There is a large and long-standing gap in education outcomes between pupils from economically disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers in England (EEF, 2018; Hutchinson et al., 2020). Although there is some evidence of improvement since 2011, the gap has widened recently, largely as a result of school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic…

This paper proposes a new perspective for higher education policy research. It introduces the concept of "policy object" to designate the discrete preoccupation(s) of a policy text (e.g. a new governance regime, a quality system, or new degrees) and suggests that actor conceptualisations of the policy object intersect with other elements…

Although International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement-pioneered international large-scale assessment (ILSA) of education is now a well-established science, non-practitioners and many users often substantially misunderstand how large-scale assessments are conducted, what questions and challenges they are designed to…

Educational policy debates are no longer occurring exclusively in academic or governmental settings. Intermediary actors are promoting research using a variety of traditional and non-traditional media to advance and oppose policy agendas. Given the current policy arena, it is useful to re-examine the research underlying current reforms, and to…

As education becomes increasingly global, the processes and politics of transfer have become a central focus of research. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of contemporary theoretical and analytical work aimed at exploring international educational reform and reveals the myriad ways that globalization is now fundamentally altering our…

Diana Wilkinson, Chief Social Researcher with the Scottish Government, assisted National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) to facilitate a forum to discuss the development of national research priorities for the vocational education and training sector. This paper summarises Diana Wilkinson's impression of the forum and uses two…

The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), an independent cooperative of research centers from about 45 countries, performs the type of research that provides data which can be used by policymakers as a basis for decision making about educational improvements. This paper describes: (1) IEA's mission and…

Guidelines are offered in this second information memorandum for an in progress study on how projections for the future might affect the quality of life in the United States. Examining other future oriented studies, articles, and research documents, six projections are reviewed which indicate that the U. S. will be crowded, urbanized, mobile,…

The Board on International Comparative Studies in Education (BICSE) was established in 1988. Under its initial mandate, the board monitored U.S. participation in large-scale international comparative studies. The Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) has been the focus of much of BICSE's agenda in the 1990s. The TIMSS Videotape…

Most of the articles in this book evolved from papers presented during the Fourth Quadrennial International Intervisitation Program in Educational Administration held in Canada in 1978. Its purposes were to inform educational leaders from around the world about educational administration, organization, and policy in Canada and to provide a forum…

Primarily concerned with the past development of the politics of education, this paper also looks at likely future directions and progress. First, it seeks to review briefly the growing body of research carried out from 1973 until 1980. Second, it evaluates the progress made since the beginning of 1973 in the development of the politics of…

Part 1 of a two-part series, this volume presents three separate policy studies done using a contextual research, development, and innovation (RD & I) analysis framework developed by the authors. The studies are intended to demonstrate the requirements and possibilities for policy analysis in the RD & I arena and the utility of the…

Since the 1990s, many OECD countries have expanded their early childhood services and developed more coherent and coordinated policies. Through this process, countries have adopted very different approaches to governing their early childhood systems. Drawing from findings of a 12-country comparative study, this article explores cross-national…

Because of states' growing roles in education, the study of variation in state educational policies contributes to a better understanding of policy processes and to the prediction of possible policy outcomes. Comparing state educational policies involves choosing variables and analytical designs and defining cases, concepts, and measurement.…

The first part of this publication contains detailed presentations on the subject of planning in education for Norway, The Netherlands, and the United States; a summary of the educational planning program for 18 OECD countries; a commentary on the substitution of teacher input by "other resources" input; and a description of the Educational Policy…