Relevance through openness? Making scholarly knowledge count to grassroots community-based advocacy groups

Transcription

1 Rodela / Making scholarly knowledge count to grassroots community-based advocacy groups 1 Relevance through openness? Making scholarly knowledge count to grassroots community-based advocacy groups Katherine Rodela 1 Stanford University Abstract: This paper considers the implications of the open access movement on the much debated and theorized gap between research and policy. Most knowledge utilization researchers have failed to reconfigure their ideas within the new digital landscape of research or consider the ways in which open access to research could provide policy makers avenues to use scholarly research. Another glaring neglect within knowledge utilization literature is the apparent lack of grassroots organizations in discussions of policy. With these gaps in mind, this paper asks if newer, more accessible digital avenues can allow social science research to reach grassroots advocacy groups and influence their policy decisions. Considering these organizations possible information needs and policy processes, open access potentially impacts how these groups make their cases and form alliances. However, such a potential remains thwarted by a scholarly disconnect. Taking into account the ways policy decisions are made and the reasons for the common research-practice disconnect, this paper argues that open access to scholarly publications will not necessarily influence the decisions and strategies of grassroots advocacy groups. Keywords: open access, knowledge utilization, grassroots, advocacy groups, research-policy gap Introduction Writers are among the most backward sectors of the population when it comes to exploiting their own social experience. [...] [F]or the most part they are unable to give an account of the social function of their writing. [...] [A] publisher has an incomparably clearer idea of the circles to whom he is selling than writers have of the audience for whom they write. -Walter Benjamin (2008, 1930), from A Critique of the Publishing Industry, p. 355 In his brief essay A Critique of the Publishing Industry, Benjamin assails the German publishing houses for their monopolistic practices and unfair compensation to writers. He also presents a critique of the authors themselves: unable to give an account of the social function of their writing and unclear about the audience for whom they write. While certainly most of today s authors tailor work to their perceived audiences, especially academics who write for scholarly journals, the questions of social function and audience still plague social scientists who intend their work to impact policy but are unsure how to 1 Katherine Rodela is a Doctoral Student in the School of Education and Graduate Fellow for the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA krodela@stanford.edu

2 Rodela / Making scholarly knowledge count to grassroots community-based advocacy groups 2 connect their research with practice. Many researchers would agree with Carol Weiss (1991) who recognizes from the outset, [...] that policy research, or any other kind of research, is not going to determine the major direction of policy (p. 2). But, such a recognition doesn t preclude efforts to make research matter in the real world outside of academic circles. Many social scientists have sought to find ways to bridge the gap or theorize reasons why this gap exists. Despite such efforts, most bridging the gap or knowledge utilization researchers have failed to reconfigure their ideas within the new digital landscape of research or consider the ways in which open access to research could provide policy makers avenues to use scholarly research. The most influential theories on knowledge utilization remain relatively unchanged since the late 1970s, when Weiss (1977) developed her enlightenment model and Caplan (1979) proposed his two communities theory (Neilson 2001, p. 3). Another glaring neglect within knowledge utilization literature is the apparent lack of grassroots organizations in discussions of policy. This reflects a bias to see policy making only within elite circles instead of the many influences coming from lower-level bureaucrats as Stone et al. (2001) point out or community-based advocacy groups that lobby alongside and sometimes counter larger advocacy coalitions. With these gaps in mind, this paper asks if newer, more accessible digital avenues can allow social science research to reach grassroots advocacy groups and influence their policy decisions. Such groups can include a myriad of associations, from an environmental justice advocacy group to a coalition of special education teachers, from fair-housing associations to a neighborhood parent alliance. While the focus issue may vary among groups, there are several key characteristics all possess. Considering these organizations possible information needs and policy processes, open access potentially impacts how these groups make their cases and form alliances within their community and beyond. However, such a potential remains thwarted by a scholarly disconnect. Taking into account the ways policy decisions are made and the reasons for the common research-practice disconnect, I argue that open access to scholarly publications will not necessarily influence the decisions and strategies of grassroots advocacy groups. Open access may be helpful in some instances because it at least makes the research available, but open access does not and, for now, cannot solve the inherent issues that prevent policy makers and advocacy groups from utilizing research in meaningful and direct ways.

