Table Of ContentINFORMED
DIALOGUE
INFORMED
DIALOGUE
Using Research to
Shape Education Policy
Around the World
Fernando Reimers and Noel McGinn
Westport, Connecticut
London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Reimers, Fernando.
Informed dialogue : using research to shape education policy
around the world / Fernando Reimers and Noel McGinn.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–275–95442–0 (alk. paper). — ISBN 0–275–95443–9 (pbk. :
alk. paper)
1. Education and state. 2. Education—Research. 3. Education and
state—Case studies. 4. Education—Research—Case studies.
I. McGinn, Noel F., 1934– . II. Title.
LC71.R45 1997
379'.07'2—dc21 96–50323
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright ©1997 by Fernando Reimers and Noel McGinn
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96–50323
ISBN:0–275–95442–0
0–275–95443–9 (pbk.)
First published in 1997
Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the
Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Mary Lou McGinn
and Eleonora Villegas-Reimers,
Who have taught us much
about the power of dialogue
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction
PART I Concepts and Issues
1 Research Utilization: Why It Is Important,
Why It Is an Issue, Why It Is Difficult 3
2 What Do We Mean by Informed Policy Making? 29
3 Why Education Policies Are So Difficult to Inform 43
PART II Approaches to Informing Policy for Education
4 Utilization as Using Precooked Conclusions 71
5 Utilization Stimulated by Providing Decision
Makers with Data 83
6 Informing Policy by Constructing Knowledge 107
PART III Case Studies of Use of Information in Policy Making
7 The Etosha Conference in Namibia 127
8 Conducting an Education Sector Assessment in Egypt 131
9 Conducting an Education Policy Survey in Honduras 145
10 Conducting an Education Policy Survey in Colombia 153
11 Conducting a Participatory Sector Assessment
in El Salvador 159
12 Policy Dialogue as Organizational Learning in Paraguay 167
viii Contents
PART IV Fitting It All Together
13 A Model to Inform Policy with
Research-Based Knowledge 177
References 191
Index 201
Acknowledgments
This book is the result of our reflections about our own practice as
education researchers advising governments around the world. Nu-
merous colleagues and friends have stimulated these reflections. The
direct and indirect influences in our thinking about how research can
best inform policy dialogue are too many to mention here, and there
is no doubt that some influences have passed unperceived by us.
We beg forgiveness of those colleagues we should have mentioned
but have unintentionally overlooked. We have listed here colleagues
and associates of recent years, during which time our understand-
ing of the ideas expressed in this book came into focus.
We owe our biggest debt to all the colleagues and associates of
the Basic Research and Implementation in Developing Education
Systems (BRIDGES) project. This project, funded by the United
States Agency for International Development (USAID), sponsored
research activities to improve education around the world. Some of
these are the core of the experience upon which the reflections con-
tained in this book are based. We appreciate the support and colle-
giality of our colleagues in USAID during those years, particularly
Frank Method, Jim Hoxeng, Gary Theisen, and Richard Pelczar. In
the USAID field offices, we were privileged to know the late Frank
Fairchild, Nadine Dutcher, and our friends, Henry Reynolds and
Cynthia Rohl, who shared our interest in the practical consequences
of research and in finding ways to improve the policy relevance of
research and analysis. Our government counterparts and the many
collaborators in the countries where we worked were also sources
of inspiration for the ideas contained in this book. We want to espe-
x Acknowledgments
cially recognize Syed Fazl-Qadir and Anwar Hussain of Pakistan,
Kapoor Ahlawat of Jordan, Sagrario Lopez and Maria del Carmen
Soto of Honduras, Minister of Education Cecilia de Cano of El Sal-
vador, Minister of Education Nicanor Duarte of Paraguay, Jose Luis
Guzman and Hector Lopez of El Salvador, and Vicente Sarubbi and
Jesus Montero of Paraguay, for their trust and for the challenges we
embarked upon together.
Closer to our institutional home we are in debt to all the institu-
tional and individual associates of the BRIDGES project, too many to
mention. We recognize our colleagues at the Harvard Institute for In-
ternational Development (HIID) with whom we spent many years work-
ing together to try to help governments define better education policies.
Their friendship and colleagueship created the learning environment
that enabled us to explore new ideas and to reflect about our practice.
We thank the following friends: the late Russell Davis, Donald Warwick,
Thomas Cassidy, Ernesto Cuadra, Abby Riddell, Shirley Burchfield,
William Cummings, and Thomas Welsh. Armando Loera and Ernesto
Schiefelbein, with whom we worked closely as they consulted for
the project, were also stimulating companions in some of the ad-
ventures narrated and analyzed in this book.
Our good friend and colleague Carol Weiss, at the Harvard Graduate
School of Education, inspired us with her pioneering scholarship in
the sociology of knowledge utilization. Our conversations with Carol
helped us refine our own thinking about the subjects developed in this
book. Our students at the Harvard Graduate School of Education also
encouraged us to clarify ideas and to improve their presentation. Magda-
lena Rivarola, Claudia Uribe, and Emiliana Vegas read and commented
on sections of this book at different times over the past two years.
We are also grateful to our colleague at HIID, Richard Mallon,
who provided careful feedback to a draft of the book and to our
director, Dwight Perkins, for his broad understanding of develop-
ment and for the support and respect we received from him that
created an environment of academic freedom to investigate the ques-
tions we deemed important.
We are also most appreciative of the good works of John Harney,
Book Consultants of Boston; James Sabin, Executive Vice President
of Greenwood; and of the efforts of Penny Sippel and John Beck,
who worked on the production of the book.
Finally, this book owes much of its existence to the support and
encouragement of our wives. That we could complete this book at a
time of several transitions in our lives is a credit to our wives’ abil-
ity to take on more than their share to contribute to our sustenance.
For this reason and because they have helped us learn about dia-
logue, a core theme of this text, we have dedicated the book to them.
