ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we explore multiple ways educational researchers can make their work more accessible to policymakers, the public, and those most affected by educational decisions such as teachers, parents, students, and community members. We define as public scholars those researchers who seek to challenge misconceptions of educational policy issues in news media reports and public arenas. These media dialogues they seek to inform are conceptualised as embedded with inequitable power relations that can often operate invisibly and limit participation. Specifically, the research presented in this chapter examines the writings, presentations, and biographies of four high-profile US education scholars collected through internet searches over the past five years. Media content analysis is used to examine how these public scholars use multiple venues such as social media, blogs, letters to the editor, critiques of research, published work, newspaper and magazine articles, and expert testimony/media interviews to inform educational dialogues concerning such topics as social inequity, standardised testing, and globalisation.
