The role of the courts in certain educational policy formation

Abstract

A study of recent court decisions indicates that courts tend to decide cases in education with apparently little or no citation in their opinions of the findings of research studies in the fields of education, economics, psychology, sociology, etc. This may be unique since the courts seem to be more liberal in other areas of the law where inputs from other disciplines (e.g. medicine) are cited and do find their way into the decisions of cases. The implications of this for educational policy formation and educational research need to be more thoroughly examined.