Recent analyses of the linkages between policy analysis and politics suggests that contemporary focus on the first had been poorly attenuated to the theoretical needs of the second. This paper specifies the kinds of research in educational politics that should ensue if the politics-of-education field is to become less oriented to specific policies or to a singular paradigm. The larger conceptual framework rests in the understanding of "political" as encompassing a broad range of factors within the political system that shape or influence its activities. The framework suggests a set of categories of political analysis that is drawn from the relevant subfields of political science. The paper highlights the following subfields' applications to education and their research possibilities: political learning, the media and school politics, electoral studies (political behavior), policies and policy communities, courts and the law, and comparative education. Two tables are included. (Contains 45 notes.) (LMI)