Informed Dialogue

The authors of this book explain how decisions about education and educational policymaking can be informed by research-based knowledge. They develop a framework to organize three approaches, which are: policy dialogue as persuasion, policy dialogue as negotiation, and policy dialogue as participation and organizational learning. The book includes a nine-stage model for how best to employ research to influence this type of learning using a participatory approach. A current review of literature in research utilization in education is also discussed.

FERNANDO REIMERS is a Policy Fellow (Education Specialist) at the Harvard Institute for International Development. On leave from Harvard he is currently serving as senior education specialist at the World Bank. He is coauthor (with D. Warwick) of Hope or Despair: Learning in Pakistan's Primary Schools (Praeger, 1995) and author of other books and articles on education and development. He has advised governments, universities and international agencies in 10 countries in Latin America, as well as in Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan.

NOEL McGINN is Professor of Education in the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University and Fellow (emeritus) at the Harvard Institute for International Development. He is coauthor (with R. G. King, R. Guerra, and D. Kline) of The Provincial Universities of Mexico (Praeger, 1979) and editor of Crossing Lines: Research and Policy Networks for Developing Country Educators (Praeger, 1996). He has published many other books and articles on education and development. He has advised governments, universities, and research centers and international agencies in 24 countries in all continents on issues of education policy. He was the principal investigator of Project BRIDGES, a project funded by the United States Agency for International Development to research the determinants of student achievement in developing countries.