ABSTRACT
Our intention here is to provide an overview of major debates and conceptual analyses in the field of educational policy. This is not a straightforward task. First, there is no consensus about what the term policy means for educational researchers even within a single country. Second, but just as important, there is also no clear agreement about what constitutes educational research, with a continuum of views ranging from the claim that education is a discipline in its own right to the contention that research carried out in educational settings draws on a range of disciplines, mostly located within the social sciences (Deem, 1996a). Since no commonality in perspective or disciplinary background can be assumed, even for researchers working on similar concerns within the same or similar settings, it would indeed be surprising if there were significant agreement about what constitutes educational policy.
