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Education Analyst

Tracey Burns heads the Governing Complex Education Systems project in the OECD’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI). This project looks at the challenges that governments face in steering complex education systems and the role of knowledge in that process.

She has been responsible for the publication of Trends Shaping Education 2013.

Previously at the OECD Tracey also led the following CERI Projects:

• Teacher Education for Diversity: This project produced the publication Educating Teachers for Diversity: Meeting the Challenge.

• Systemic Innovation in Education: This project produced the publication Working out Change: Systemic innovation in vocational education and training .

• Evidence-based Policy Research in Education: This project produced the publication Evidence in Education: Linking Research and Policy.

Past Experience

Tracey holds a Bachelor of Arts from McGill University, Canada, and a Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology from Northeastern University, USA. She is the recipient of numerous awards and honours, including The University of British Columbia Post-Doctoral Fellowship and the American Psychological Association Dissertation Research Award. Previous to her current work she worked on social determinants of health and on education and social inclusion issues at both the OECD and in Vancouver, Canada. As a Post-Doctoral Fellow at The University of British Columbia, Tracey led a research team investigating newborn infants' responses to language, and was an award-winning lecturer on infant and child development.

Recent Publications

• OECD (2010). Educating Teachers for Diversity: Meeting the challenge.
  T. Burns and V. Shadoian-Gersing (eds.), OECD Publishing.

• Byers-Heinlein, K., Burns, T., and Werker, J. (2010). "The roots of bilingualism in newborns", Psychological Science, online January 29.

• OECD (2009). Working out Change: Systemic innovation in vocational education and training, OECD Publishing.

• Burns, T., and Schuller, T. (2008). "Evidence-informed policy in education: new opportunities and challenges". In Desjardins, R., and Rubensen, K. (eds). Research of policy and research for policy in an era of transnational education policy making. Aarhaus University Press, Aarhaus.

• Burns, T. (2008). "Learning and teaching, schools and communities". Journal of Educational Change, 9 (3), 305-309.

• Ungerleider, C., and Burns, T. C., and Cartwright, F. (2008). "The state and quality of Canadian public education". In D. Raphael, (ed.). Social Determinants of Health: Canadian Perspectives, Second Edition, Canadian Scholars Press, Toronto.

• OECD (2007). Evidence in Education: Linking research and policy. T. Burns and T. Schuller (eds.), OECD Publishing.

• Burns, T. C. Yoshida, K. A., Hill, K., and Werker, J. F. (2007). "The development of phonetic representation in bilingual and monolingual infants". Applied Psycholinguistics, 28(3), 455-474.

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