Author Description

This book presents work undertaken by students in the course "Education Policy Analysis and Research in Comparative Perspective," taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This project-based graduate course provides students with the opportunity to learn and conduct education policy analysis for a real-world client in a collaborative setting. Working in teams, students partner with education authorities to analyze policies on issues that are significant to them. This pedagogical approach envisions professional preparation as an induction into a professional community of practice. Throughout the course, students gain insights from lectures and engage in discussions of readings covering comparative education research efforts directed at enhancing educational opportunities as well as readings presenting diverse methodologies for the technical analysis of education challenges such as policy analysis, forecasting and futures scenarios, education sector analysis, program planning and evaluation. This pedagogy to teach education policy analysis is founded on three core premises. Firstly, learning from experience is essential to professional education. By conducting policy analysis firsthand, students develop not only a solid conceptual foundation but also procedural knowledge, gaining a practical understanding of how policy analysis is done and works in practice. Secondly, leveraging comparative research to identify root causes and options to address them enriches the analytic process. The available knowledge resulting from global education research offers a broader evidence base than that stemming from research in any singular educational jurisdiction and drawing on that rich knowledge base augments students' analytical and problem-solving capacities and expands their creativity and imagination to generate solutions to the challenges. Lastly, the course recognizes learning as a socially situated endeavor, emphasizing the importance of preparing students to e