ABSTRACT
Education policy and politics together constitute a vast field of research and intellectual endeavour, so that any attempt to produce a ‘representative’ selection is bound to be limited by the space available, and by the always imperfect knowledge of the editors. Furthermore, the education policy/politics relationship works in different ways within different intellectual and national traditions. In the US, for instance, a particular version of education politics has been closely aligned with the field of educational administration, which has morphed into the field of educational management and leadership. In the UK context, education politics is more closely aligned with sociology of education broadly conceived. Yet even here there is complexity. The education polices of the Thatcher regime saw sociologists of education in England focus more on education policy in response to political attacks on the intellectual project of the sociology of education and the enhanced significance of policy as the steering mechanism within restructured educational systems. This trend has not developed in quite the same way in other parts of the UK, where educational politics may be more significant in the context of political devolution.
