Perceptions of Policy
Conceptualisations of policy vary across the field of education policy research, and sometimes even within a particular study (Ozga 1990 ). While understandings of policy have certainly developed and expanded over time, this is not to declare that there i
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Perceptions of Policy
Conceptualisations of policy vary across the field of education policy research, and sometimes even within a particular study (Ozga 1990). While understandings of policy have certainly developed and expanded over time, this is not to declare that there is a unified view on what policy ‘is’. Older ideas are not automatically supplanted by newer concepts as they emerge. Rather, a range of older and newer definitions are at work in contemporary education research concomitantly, and are being added to and debated as policy theory evolves. Four key themes in these constructions of policy are briefly outlined and critiqued below: policy as text, policy as values-laden actions, policy as process and policy as discursive. The value of each (particularly the latter conception) is then expanded upon for orientationbased analysis of policies in education policy research.
2.1 Policy as Text Both in professional literature and everyday talk, policy is often characterised as a set of laws or guidelines within a ‘governing text’ (Callewaert 2006, p. 767). Young (2007) calls this the traditional approach in education policy research, but it can also be evident within some contemporary research-based ‘calls’ for policy or content analysis of policy texts, which can be built on simplistic models of policy as constituting a textual ‘policy document’ or an official spoken requirement (verbal text) on expected behaviours. These models, without always declaring an explicit correlation, can carry the assumption that policy directly determines practices (perhaps with variable successes dependent on the policy’s wording (Callewaert 2006). At most, ‘Technical-empiricist’ models of policy analysis evaluate policy as communication between policy makers and practitioners, considering whether or not policy makers’ intentions within the text were ‘understood’ and implemented (Alexander 1997, p. 3; Olssen et al. 2004, pp. 60–61). It would be foolish to deny that texts (and the policy makers’ intentions) are an important aspect of policy. Policy advocates can decry their absence or denounce their presence, department heads and principals can announce them in stakeholder gatherings, students can look them up and quote them to negotiate an issue, staff can be hired and fired by their adherence to them and so forth. Yet policy texts
T. Jones, Understanding Education Policy, SpringerBriefs in Education, DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-6265-7_2, © The Author(s) 2013
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can also be all but ignored. They can be buried in the depths of thick manuals or hidden at the end of infinitely diverting clicks on hyperlinked webpages. They can be coupled with utterly no funding, resources or guidance. On the other hand, they can feature as centrepieces to expensive and sensational political campaigns. They can be resisted at rallies peopled with union members, parents and outraged community members. The words they use can be interpreted in multiple ways such that they support divergent intentions and practices. Polic
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