Devolution, diversity, and data: research evidence informing reading and writing policy and practice in Wales

Abstract Wales provides a distinctive case study of evidence-informed literacy policy because its devolved education system has enabled the development of a bilingual literacy policy that has followed a different trajectory from those of other UK nations. Drawing on a documentary analysis of national literacy policy since devolution (1999), this paper examines how research evidence has informed successive phases of literacy reform and considers what the Welsh experience contributes to wider international debates concerning evidence-informed policymaking. The analysis demonstrates that Welsh literacy policy has evolved from an initial emphasis on educational standards and accountability, through curriculum reform and professional agency, towards increasing engagement with evidence from the Science of Reading. Rather than interpreting these developments as a choice between competing research traditions, we argue that literacy policy encompasses multiple policy questions requiring different, though complementary, forms of evidence. Evidence from the Science of Reading provides the strongest available empirical foundation for decisions concerning reading instruction, whilst evidence relating to bilingualism, curriculum design, professional learning and implementation informs how those instructional principles are interpreted and enacted within Wales’ distinctive educational context. The Welsh case suggests that the central challenge for evidence-informed literacy policy is to establish a coherent framework in which the strongest available evidence provides the foundation for instructional decisions, whilst complementary evidence informs their contextualisation and implementation.