The use of research in local policy making: A case study of corporal punishment in public education

This case study of one community's task force on corporal punishment illustrates the impediments to the application of education research in local policy making. Because the nature and methods of empirical research are not well understood, even by local education professionals, scientific knowledge can be mischaracterized or ignored especially when it clashes with strongly held personal beliefs. For scholarship to serve society, scholars must identify and confront the impediments to accurate understanding of scientific knowledge and take greater care in preparing their students, the future educational leaders in local communities, to understand and make use of education research.