Despite a political climate demanding evidence-informed decision making in education both within individual countries and at the international level, empirically grounded European research in this field is scarce. This paper reports on a European Commission-funded study that sought to identify and analyze different initiatives across Europe aimed…

The focus of this paper is on the research/policy linkage, within the complex educational administrative structure and pluralistic informal power structure which characterize Thai research. Thailand has experienced some success in building analytical educational research capacity and ensuring its utilization. Lessons to be learned from this…

Three forms of research activity are defined: free, policy-oriented, and development. In the United Kingdom, structures for each have developed rapidly in the past 20 years. Present weaknesses are lack of collaboration between research institutions and the small scale of financial support. (Author/SJL)

This School Research Newsletter presents the research program of the National Swedish Board of Education (NBE), as adopted by the NBE Board of Directors in June 1982. The successive decisions on decentralization taken in the educational sector since 1976 have led also to a decision to alter the thrust of the research and development work within at…

Focusing on the effects that research on the Taiwan family planning program has had on social change, both in the intergration of research findings into national action programs and in the dissemination of these ideas to other Asian countries, this report discusses five individual case studies and presents a summary and analysis of the research…

The author explains the role and financing of educational research and development (R&D) in Sweden, as it operates under the central education authority, the National Board of Education. She discusses a government report on R&D effects and considers the potential impact on research of current trends toward decentralization in education.…

Australia's Curriculum Development Centre (CDC) functions within the Federal Ministry of Education to undertake and support curriculum research and development tasks and to develop and disseminate teaching and learning materials. This is accomplished through consultation and cooperation with education authorities at all levels throughout the…

This report explores, in particular, the educational R&D systems in two countries, England and New Zealand, both members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). OECD review teams have been assessing the effectiveness of the educational R&D systems in these two countries in developing and applying usable…

Using as an example the development of the comprehensive school concept in the Netherlands, this paper explores the strategy for educational innovation in a centralized national educational system, the role of educational research and evaluation in educational innovation, the impact of research on policy-making, and the strengths and weaknesses of…

The chief educational information unit in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the focus for dissemination of information to various agencies is the Department of Educational Information of the Scientific Research Institute of General Sciences, Academy of Pedagogical Sciences (APS). The department services the whole of the USSR by…

This theme issue is devoted to discussions of early childhood policy issues. "Creating a Shared Vision: How Policy Affects Early Childhood Care and Development" (Judith L. Evans) defines policy, discusses the motivation for changing or creating national policy and the process for changing such policies, and provides a sample design for…

Australia's new national vocational education and training (VET) research and evaluation (R&E) strategy is underpinned by the goal of improving the VET systems and must accommodate the needs of all the different stakeholders in the VET sector. It focuses on research applied in nature, consolidating and advancing knowledge, and on evaluation…

Nineteen articles on the status of the relationship among educational research, policy, and practice around the world are collected in the 1985 edition of the "World Yearbook of Education." Contributors address the development of national policies on educational research in countries in North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and…

Papers designed to help build multidisciplinary training networks for rural development are collected in this document, an outgrowth of a regional training workshop attended by participants from Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Thailand, and India. The six papers deal with the objectives of the workshop which were to:…

Current research into youth transitions in Australia documents an increasingly individualized process in which significant numbers of youths are deemed at risk of not making a successful transition from school to work. Many theorists are questioning the applicability of the linear model of transition to current conditions. Other theorists are…