In Education Policy Research, Helen M. Gunter, David Hall and Colin Mills bring together contributions from a range of researchers, academics and practitioners. Each chapter draws on critical theoretical perspectives and showcases innovative research projects within educational settings to understand the current changes in schools, schooling and education, to explore critical questions. The varied accounts demonstrate the importance of partnerships between schools and higher education, and of putting educational research into context, specifically charting the ways in which schools and schooling have been reformed through government interventions. Education Policy Research presents new research findings on the realities of how educational practice can be understood and explained, so enabling researchers to take a reflexive stance towards their own work. The editors and contributors take seriously the need to rethink their data and consider the contribution of research dispositions and practices to ongoing change and development. At the same time, the chapters give recognition to what research and researchers can and cannot do, contributing to the ongoing debates about the value of - and the urgent ongoing need for - social science research. This book provides a lens on the harsh realities of English education and education policy. Many of the contributors are emerging, early career researchers. They provide fresh insights into the ways in which activist scholarship can be practised at a time when optimistic and critical intellectual research are sorely needed.