1st Edition
Analysing Education Policy Theory and Method
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.
1. Introduction: Analysing education policy: An introduction
Meghan Stacey and Nicole Mockler
Part 1
2. Document and text analysis in critical education policy studies
Nicole Mockler and Meghan Stacey
3. Critical Discourse Analysis: Language, ideology and power
Izhak Berkovich and Pascale Benoliel
4. Thinking with Foucault to understand education policy
Jessica Holloway, Sarah Langman and Tanjin Ashraf
5. Indigenist Policy Analysis: The Uluru Statement from the Heart as a roadmap towards recognising Indigenous sovereignty in Indigenous education
Kevin Lowe, David Coombs and Sue Goodwin
6. Media analysis: From the wide angle to the zoom lens
Nicole Mockler
7. Sites of promotion: Analysing websites, prospectuses and experiential marketing
Sue Saltmarsh
8. Online networks and education policy sociology
Naomi Barnes and Anna Hogan
Part 2
9. Participant analysis in critical education policy studies
Meghan Stacey and Nicole Mockler
10. Network ethnography in education: A literature review of network ethnography as a methodology and how it has been applied in critical policy studies
Emma Rowe
11. Actor-Network Theory: A material-semiotic approach to policy analysis
Rizwana Shahzad and Radhika Gorur
12. The vital materiality of policy
Jennifer Clutterbuck
13. Institutional Ethnography: Discovering how education policy organises the everyday work of people
Nerida Spina, Maren Seehawer and Moyra Keane
14. Decolonising curriculum policy research through community centredness
Constance Khupe
15. Beyond surveys and focus groups: Including the views of children and young people in education policy analysis
Angelique Howell
16. Researching policy elites in education
Khalaf Al-Abri, Anna Hogan, Bob Lingard and Sam Sellar
17. Conclusion: Analysing education policy: Now and into the future
Meghan Stacey and Nicole Mockler
Biography
Meghan Stacey is Senior Lecturer in the Sociology of Education and Education Policy at the UNSW School of Education, where she takes a particular interest in the critical policy sociology of teachers’ work. Her first book, The Business of Teaching, was published in 2020 with Palgrave.
Nicole Mockler is Professor of Education at the Sydney School of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney. Her research focuses on education policy and politics, particularly as they frame teachers’ work, professional identities, and professional learning. Her most recent book is Constructing Teacher Identities (Bloomsbury, 2022).
“How we theorise and analyse policy is an under-worked and under-written aspect of critical policy studies. This book fills a gap in an accessible and articulate manner and draws on the scholarship of an impressive and diverse set of policy scholars. Working with text and agency to explore how policy is understood and investigated, and posing searching questions about how policy is analysed and researched, this collection will be invaluable to educationalists, researchers and policy-makers, in sharpening current and future studies in the field.”
Meg Maguire, Professor, King’s College London, UK
“As factors influencing the development and enactment of policy in education become increasingly varied and complex, new approaches to policy research are clearly needed. Drawing on recent developments in social and political theory, this book presents a collection of critical essays that constitutes a most accessible and helpful introduction to the shifting field of educational policy studies.”
Fazal Rizvi, Emeritus Professor, The University of Melbourne, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
“...a must-read primer to critical education policy analysis. This rich collection by renowned international experts spans a wide array of theoretical and methodological insights into text-based sources and the roles and experiences of human and non-human actors. Infused with concrete examples and sensitivity towards the variety of analytical approaches in the field, it is a true gift to all of us pursuing responsible, relevant, and robust research on education policy in national and global contexts.”
Nelli Piattoeva, Associate Professor, Tampere University, Finland
“The field of education policy research is a morass of epistemological turns and normative wrangling, making it a difficult space to navigate for students and researchers not familiar with its rich albeit complicated relationship to different intellectual histories and political projects. To aid readers through this muddy terrain and offer essential clarity and comprehension on the various theories and methods available, from network ethnography to visual discourse, problem representation and Foucauldian analytics, Stacey and Mockler bring together a stellar group of researchers to showcase some of the most innovative approaches to education policy research.”
Andrew Wilkins, Professor, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK
