Education Reform and Reconstruction as a Challenge to Research Genres:Reconsidering School Effectiveness Research and Inclusive Schooling.

This paper examines the invention of school effectivenessas a specific curriculum and pedagogic discourse that has captured not onlythe hearts and minds of a body of educational researchers but also of policy-makersand politicians from different parts of the political spectrum. It is dividedinto three parts. First it explores previously identified questions surroundingthe methodology and its underlying epistemological assumptions; second, itconsiders the politics of school effectiveness research and in particularthe political context for the publication of the book School Effectivenessfor Whom ? published in 1998; third, it reflects upon dilemmas that confrontinclusive education research and how these may suggest similar considerationsfor school effectiveness research. It concludes with the argument that themost important question today for school effectiveness researchers and otherresearchers who wish for a more inclusive school system is to disentanglethe concept of efficiency from effectiveness and to review their thinkingabout whom schools are most 'effective' for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]