ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that educational research is carried out in a social and political context. Both the researchers and the consumers are part of that context. The research showed that the units had no effect on suspension rates, and none on rates of referral to special schools. The chapter presents the arguments: that educational research is concerned primarily with policy implementation rather than with policy development; that research can realistically try to influence the implementation of policy only if researchers are sensitive to the social and political context in which policy develops. It draws on experience in three policy-oriented research programmes: first was carried out in Sheffield in 1978-9; second was funded by the New Zealand Education Department from 1981-1; and third also took place in New Zealand in 1981-2. Efforts to put the recommendations into practice, though, are inevitably limited by constraints on policy-makers themselves.
