Critical Policy Scholarship in Education: An Overview (original) (raw)
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International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 2019
In recent decades, educational policy researchers have considered critical policy sociology, mostly known as ?policy sociology?, as a useful research methodology for analysing educational policies. However, despite its increasing popularity, policy sociology has been a confusing concept hence it is often used interchangeably with other terms such as policy analysis. In the main, there is a dearth of literature outlining its key underlying assumptions and how this methodology helps policy researchers to analyse social, political and economic issues related to educational policy. By reviewing current body of literature in the field, this paper identifies policy sociology as one of the four major traditions in the policy analysis field. The paper presents six key underlying assumptions of policy sociology: value based study, political study, historical study, multidisciplinary study, assemblage study, and discourse study and discusses how researchers have used policy sociology as a research methodology for analysing educational policies.
Policy and Domination: Uses of Critical Theory in the Public Arena
In Sykes, G., Schneider, B. L., Plank, D. N., with Ford, T. G. (eds.). Handbook of education policy research, 2009
In this article we explore the role critical theory (CT) can play in addressing these contradictory phenomena and offering potential policy and practice reforms in education. We start by offering a set of arguments defending the framework of critical theory as a timely and energetic legacy that may help teachers, practitioners, researchers, policy activists, parents, and students work to collectively address these issues and challenge the central tenets of neoliberal reforms and positivistic movements in educational research. Critical social theory can help advance a clearer and more compelling agenda for social research that incorporates ethical concerns and projects for social transformation into educational research and practice. It provides valuable research to policymakers and stakeholders in education. And it provides a powerful inspiration for those practitioners working in classroom to practice a libratory education that can empower students and provide the hope necessary for engagement in the political arena.
Locating and applying critical discourse analysis within education policy
education policy analysis archives, 2016
This article introduces the first of a two-part Special Issue on Discourse Perspectives and Education Policy. This first special issue is focused on critical discourse analysis and education policy. Within this article, we provide a brief overview of discourse analysis generally and critical discourse analysis specifically. We highlight some of the ways in which policy researchers have applied the theories and methods associated with CDA and note the methodological and substantive contributions of this work. Then, we provide an overview of the six papers included within this special issue, noting each paper’s key points and explicit links to policy. We conclude by pointing to future directions for research at the intersection of education policy and discourse studies.
Bruno Latour famously asked " Why has critique run out of steam? " (2004). In this paper we draw on his ideas to present some resources for " gathering "-for doing education policy research with others-which we are calling 'critical-dissensual collaboration'. We think that our education policy research 'critique from afar' may have run out of steam and we make some proposals for doing critical research, but with (a diversity of) others. We offer resources for undertaking critical-dissensual, collaborative education policy research – where 'realities are not secure but instead they have to be practised' (Law, 2004, p. 15). This extends the conceptualisation of enactment that Stephen Ball and colleagues have made; from focusing on 'how schools do policy' (Ball, Maguire, & Braun, 2012), to how researchers and schools (re)do policy together. This article is part of our attempt to underpin this redoing of policy with a politics of dissensus (Verran, 2015) and to develop alternative resources to those that enable a 'god's eye view' of policy research (see Haraway, 1988). As critical education policy researchers we have collaborated as policy actors with others in schools and this article forms out of this work. We discuss what we are calling 'starter' concepts as a contribution toward elucidating resources for a dissensual politics of 'gathering' in critical collaborations. 2
Abstract There is a position that Government will undertake its work in a responsible way that allows for the provision of education in Australian society with a just and equitable hand. While this may be a utopian idea of the role of education in a democratic society, the literature provokes different thinking. It suggests that policy development is misplaced within political ideologies and lost amidst the grinding gears of government departments at both federal and state level as it makes its way into schools, and therefore to those it impacts upon. This thesis explores the co-relation between the intended purposes of educational policy, its possibility for social equalising and its eventual impact for those who live the consequences of enacted policy at a local level. This includes a glimpse at past educational policy and the ideologies that inform them, the mechanisms of society which enforce change to policy and the eventual outcome. Its significance, in a wider context, is that current policy agendas which seem to readily enhance the benefits for all students, and by that fact should benefit our society, are being excessively argued, negotiated and delayed. The methodology/methods used in this thesis use bricolage to bring together rich experiences, narratives and contextual connectivity. This has value because the case and commentaries component gives a snapshot of the impact of policy, and how it is viewed by educators who use it and are part of its mechanisms. It also highlights the absent, what is of concern with the interpretation and use of policy at the local level, as many assumptions are made by teachers and administrators based upon their own lives and experiences. Three specific policies were considered by the participants – literacy, homework and reporting. This thesis presents the thinking of key stakeholders in a school around three significant topics and related policy on the work of students, teachers and school accountabilities. The insights provided highlight how many students are disadvantaged on the basis of educational policy that fails to acknowledge both the context and circumstances of their lives. As a result, these students are viewed as being deficient rather than being viewed for what they can do. The educational policies considered are written in a way that teachers working with these students are increasingly being constrained in their responses to these student’s needs, generating poorer learning opportunities.
What counts as meaningful and worthwhile educational policy analysis
Italian Journal of Sociology of Education, 2012
The paper considers what counts as meaningful and worthwhile education policy analysis. We propose that qualitative analys es of the social historiographies of nation states' educational policies are important b ecause mapping the complex histories of each nation state addresses the questions of 'ho w' and 'why' these education policies developed as they did. We suggest that usi ng qualitative policy analyses reveals the extent to which education policy as tex t and discourse facilitates community engagement and participation, the management of economic transitions and economic growth within sustainable ethical frameworks, and t olerance for cultural diversity. Disseminating such policy learning is important so that nation states might learn from each other and develop global competences. Reading nation states' education policy through Hodgson and Spours (2006) policy analysis framework may reveal particular eras in education systems and processes. Further su...