While public consultation is a signature process of democratic policy formulation, many governments manoeuvre to refract citizen's opinions or conduct it perfunctorily. Using the case of a medium of instruction policy in Hong Kong, this article unveils the strategies that the state and citizens employ to put their opinion through to the final…

Using a constructivist approach to teacher education, the present study compared the learning outcomes of students in two child development courses infused with instruction in how early education and childcare policy is formed, implemented, and applied. The intervention course, however, included a community-based, semester-long early education and…

Using the policy narrative framework, this article examines the pathways through which the development of policies (related to rural/small towns young NEETs in various EU countries) are based on evidence. To do this, we consider the Youth Guarantee (YG), an EU program (2014-2020) developed in several member countries with the aim of…

"Shifting Sands: Unsound Science and Unsafe Regulation" examines how irreproducible science affects select areas of government policy and regulation governed by different federal agencies. This first report on "PM[subscript 2.5] Regulation" focuses on irreproducible research in the field of environmental epidemiology, which…

Europe's knowledge economies need high-level skills, the capacity to innovate and to support democratic societies. In this perspective, the main objective of this study is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the relevance of higher education and how this is promoted in various countries in Europe and beyond. The evidence, conclusions and…

Europe's knowledge economies need high-level skills, the capacity to innovate and to support democratic societies. In this perspective, the main objective of this study is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the relevance of higher education and how this is promoted in various countries in Europe and beyond. The evidence, conclusions and…

This issue brief is one in a series examining timely topics that are relevant to Black families and children in the United States. The series identifies key information and opportunities for consideration by policymakers, researchers, practitioners, philanthropists, and others interested in supporting the progress of Black families and…

National governments use evidence selectively to argue that a successful policy intervention in one local area should be emulated in others ("evidence-based best practice"). However, the value of such evidence is always limited because there is: disagreement on the best way to gather evidence of policy success, uncertainty regarding the…

Background: Statements or commitments making use of numbers have an important place in government policy. They appear at all stages of the policy process: campaigning, formulation, monitoring and evaluation. Many types of sources are involved including research studies, national survey information, routine operational data collections and special…

The "Guidelines for the Transitional Education Plan Preparation" are the result of an extensive consultation process and the product of fruitful guidance and contributions from key partners active in the field of education in emergencies and protracted crises. The new global education agenda 2030 places strong emphasis on countries…

Background: The UK, like most countries across Europe and other advanced economies, has experienced an alarming rise in the levels of young people (aged between 16 and 24 years) who are detached from both the labour market and the education and training system. In the UK, there are nearly a million 16-24-year-olds who are recorded as being not in…

It is hardly debatable that implementation is the bane of public policies and programmes in Nigeria. A well formulated policy or programme is useless if not properly implemented as its stated objectives will not be realized. The Universal Basic Education (UBE) programme was introduced in Nigeria in September 1999 by the Obasanjo's administration.…

Debates over the use of college rankings are often framed in binaries: ardent advocates versus outright rejectionists, rankers versus rankees. But the American higher education landscape is complex, and so too should be discussions of rankings. Moreover, the policymaking process is simultaneously intricate and predictable--information is processed…

This paper suggests that while the social sciences have closely allied themselves with administrative and political decision makers, there is a role for them as well in working with the courts. (Author/AM)

This article reports the results of policy research survey examining U.S. government strategies to obtain data on counts of children who are deaf-blind and the issues related to this effort and its outcomes. Problems frequently cited were varying definitions of deaf-blindness among states and lack of accurate data on etiology and severity. (JDD)