Governing Knowledge: Research Steering and Research Quality

This article argues that the ‘quality’ debate in education research is not so much about quality as about creating the conditions in which research and knowledge production in the field of education can be managed and steered. The criticisms of research in education have destabilised the field and promoted its closer dependence on and alignment with policy. The paper connects changes in the nature of knowledge to developments in the governance of education, suggesting that experts and techno-scientific research are increasingly necessary not only as sources of information but as ways of ‘doing’ governing, especially through quantification and comparison.