Social Science Research Council

In the period since its formation in June 2001 the SSRC/NAE Program on Education Research has been involved in designing inquiries along three domains of interest: the social organization of the field of education research, issues related to judging the quality of education research scholarship, and the politics and role of education research in policymaking.

With support from the Spencer Foundation the committee has held a series of meetings focused on planning and research design discussions. Meetings have also featured presentations by a variety of speakers about ongoing research and programs at other institutions that have complementary goals to the Program on Education Research. These presentations have included:

• Dr. Margaret Eisenhart, Dr. Larry Hedges, Dr. Denis Phillips, Dr. Jeffery Valentine, and Dr. Pamela Walters, “Estimating Value: the Evidence on Quality in Education Research.” Panel presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (April, 2004).
• Dr. Henry Small (Thomson ISI), on "Citation Analysis and the Education Research Database" (June 2003)
• Dr. Jane Junn on the Association of American Universities’ project “Assessing the Quality of University Education and Research (AQUER)” (November 2002)
• Dr. Harris Cooper on the federally-sponsored What Works Clearinghouse (November 2002)
• Dr. David Labaree on his research on the academic training of educational researchers in Schools of Education (June 2002)
• Dr. David Cohen on the federal multi-agency sponsored “Strategic Education Research Partnership(SERP)” (June 2002)
• Lisa Towne on the National Research Council’s report entitled “Scientific Research in Education” (March 2002)
• Dr. Larry Hedges on the progress of the effort to synthesize social science findings in social and education research, the Campbell Collaboration (March 2002)