3 Rodela / Making scholarly knowledge count to grassroots community-based advocacy groups 3 Advocacy coalitions and grassroots advocacy groups In his work discussing learning frameworks for advocacy coalitions, Sabatier (1988) examines how elite advocacy coalitions over time adjust their belief systems through policy analysis and trial and error learning (p. 130). Though his focus ignores grassroots advocacy groups, Sabatier s definition and description of policy learning provide a fruitful framework to understand how organizations learn and shift strategies. He defines advocacy coalitions as people from a variety of positions [...] who share a particular belief system--i.e. a set of basic values, causal assumptions, and problem perceptions--and who show a non-trivial degree of coordinated activity over time (p. 139). Stone et al. (2001) explains that belief systems fall within particular policy sector[s] (for example, health, education or defence) (p. 11). Grassroots advocacy groups consist of individuals who share a particular belief system and an outlook of the change desired. They are tied together through their beliefs and action priorities, but also remain personally invested in their advocacy efforts because it effects their families, neighborhoods, jobs or lives in intimate ways. Grassroots advocacy groups might be associated with an institution like a school or local health department and include institutional allies such as a school administrator or community nurse, but they are not principally funded or led by such formal institutions or individuals. Grassroots advocacy groups might organize in ways leading to more formalized non-profit organization models, but at its heart are community members personally invested in advancing a certain issue perspective. The ways in which such groups learn depend on the resources the individuals of the groups bring: such as professional certifications and training (like teaching credentials), life experiences (as community activists, parents or living in the community itself), education and research capabilities, or abilities to mobilize other community members. Knowledge utilization theories and policy processes Weiss (1979) outlines seven different models of how knowledge or research is used by policy makers (see Appendix 1 for full list with descriptions of each). Of the seven, according to Neilson (2001), the three most well-known are: knowledge driven, problem-solving and enlightenment (p. 9). Embedded within the knowledge driven model is the notion that basic research discloses some opportunity that may have relevance for public policy (Weiss 1979, p. 427). A sequence of events follows: basic research --> applied research --> development --> application (p. 427). Knowledge drives innovation and technological development in society. More prevalent in the physical sciences, the knowledge

4 Rodela / Making scholarly knowledge count to grassroots community-based advocacy groups 4 driven model is rare in the social sciences (p. 427). The most common and conventional view of research application is the problem-solving model (Weiss 1977, 1979). This model also follows a linear sequence, but instead of the science driving innovation and policy, a preexisting problem drives the research itself. Key to both the knowledge driven and problem-solving models are efficient and clear communication links between researchers and policy-makers (Weiss 1979, p. 428). The problem with these models is that their linear sequences do not adequately describe the messy and conflicting realities in which policy makers choose solutions. Simply put, these models do not account for how research is being used by policy makers. Using these as prototypes for how research should impact policy brings Caplan s (1979) two-communities theory to fruition: the reason for the disconnect between researchers and policy makers is due to their different worldviews and the cultural and ideological gap (as cited in Neilson 2001, p. 5). Such a theory makes it so that even open access to research will fail to produce a connection or bridge: simply put, the work of researchers will remain disconnected from the work and perspectives of policy makers. If these are the theories viewed and relied on, acknowledge impasse emerges. Weiss (1977, 1979, 1991) research shows that it isn t simply that policy makers neglect research or that researchers fail to make their research salient to policy. Instead, according to Weiss, research affects policy in indirect and diffused ways by enlightening policy makers. Evidence suggests that government officials use research less to arrive at solutions than to orient themselves to problems and to gain new ideas and new perspectives (Weiss 1977, p. 534). This enlightenment model shows that in fact research does impact policy, but in more conceptual ways and usually not in the direct, linear way researchers sought. Stone et al. (2001) critiques Weiss enlightenment model for viewing knowledge as apolitical and decontextualized from the ways only certain knowledges count within academic circles (p. 5), arguably the same critique can apply to the previous two models. Stone et al. reminds us that knowledge utilization is almost completely context dependent (p. 21). And, one particular research result may be used differently by different users (p. 21). In Weiss (1991) later work, she better acknowledges the weaknesses within each model, and describes different ways organizations and policy makers can conceive and use research: research as data (akin to the linear problem-solving view and best employed when a data-specific solution is required), research as ideas (enlightenment-esque), and research as advocacy or argument.

