Who are the think tanks that influence government policy and what influence do they have on education pedagogy?
Whilst the term "think tank" with its present sense originated in the 1950s, such organisations date to the 19th century ... Think tanks vary by ideological perspectives, sources of funding, topical emphasis and prospective consumers. (Dictionary)
Are you think-tank savvy?
*Disclaimer - likely to be some errors. Will amend post publication.
Did you know, that think tanks by law aren't allowed to be political? I didn't. They can lean left or right but
Left out? OECD Education (PISA, etcetera).
Just published:
Jesper Dahl Kelstrup (2016). The politics of think tanks in Europe. Routledge.
Thanks Ben for publication heads up.
A valuable start on a much needed summary of this space sir but a little light in a few key areas so to hopefully make it a useful bookmark on this subject here’s some feedback and suggestion for starters for your consideration if I may be so bold and assuming you aren’t being paid off for missing this out as I see the Teacher Toolkit logo is off on the far right hand side of the chart :-O
– IMHO the RSA do a lot of good work like Innovative Education and run a few Academies, but frankly given their network of 35k fellows really could have mobilised such a massive force much more effectively in an area as far reaching as education. I gave a relatively popular 3 minute talk there 2 years ago entitled ‘Walking the Talk’ http://bit.ly/scorsapitch and being of an old school (not neo) liberal leaning and it being a fairly liberal organisation was lambasted recently for proudly including the initials FRSA in my Twitter Profile by right wing traditionalists like Andrew Old (or is he a left wing traditionalist – never too sure). Sadly as Prof Guy Claxton said in ‘Educating Ruby’, most progressives run off and hide behind a tree when the trads start throwing thing around as they have been for a few years now.
– Also in saying ‘Centre Right’ have you written about the same Policy Exchange that I know or did the scale get recalibrated recently? Weren’t they set up by the not very centre right politician and household name Michael Gove and now major influencers and supporters of organisations like ResearchEd and Parents and Teachers for Excellence who I’m sure both include lots of great grass roots teachers and do lots of great work but that at the same time many feel, behind their misdirecting Orwellian double speak names, represent fairly hard core right wing neo-liberal traditionalist education thinking.
But what do I know. I’m just a dad.
(This feedback does not represent the views of my employers, collaborators or supporters. But do let me know if it represents yours?)
Transparify is current re-examining how much UK think tanks disclose about who funds them. We’ll cover several of the think tanks discussed above. Report due out in January 2017.
This is what we found last year:
https://twitter.com/transparify?lang=en