ABSTRACT
In this chapter, a number of economic and organizational approaches for studying policy in education are introduced. Economic perspectives have dominated the analysis of social policy problems (Jenkins-Smith, 1990), but have been less frequently applied to policy problems in education (Boyd, 1992), except within the subfield of educational finance (Benson, 1988). Economic approaches to policy focus on utilitarianism (i.e., the greatest good for the greatest number), self-interest and rational decision making (i.e., people acting in ways that maximize their own interests), resource allocation, efficiency, and maximized production. The impact of various resources on productivity have often been modeled as an economic production function, or a set of economic inputs that lead to the maximization of an output.
