Researching the Powerful in Education

In this text, leading analysts in education and policy provide an overview of methods for researching those in positions of power. Over the past decade, there has been a dramatic increase in research studies on the powerful, bringing new understanding of the policy-making and policy-implementation process. This is the first book to bring together reflexive accounts of doing research on the powerful in education, and it focuses on issues with broad relevance to social scientists. The contributors have conducted studies of major significance on both sides of the Atlantic. Here they describe the range of methods applied to a diversity of research topics involving the powerful, showing how the particular difficulties involved in this type of research can be overcome. The book throws considerable light on the problems of access, the use of dual interviewers, encouraging interviewees to be forthcoming, interpreting responses, and the analysis and publication of final reports. It takes account of ethical and political problems, the role of theory and the impact of feminist perspectives on methods. Postgraduate and professional researchers should benefit from these illuminating insights and accounts of experience. This volume should appeal to researchers in educatiom sociology, politics and public policy, and to those at a lower level involved in research dissertations.