5 Rodela / Making scholarly knowledge count to grassroots community-based advocacy groups 5 Knowledge utilization for grassroots advocacy groups What are the ways in which grassroots advocacy groups fit into these knowledge utilization models? Advocacy groups are most likely to use research as ideas and research as advocacy a la Weiss formulations. Research as ideas shapes people s assumptions about what [needs] to be done and what solutions [are] likely to achieve desired ends (Weiss 1991, p. 3). Ideas are more likely to be influential : at the early stages of policy discussion, when existing policy is in disarray and uncertainty is high (p. 4). As a group joins together, research as ideas can prove helpful to articulate a shared belief system and brainstorm different courses or aspects to focus on. Also in time when new policies or directions need to be considered, research as ideas allows for new perspectives. Research as argument can prove the most valuable to advocacy groups as they create their cases in public forums, against agencies or companies they critique, and try to garner support for their cause through forming outside alliances with other groups and from official policy makers. Weiss states research as arguments can be influential: when conflict is high [and] different sides have stakes out their positions, what each is seeking is justification to strengthen its own case. Research can supply evidence that will reassure supporters, convince the undecided, and weaken rivals positions (p. 4). This more generalized discussion begs the question of whether grassroots advocacy groups have the time or the physical (computers, internet and/or library access) and intellectual resources to take advantage of research reports to bulk up their advocacy cases. In my research of the literature, I found no knowledge utilization articles that describe how these grassroots groups can employ the research that even well-resourced and technically savvy policy makers often don t use directly. However dim the picture might look, Sabatier (1988) reminds us of the fact that in a world of scarce resources, those who do not learn are at a competitive disadvantage in realizing their goals (p. 151). To belie the capacities of grassroots groups to use research is to succumb to the idea that all knowledge will be forever gated within elite spheres and create a deficiency view of nonelites and non-specialists supposed inabilities. Further, it is to dismiss the very real access available for free that is occurring online through open access journals and scholarly articles. Improving grassroots groups research use through open access The open access movement in scholarly and research publications may equalize access to new research for the different policy players within a particular issue, including grassroots advocacy groups. Weiss (1979) describes how research used

6 Rodela / Making scholarly knowledge count to grassroots community-based advocacy groups 6 for political aims or ammunition can be appropriate if all parties to the issue have access to the evidence and when research is available to all participants in the policy process (p. 429). Open access to research about the advocacy issue or larger socioeconomic and political context helps equalize possible unequal advocacy playing fields. In his seminal work The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship, Willinsky (2008) highlights that, while it is difficult to ascertain how the public will react or use growing access, as interest and access increase, the public s engagement with research will remain a matter of personal interests, pressing public issues, and passing curiosities (p. 119). No where could this the personal and pressing, be more salient than grassroots advocacy groups. An advocacy example that both Sabatier (1988) and Willinsky (2006) draw on is the environmental movement. While Sabatier (1988) focuses on more elite, nationally-based advocacy coalitions, Willinsky s (2006) describes Fischer s (2000) research on researcher-public environmental alliances in which regular non-scientist citizens engaged with research findings (p. 119). Fischer writes: Instead of questioning the citizen s ability to participate, we must ask [...] how can we interconnect and coordinate the different but inherently interdependent discourses of citizens and experts (cited in Willinsky 2006, p. 119). Willinsky cites another example of non-expert activists influencing scientists to consider other research in the AIDS movement of the 1980s and 1990s (p. 119). These examples poignantly remind knowledge utilization experts that indeed there are exceptions to the rule of disinterest and diffused enlightenment and that the natural disconnect between researchers and policy-makers (both elites and regular citizens) might not be so inevitable after all. Open access to research probably won t solve the research gap problem What Willinsky, Fischer, and implicitly most of the knowledge utilization literature signal is not simply a flaw of access which can be remedied by simply opening up research publications to the general public. The larger question goes back to Benjamin s concern about the author s or, in our case, researcher s understanding of her/his writing and the audience for whom or, more importantly, about whom s/he writes. Fischer s quote above might present a caveat to Caplan s (1979) view that essentially we are dealing with different worldviews between researchers and policy makers (two-communities theory), but perhaps we shouldn t simply dismiss differences of values or ideologies between these groups. Caplan doesn t see that increased communication or interaction between these groups automatically leads to an increase in research use (Neilson 2001, p.

