World Yearbook of Education 2006

This volume considers the ways in which educational research is being shaped by policy across the globe. Policy effects on research are increasingly influential, as policies in and beyond education drive the formation of a knowledge-based economy by supporting increased international competitiveness through more effective, evidence-based interventions in schooling, education and training systems.

What consequences does this increased steering have for research in education? How do transnational agencies make their influence felt on educational research? How do national systems and traditions of educational research - and relations with policy - respond to these new pressures? What effects does it have on the quality of research and on the freedom of researchers to pursue their own agendas?

The 2006 volume of the World Yearbook of Education explores these issues, focusing on three key themes:

• globalising policy and research in education
• steering education research in national contexts
• global-local politics of education research.

The 2006 volume has a truly global reach, incorporating transnational policy perspectives from the OECD and the European Commission, alongside national cases from across the world in contrasting contexts that include North and South America, Canada, France, Singapore, China, Russia and New Zealand. The range of contributions reflect how pervasive these developments are, how much is new in this situation and to what extent evidence-based policy pressures on research in education build on past relationships between education and policy.

This book considers the impact of the steering processes on the work and identities of individual researchers and considers how research can be organised to play a more active role in the politics of the knowledge economy and learning society.

Jenny Ozga is Professor of Educational Research and Director of the Centre for Educational Sociology (CES) at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Her research interests include education policy, teachers work and teacher professionalism, and the transfer of research knowledge into policy.

Terri Seddon is Professor of Education at Monash University, Australia and Director of the Centre for Work and Learning Studies. She is currently researching the educational impact of changes in work and society, especially the drive to a knowledge economy and learning society.

Thomas S. Popkewitz is Professor of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. His studies are concerned with the knowledge or systems of reason that govern educational policy and research in teaching, teacher education, and curriculum.