Education policy is often justified by reference to research. But can research be impartial in this field?
Democratic legitimacy and trust in public institutions depend on decisions being based on a sound evidence base. This creates a need for experts who can shed light on problems and propose solutions in an impartial manner. At the same time, impartiality is a challenging ideal, because research-based advice necessarily involves value judgments, and because researchers are often closely connected to political processes.
IMPART aims to develop an empirical and normative understanding of impartial expertise, using the field of education as a case study. The project examines how the debate about the relationship between expertise and politics has developed over the past three decades, and what this can teach us about the normative conditions for impartial expertise. The field of education is particularly interesting because it is highly politicised and characterised by disagreement over the evidence base. In this context, research can easily be perceived as ideological, while it remains unclear what impartiality requires.
The project analyses how considerations and values have changed over time. Based on this analysis, we will develop a normative framework for mechanisms that can strengthen trust in expertise and signal professional independence when confronted with political expectations. The framework will be applicable to other fields and relevant to the current debate on trust in expertise.