7 Rodela / Making scholarly knowledge count to grassroots community-based advocacy groups 7 4). In fact he writes, the notion that more and better contact may result in improved understanding and greater utilization may be true, but there are also conditions where familiarity might well breed contempt rather than admiration (Caplan 1979, p. 461; as cited in Neilson 2001, p. 5). Relevance and respect for research does not stem from accessibility itself, but from how the research is done, how it explains the phenomenon or issue at hand, and why it was done, i.e. the for what purpose (once it has an intended policy audience in mind) (Neilson 2001, p. 44). The disconnect Caplan describes can be a matter of what knowledge each group values and perhaps the known de-valuing of particular funds of knowledges (Moll et al. 1992) in academic circles. If individuals from a grassroots advocacy group go online to find information about their issue of interest, then find that an article that contradicts what they believe in-- e.g. it describes that in fact upgrading apartments to healthy homes standards is not economically viable or educational outcomes for non-english speaking children are improved if the students are immersed in English-only programs, not bilingual education programs--how do they sift through the articles to make their case? Why should they value research articles that contradict each other and their own beliefs? This can be especially damning for low-income groups or people of color, whose communities funds of knowledge, i.e. historically accumulated and culturally developed bodies of knowledge and skills essential for [community,] household or individual functioning and well-being (Moll et al. 1992, p. 133), are neglected or often considered deficient. As Stone et al. (2001) point out knowledge is not apolitical. Claiming knowledge about particular groups and allowing those groups access to those claims of knowledge in scholarly journals or publications can perpetuate distrust of scholarly knowledge itself. Quoting Woodward & Watt (2000), Stone et al. argue: Many groups are also aware that scientific knowledge can be utilised as a kind of power, with scientific evidence routinely used to backup, or to attack, common-sense views, government policies, and other matters of public debate (Woodward & Watt 2000, p. 34; as cited in Stone et al. 2001, p. 25). Weiss (1991) further complicates this picture by illuminating the inequities that characterize many policy debates: Some sides in the policy debate have more skill and more resources for using research. Those who do not have funds, or allies among policy researchers, or other means to acquire research will be at a disadvantage. Those who are unsophisticated in research or whose experience has led them to distrust research are hardly likely to avail themselves of research

