Cui Bono?: Investigating benefits and interests in educational research [editorial]

Abstract

As is often the case, the genesis for this edited collection of journal articles was serendipitous. The second editor had despatched copies of some recent publications to international contacts with a shared involvement in researching the education of occupational Travellers (see Moriarty & Hallinan and Anteliz, Danaher & Danaher, this volume). Dr Martin Levinson acknowledged receipt of the publications in an electronic mail message (personal communication, 5 March 2001), and in so doing raised the following point: ... I must confess that some time before the completion of my own research project I was beginning to distance myself from many of the other researchers in the field. That is not to say that I do not respect their contribution ... . My reservations grew, nevertheless, as I became more deeply involved with Travellers themselves. The feeling tended to be that they were excluded from the dialectic concerning their own lives. There was a feeling that for all the papers and conferences, little had been achieved here [in England] to improve the situation with regard to site provision and access to health and education. Finally, despite all the meetings I had attended, it struck me that the convictions of certain academics as to what was best for the travelling community were not necessarily shared by the group in question.