Education Policymaking Process Research Articles

Max Weber and the Complexity of Parliamentary Democracy: Applying Formal and Substantive Rationality to the English and Welsh Education Policy-making Process

This article illustrates the importance of Max Weber's attitude to both bureaucratic and political func tions. Formal and substantive rational concepts are applied to distinguish the actions of education civil servants and politicians in relation to education policy-making. Evidence is taken from English and Welsh Educational and Public Administration Parliamentary Select Committees of the 1970s and the present day. We gain from Weber's ideas a relevant framework to critique the relationship and signifi cantly the historical and contemporary roles of education civil servants and politicians. The article demonstrates that a change has occurred with more substantive inputs visible within both the education relationship and general policy making processes. The article further argues that Parliamen tary Select Committees are crucial in questioning both for mal and substantive influences within parliamentary democ racy.

Correlates of Educational Policy Priorities in Developing Nations

THIS RESEARCH has two primary objectives: first, the identification of socio-economic factors and political system variables associated with variation in educational policy outputs among developing nations. Second, there is an effort to determine which of these input factors has more significant influence on two educational policy dimensions: distributive spending (division of educational funds between mass educational expansion and preparation of elite manpower for economic growth) and non-distributive spending (per capita levels of educational expenditure).1 The policy indicator central to this study, the allocation of educational benefits between elite and mass segments of the population, is conceptualized as a distributive output because it assesses within system division of funds for one group (the haves) relative to another group (the have-nots).2 Although the major focus here is on the distributive measure, non-distributive output is considered in order to compare the impacts of socio-economic and political factors on two policy dimensions. The systems framework of policy analysis functions as the organizational schema for this investigation. While this orientation is popular in the analysis of state and urban policy outputs, it has rarely been used in the cross-national context.3 Consequently, findings here make a contribution where there is a gap in existing literature and permit some tentative conclusions regarding the importance of particular correlates in developing countries. These results can be juxtaposed against policy analysis findings from the American states in order to determine whether policy antecedents for developing nations are similar to those for states in a developed nation. Thus, there are two foci for comparing the influence of socioeconomic and political parameters in the educational policy-making process: (1) by

Educational Interest Group Leaders and State Legislators: Perceptions of the Educational Policy-Making Process

The educational policy-making process at the state level was examined in New York. One central interest was the extent of perceptual congruence between educational interest group leaders and state legislators concern ing influence strategies in the policy-making process. Results of the study indicate that there are important perceptual differences and that educa tional interest group leaders may have to consider modifications in in fluencing strategies. Mr. Milstein and Mr. Jennings are Associate and Assistant Professor, respectively, in the Department of Educational Ad ministration, State University of New York at Buffalo.

Representing the Educational Policy-Making Process

Representing the Educational Policy-Making Process