8 Rodela / Making scholarly knowledge count to grassroots community-based advocacy groups 8 resources. Until such imbalances are rectified, research will not be a neutral counter but an aid to the privileged side (p. 11) Open access repairs access to the research itself, but it does not change the disparities in using research as a political tactic or access to the knowledge creators themselves, i.e. the policy researchers, social scientists, or physical scientists who wish for their work to make a difference. Concluding thoughts: what can be done Does this mean that open access to scholarly journals or research relevant to policy issues should be halted because the playing field isn t equal and more access only privileges Sabatier s (1988) already privileged empowered advocacy coalitions? While open access can privilege the elite groups, halting such free access only increases inequities. Open access should not be halted, but what these complexities do show is the underbelly of democratic access. Not all advocacy groups are created equal nor are their problems or issues deemed worthy (as that of more powerful national lobbies). Such a reality calls researchers to begin to think about non-academic audiences of their work, not so they simply tailor their research to benefit the less-privileged, but so policy researchers who seek for their work to have real world application can begin to think of ways to engage their work in different ways. One way that Stone et al. (2001) and Neilson (2001) report works very well in developing countries contexts and plausibly well in the grassroots community-based context are policy narratives. Stone et al. (2001) describe that policy narratives are post-modern discourses, that simplify complex development problems into specific stories. These stories are sub-sets of development discourses that encompass a wider set of values or ways of thinking (p. 12). Policy narratives incorporate how groups and individuals perceive policy change and provide an equalizing space for research discourse to reach non-specialist readers. If researchers could provide policy narratives as supplements to their research findings and include other policy alternatives, perhaps policy narratives could provide a stepping stone for grassroots advocacy groups to intellectually access the content of their research Also, more participatory models of research themselves might lead to greater use of research results from the participants of the study and allied grassroots groups. Researchers who seek to make an impact on grassroots advocacy groups have to make their work legitimate to these groups in the same way they do for their peerreviewing colleagues in academia. Certainly there is no quick answer to the

9 Rodela / Making scholarly knowledge count to grassroots community-based advocacy groups 9 disconnect between research and practice or policy, but hopefully through thoughtful effort on the part of the research community and growing interest from the advocacy community, both groups can forge a way to better understanding and mutual benefit. Appendix 1 Weiss (1979) Seven Models of Knowledge Utilization Name of Model knowledge utilization problem-solving model interactive model political model tactical model enlightenment model research as societal intellectual enterprise Description research influences policy through a linear and direct sequence: basic research --> applied research --> development [of innovation, project, policy] --> application (p. 427) a problem in society drives research through either a perceived need that preexisting research can address or research is commissioned to answer a particular policy problem (p ) policy is arrived at from myriad of different sources and use of research is only one part of a complicated process that also uses experience, political insights, pressure, social technologies and judgment (p. 429) research becomes ammunition for the side that finds its conclusion congenial and supportive (p. 429) research is used as a tactic to delay action/response to demands or use research to deflect responsibility for unpopular decisions or policy outcomes (p. 429) concepts and theoretical perspectives diffuse into minds of policy makers informing decisions in an indirect manner (p. 429) research is part of the interconnected intellectual enterprise of society (p. 430).

10 Rodela / Making scholarly knowledge count to grassroots community-based advocacy groups 10 References Benjamin, W. (2008, 1930) A Critique of the Publishing Industry. Trans. Rodney Livingstone. In The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility and Other Writings on Media, Eds. M.W. Jennings, B. Doherty, T.Y. Levin. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Moll, L.C. et al. (1992, Spring). Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory into Practice, 31(2): Neilson, S. (2001) Knowledge Utilization and Public Policy Processes: A Literature Review. IDRC-Supported Research and Its Influence on Public Policy, Evaluation Unit, International Development Research Centre, Canada, December Sabatier, P.A. (1988) An advocacy coalition framework of policy change and the role of policy-oriented learning therein. Policy Sciences, 21: Stone, D., Maxwell, S., & Keating, M. (2001) Bridging Research and Policy. Background paper presented for An International Workshop Funded by the UK Department for International Development, Radcliffe House, Warwick University, July 16-17, Weiss C.H. (1977) Research for Policy s Sake: The Enlightenment Function of Social Research. Policy Analysis, 3 (Fall): Weiss, C.H. (1979) The Many Meanings of Research Utilization. Public Administration Review, 39(5): Weiss, C.H. (1991) Policy Research as Advocacy: Pro and Con. Knowledge and Policy: The International Journal of Knowledge Transfer, 4(1): Willinsky, J. (2006) The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.