ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a seminal decision each knowledge broker faces, whether to be an educator or an advocate. To decide, we need better definitions of key terms, more experiential evidence, distinct strategies for individuals and institutions, and a greater appreciation of context. Advocates largely consider themselves combatants in a war of ideas and values. Educators, on the other hand, disseminate knowledge and evidence per se, not their own values or predetermined solutions. They prefer enlightened self-interest. Confounding the issue are institutions and their representatives, who claim to be independent and nonpartisan when they are not. Some argue that academics have a normative obligation to use their position to advance social justice, whereas some academics have been able to achieve social justice using the dispassionate education approach. The authors present a number of guiding questions to help individuals decide which approach is most optimal: 1. Does the optimal approach depend on my professional expertise and personal demeanor? 2. Does the optimal approach depend on what identity I desire in the policy world? 3. Does my choice depend on my personal beliefs about objectivity and neutrality? 4. Does the optimal approach depend on my professional position and my organization’s mission? 5. Does the optimal approach depend on policymakers’ preferences in the target policy setting? 6. Can I choose advocacy in one setting and education in another? 7. Does the optimal approach depend on what purpose my involvement is intended to serve in the policy culture? The chapter ends with a discussion of the choices of research organizations and professional societies about optimal approaches to policy outreach.
