Discursive Perspectives On Education Policy And Implementation

This edited volume demonstrates some of the potential contributions of discourse analytic approaches to the study of education policy and its implementation within particular policy contexts. Contributing authors provide a range of perspectives, examining education policy using both micro-analytic traditions and more macro-analytic traditions. With examples of research focused on various stages of the policy process from agenda-setting and policy-making to implementation and media representations, this volume will appeal to scholars engaged in research at the intersection of education policy and discourse analysis, and to students with specific interests in education policy and qualitative research methods.

This edited volume brings together leading scholars from the fields of educational leadership and policy studies to discuss qualitative, quantitative, and mixed research methods in an accessible and pedagogically well-designed volume. Authors discuss ways in which various research methodologies and methods can productively be brought together to expand our current understanding of leadership issues and the contemporary policy context that surrounds them. Chapters provide both practical recommendations for using the methods discussed as well as suggestions for further reading.

An exchange on education ideas has shaped the transatlantic discourse in education for a long time. Over the past two decades education science has increasingly become networked internationally. Since 2015, the Office for International Cooperation in Education at DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education has organized international sessions on education research at the Annual Meetings of the American Educational Research Association, thus providing a floor for transatlantic exchange on current research topics. The volume gives an overview of the transatlantic activities in education research with regard to these sessions representing a collection of topics ranging from school development over the use of large scale assessment and digital data in education to questions related to migration and public education or the economization of education. At the same time the volume offers a reflection on the assets and obstacles of international exchange.

Analysing Education Policy: Theory and Method provides a comprehensive overview of key approaches in critical education policy research. With chapters from internationally recognised and established scholars in the field, this book provides an authoritative account of how different questions may be approached and answered. Part 1 features chapters focused on text-based approaches to analysis, including critical discourse analysis, thinking with Foucault, Indigenist Policy Analysis, media analysis, the analysis of promotional texts in education, and the analysis of online networks. Part 2 features chapters focused on network ethnography, actor-network theory, materiality in policy, Institutional Ethnography, decolonising approaches to curriculum policy, working with children and young people, and working with education policy elites. These chapters are supported by an introduction to each section, as well as an overall introduction and conclusion chapter from the editors, drawing together key themes and ongoing considerations for the field. Critical education policy analysis takes many different forms, each of which works with distinctly different questions and fulfils different purposes. This book is the first to clearly map current common and influential approaches to answering these questions, providing important guidance for both new and established researchers.

Reading instruction is the most legislated area of education and the most frequently referenced metric for measuring educational progress. This book traces the trajectories of policy issues with direct implications for literacy teaching, learning, and research in order to illustrate the dynamic relationships between policy, research, and practice as they relate to perennial issues such as: retention in grade, remediation, intervention, instruction for English learners, early literacy instruction, coaching, and leadership. Using policy documents and peer-reviewed articles published from the 1960s to the present, the editor and authors illustrate how issues were framed, what was at stake, and how policy solutions to persistent questions have been understood over time. In doing so, the book link a generation of scholars with research that illustrates trajectories of development for ideas, strategies, and solutions.

This edited volume focuses on how international education policy, set by international policymakers and donors, influences local education policy in developing countries. The book’s primary purpose is to give voice to scholars from developing countries and regions around the world by inviting them to explore how the international policy, invariably linked to international aid, influences education policy formation and implementation in their country or region and how this influence does or does not meet the local cultural, social, economic, and political needs. A relatively recent and small body of research and commentary supports a discourse that questions how well international education policy mandates such as Education For All serve the needs of developing countries. The intent of this book is to advance this discourse by giving voice to local scholars who observe and study the donor process. The book will be divided into two sections: the first section will set the stage for the discussions in the second section by providing theoretical and historical context for international education policy. As a framework for understanding, the book adopts the position that international policy does not have either the ability or the intent to serve the widely diverse needs of development around the world. International education policy has been formed, historically, by wealthy nations and agencies dominated by Western theoretical paradigms. In recent years, donor countries have made an effort to collaborate with developing countries in developing international education policy goals; however, this collaboration has been limited. Following establishment of the context of international education policy, section II of the book provides a forum for scholars from around the world to openly discuss and critique the impact of international policy on education in their country or region.

This volume informs the growing number of educational policy scholars on the use of critical theoretical frameworks in their analyses. It offers insights on which theories are appropriate within the area of critical educational policy research and how theory and method interact and are applied in critical policy analyses. Highlighting how different critical theoretical frameworks are used in educational policy research to reshape and redefine the way scholars approach the field, the volume offers work by emerging and senior scholars in the field of educational policy who apply critical frameworks to their research. The chapters examine a wide range of current educational policy topics through different critical theoretical lenses, including critical race theory, critical discourse analysis, postmodernism, feminist poststructuralism, critical theories related to LGBTQ issues, and advocacy approaches.

Critical Perspectives on Education Policy and Schools, Families, and Communities offers scholars, students, and practitioners important new knowledge about how current policies impact families, schools, and community partnerships. The book’s authors share a critical orientation towards policy and policy research and invite readers to think differently about what policy is, who policymakers are, and what policy can achieve. Their chapters discuss findings from research grounded in diverse theories, including institutional ethnography, critical disability theory, and critical race theory. The authors encourage scholars of family, school, and community partnerships to ask who benefits from policies (and who loses) and how proposed reforms maintain or disrupt existing relations of power. The chapters present original research on a broad range of policies at the local, state/provincial, and national levels in Canada and the USA. Some authors look closely at the enactment of specific district policies, including a school district’s language translation policy and a policy to create local advisory bodies as part of decentralization efforts. Other chapters reveal the often unacknowledged yet necessary work parents do to meet their children’s needs and enable schools to operate. A few chapters focus on challenges and paradoxes of including families and community members in policymaking processes, including a case where parents demonstrated a preference for a policy that research demonstrates can be detrimental to their children’s future education opportunities. Another set of chapters emphasizes the centrality of policy texts and how language influences the educational experiences and engagement of students and their families. Each chapter concludes with a discussion of implications of the research for educators, families, and other community partners.