Policy Research In Educational Settings

The book offers guidance on the theoretical and methodological resources available to practitioners and others with an interest in doing research on policy and discusses some of the main issues and problems in doing policy research on education. It offers examples of research on policy at different system levels, pursuing themes such as globalization, changing governance of education, selection, choice and exclusion, managerialism and the feminisation of educational management.

This open access book explores the nexus between knowledge and space with a particular emphasis on the role of educational settings that are, both, shaping and being reshaped by socio-economic and political processes. It gives insight into the complex interplay of educational inequalities and practices of educational governance in the neighborhood and at larger geographical scales. The book adopts quantitative and qualitative methodologies and explores a wide range of theoretical perspectives by drawing upon empirical cases and examples from France, Germany, Italy, the UK and North America, and presents and reflects ongoing research of international scholars from various disciplinary backgrounds such as education, human geography, public policy, sociology, and urban and regional planning. As such, it provides an interesting read for scholars, students and professionals in the broader field of social, cultural and educational studies, as well as policy makers and practitioners in the fields of education, pedagogy, social work, and urban and regional planning.

This volume aims to help prospective educational researchers plan their research in schools more carefully. It focuses on such issues as: access and credibility in the school; traditional issues of designing research; questions that emerge as the design is imposed on the school culture and setting particularly with regard to school staff and student assessment; the length of interventions and whether or not to schedule follow-up studies; and how to interpret and communicate findings to schools and policy makers. Using personal experiences from their field research to illustrate key concepts, the authors have also included a research project to clarify the practical issues of school research.

Readers are taken through the various stages in conducting case study research, including a helpful account of data collection and data analysis methods. Structured, narrative and descriptive approaches to writing case study reports are also discussed.

Education is a hot topic. From the stage of presidential debates to tonight's dinner table, it is an issue that most Americans are deeply concerned about. While there are many strategies for improving the educational process, we need a way to find out what works and what doesn't work as well. Educational assessment seeks to determine just how well students are learning and is an integral part of our quest for improved education. The nation is pinning greater expectations on educational assessment than ever before. We look to these assessment tools when documenting whether students and institutions are truly meeting education goals. But we must stop and ask a crucial question: What kind of assessment is most effective? At a time when traditional testing is subject to increasing criticism, research suggests that new, exciting approaches to assessment may be on the horizon. Advances in the sciences of how people learn and how to measure such learning offer the hope of developing new kinds of assessments-assessments that help students succeed in school by making as clear as possible the nature of their accomplishments and the progress of their learning. Knowing What Students Know essentially explains how expanding knowledge in the scientific fields of human learning and educational measurement can form the foundations of an improved approach to assessment. These advances suggest ways that the targets of assessment-what students know and how well they know it-as well as the methods used to make inferences about student learning can be made more valid and instructionally useful. Principles for designing and using these new kinds of assessments are presented, and examples are used to illustrate the principles. Implications for policy, practice, and research are also explored. With the promise of a productive research-based approach to assessment of student learning, Knowing What Students Know will be important to education administrators, assessment designers, teachers and teacher educators, and education advocates.

An exchange on education ideas has shaped the transatlantic discourse in education for a long time. Over the past two decades education science has increasingly become networked internationally. Since 2015, the Office for International Cooperation in Education at DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education has organized international sessions on education research at the Annual Meetings of the American Educational Research Association, thus providing a floor for transatlantic exchange on current research topics. The volume gives an overview of the transatlantic activities in education research with regard to these sessions representing a collection of topics ranging from school development over the use of large scale assessment and digital data in education to questions related to migration and public education or the economization of education. At the same time the volume offers a reflection on the assets and obstacles of international exchange.

* What is historical research in education? * How can researchers get started in this area? * Why does this field offer a common project for historians, educationists, and researchers across the social sciences? This book explores how to set about historical research in education. The first general guide of its kind for fifty years, the book locates this field in relation to changes in educational research, historical research, and a wide range of social sciences. It offers a theoretical guide to the rationales and problems of the field as well as to current opportunities for research. It also gives practical advice for getting started and for suitable research methods in different kinds of projects, and in doing so draws critically on extensive international literature. It includes detailed case studies on the following topics in historical research: Curriculum and Classrooms, Foucauldian Interpretations, the 'Alternative Road', Literacy in the Nineteenth Century, and the University History Curriculum.

The processes and practices of the dissemination of research findings are exceptionally neglected fields in the research methods literature. Yet disseminating and using our findings are significant reasons why we undertake research. Organised in three parts, this text provides an accessible, critically informed and up-to-date overview of key aspects of dissemination.

In this volume, political insider Christopher Cross updates his critically acclaimed bestseller with new chapters and important new insights into future education policy. Cross draws on his own experience in Washington, along with research and interviews, to present a highly readable history of federal education policy, from WWII to the Obama administration. The book highlights the key players who helped shape federal policy because, as Cross writes in his introduction, “policy development is woven of personalities, events, and timing.” This fascinating chronicle demonstrates, among other things, how federal policy has been a constant influence on what states and local districts do, especially with respect to students most at-risk. “As we enter the next chapter in the education policy debate, it is important to understand how we have arrived at the policies in place today and to consider the lessons learned. As Political Education so clearly documents, we need to engage in a dialogue that is about our expectations and our commitment to education as a national priority.” —From the Foreword by Governor Brian Sandoval, 2013–2015 chair, Education Commission of the States, and Jeremy Anderson, president, Education Commission of the States “[This book] comes at a crucial time. Now that some states are withdrawing from Common Core Standards because policymakers are characterizing a multi-state initiative as federal intrusion, that Courts are viewed as the refuge for parents fighting teacher tenure, and inequities within education and more generally are sharper than ever, we need Cross’ clear analysis of our complicated system more than ever.” —Susan Fuhrman, president, Teachers College, Columbia University “An incisive update of this comprehensive analysis of the evolving historic and future federal role. Cross provides the politics, personalities, and underlying ethos that shape trends and eras of federal policymaking.” —Mike Kirst, president, California State Board of Education, and professor emeritus, Stanford University Critical Acclaim for Political Education— “Concise but illuminating...chock-full of historical nuggets.” —Education Week “The book is clearly written, informative, and generally well-balanced.” —Harvard Educational Review “Rarely does one find a book on educational policy as accessible and as fact-filled as this volume by Christopher Cross.... It will help educators of all stripes to better understand the how, why, and who of federal education policy.” —Book Review Digest

This new edition brings original, best-selling text right up-to-date for new researchers and includes a new chapter on computer software for data handling.