ABSTRACT
In recent years there has been a burgeoning of educational research in such specifi c fi elds as educational leadership, educational management, educational administration, curriculum studies, and teaching and learning studies. Concurrently, there has been an increasing recognition that these areas do not exist in a vacuum. Rather, they are located within a context which is shaped by historical and cultural conditions. Major lenses for studying this context have been provided by a number of research approaches. Prominent amongst these are those approaches centred on policy-analysis frameworks. The outcome has been a growth in educational policy studies. Furthermore, regardless of the underlying defi nition of policy and the nature of the frameworks utilised, these policy analysis studies are all concept-driven, the central concept being that of ‘policy’ itself.
