublemakers”, before backing down when faced with legal threats. If true, this seems a disturbing attempt to silence researchers with dissenting views. Arguably, it would have infringed academic freedom, since, beyond the right to research and hold opinions, academics should be free to teach and share research-informed viewpoints.

Whether or not they are actually being silenced, many educationalists certainly feel excluded from important policy discussions. A hot topic at last month’s British Educational Research Association (BERA) conference, for example, was the “crisis” in teacher education (the subject of a new open-access book edited by Viv Ellis). Much of this involves the gradual imposition of various constraints on universities that run PGCE teacher education programmes. It reached its apogee in a deeply controversial “market review” of teacher education, following which several highly regarded universities lost their accreditation to run these courses.

Academics who tried to constructively inform this process often felt that their criticisms were being paid lip-service or simply ignored. Ellis also notes that recent teacher education reforms have been driven by a small coterie of “expert” advisers who seemed singularly adept at telling the government what it wanted to hear. Few were academics, and most leading scholars of education were not involved.

A similar picture emerged when Jim Hordern and I recently analysed the DfE’s claims that it is using the “best available evidence” in its teacher education frameworks. We found that the evidence was actually an unrepresentative selection skewed heavily towards a particular school of thought about what teachers need to learn. Unsurprisingly, advocates of this school include recent and current education ministers, along with many of their “expert” advisers. Other research, however highly regarded within academia, is absent from the evidence list.

In short, some recent education policy processes do bear the hallmarks of a culture in which the services of knowledgeable, but potentially critical, educationalists are deemed unnecessary. If there has indeed been a closing of ranks against the academic community, it is likely to result in weaker policy, to the detriment of teachers and, by extension, their students.

How the community responds is of paramount importance. Understandably, many academics are inclined to close ranks. The BERA conference, for example, heard calls for universities to “hold the space” for professional learning. This seems to mean that they should protect scholars of education who find themselves shut out of discussions and provide a “safe space” for them to continue to express views freely.

The risk is that, if mishandled, this will deepen an emerging schism. It implies two parallel worlds: one where policy is shaped by limited evidence and government-friendly “experts”, another where academics, having been denied a voice elsewhere, hold conversations among themselves and people who agree with them.

The danger of such entrenched polarisation is serious and real. In 2020, my colleague Steve Watson co-authored a paper highlighting concerns that social media was already being used to mobilise parts of the sector into treating university-based education research as remote from and out of touch with teachers. If, as academics, we respond to the current vogue for closed-shop policymaking by retreating into the safety of our own echo chamber, that narrative becomes justified.

I would argue that this positioning of academic viewpoints as not “counting” in education challenges us to model better forms of debate and better pathways towards effective policy. It is imperative to cut through the invisible boundaries that often separate universities, schools, policy actors and other education bodies and organisations. It requires educationalists to make everyone part of the discussion about our research and the future: by welcoming more diverse voices to our conferences, involving a wider range of contributors in our podcasts and widening membership of our own “expert groups” when collaborating outside academia.

Addressing education’s many crises requires strong, collective thinking that combines the insights of research, policy and professional practice. We therefore need to be as open as possible to different views, including those with which we do not necessarily agree, and to wisdom generated in contexts different from our own.

At present, it seems that some, at a policy level, are failing to live up to those values. We should be concerned about the harm done when academics are cut out of discussions, particularly if they are stigmatised and silenced in the process. We also need to be cautious about replicating such actions ourselves. We should recognise that perhaps the task of setting a better standard of public discussion on education falls to us.

Clare Brooks is professor of education at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge.