Exploring the policy implementation paradox: using the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (fCUBE) policy in Ghana as an exemplar

This paper uses the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (fCUBE) policy implementation in Ghana as an exemplar to explore the apparent disjuncture between policy intentions in theory and outcomes of implementation tasks in practice. Through the critical discourse analysis of a range of policy documents complemented by the analysis of interviews with Ghanaian education officials, the paper investigates the extent to which the ‘free’, ‘compulsory’, ‘universal’ and ‘basic education’ components claimed in the fCUBE policy title are reflected in the implementation process. Owing to its commitment to enhancing the educational opportunities and outcomes of the educationally disadvantaged, the fCUBE policy is viewed as a ‘rights-based policy’ deeply rooted in social democratic values. However, the advent of neo-liberal ideological rhetoric of ‘skills for the world of work’ has triggered the neutralisation of these progressive ideals. This, the paper argues, has led to a significant discursive shift in policy direction and language of implementing the policy.     

Losing sight of Humboldt: a synoptic review of Australian government policy over the last 35 years

Over the last 35 years Australian higher education policy, like that of most countries, has undergone radical changes. This article reviews these changes in terms of four key periods, beginning with the abolition of student fees, through to the recent unprecedented levels of government control and intervention. Policies are compared with each other and common themes across periods, attempts at reinvigorating or reintroducing old ideas, and genuinely new policies are discovered. Finally, the impact of these policies over the last 35 years on the higher education sector, particularly its academics and institutions, is discussed.     

Moving the goalposts: Education policy and 25 years of the Black/White achievement gap

Drawing on a secondary analysis of official statistics, this paper examines the changing scale of the inequality of achievement between White students and their Black British peers who identify their family heritage as Black Caribbean. We examine a 25‐year period from the introduction of the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), in 1988, to the 20th anniversary of the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 2013. It is the first time that the Black/White gap has been analysed over such a long period. The paper reviews the changing place of the Black/White gap in education debates and notes that, despite periods when race equality has appeared to be high on the political agenda, it has never held a consistent place at the heart of policy. Our findings shed light on how the Black/White gap is directly affected, often in negative ways, by changes in education policy. Specifically, whenever the key benchmark for achievement has been redefined, it has had the effect of restoring historic levels of race inequity; in essence, policy interventions to ‘raise the bar’ by toughening the benchmark have actively widened gaps and served to maintain Black disadvantage. Throughout the entire 25‐year period, White students were always at least one and a half times more likely to attain the dominant benchmark than their Black peers. Our findings highlight the need for a sustained and explicit focus on race inequity in education policy. To date, the negative impacts of policy changes have been much more certain and predictable than occasional attempts to reduce race inequality.     

The enactment of literacy curriculum policy by early childhood teachers in two Australian schools

Since the early 2000s, literacy education has become an area of intense focus in Australian education policy, positioned to have a role in Australia's pursuit of enhanced international competitiveness in the “global knowledge economy”. Policy called for improvements in literacy outcomes, monitored by mandated annual assessments, and policy statements recognised the need to establish solid literacy foundations in early childhood to facilitate learning, and desired improvements, in later years. This article is derived from a larger study that investigated the production and enactment of literacy curriculum policy by early childhood teachers in Australian schools. It focuses on the school level within the State of Western Australia, presenting findings derived from thematic and critical discourse analysis of participant interview and documentary data collected in two case‐study schools. Comparative analysis revealed that literacy curriculum policy processes in both case‐study schools were focused on achieving improved test results in mandated testing regimes. This was impacting upon literacy curriculum in the early childhood years of schooling, in Australia deemed to involve children up to 8 years of age, in many, possibly adverse, ways. These findings may offer insights in other contexts about literacy curriculum policy processes that are focused on enhancing competitive positioning.     

Active social policy meets the discipline of the Australian marketplace: the outcomes of mobile policies

Many advanced market democracies pursue social justice by bundling together a range of programmes represented as active social policy. Northern European exemplars sanction employment as an economic and social citizen’s civic obligation, promote lifelong learning and place welfare payments as a last resort. In the United States, market-based post-school education financed by guaranteed student loans was developed as a policy alternative. Australian politicians have embraced elements of both, resulting in a massive reduction in public delivery of vocational education and training in favour of multimillion dollar, stock exchange-listed private providers. The resultant amalgam of active labour market policy and free market principles positions standard setting as a regulatory mechanism and in support of cross-jurisdictional market operations. This paper explores the interaction between active policy and demands of the market while speaking to wider issues that arise when a government first creates and then intervenes in markets.     

Education and nationalism: the discourse of education policy in Scotland

The paper draws on critical discourse analysis to examine and discuss some of the key developments in the governing of education in Scotland since the election of the Scottish National Party (SNP) government in May 2007. It analyses these developments, drawing on a study of key policy texts and suggests that discourse analysis has much to contribute to the understanding of the governing strategy of the minority SNP administration as reflected in its education policy. We suggest that there is a self-conscious strategy of ‘crafting the narrative’ of government that seeks to discursively re-position ‘smarter Scotland’ alongside small, social democratic states within the wider context of transnational pressures for conformity with global policy agendas. Thus the paper connects to current debates on the relationship between an emergent global education policy ‘field’ and the capacity of ‘local’ contexts to develop and sustain particular, embedded assumptions and practices.     

Policy learning and governance of education policy in the EU

Open methods for coordinating (OMC) education policies in the EU rely on a number of techniques, one of which is policy learning. This article examines how policy learning and governance transform each other. More specifically, policy‐learning in the education OMC becomes differentiated into four distinct learning styles: mutual, competitive, surface and imperialistic learning. While they overlap with some forms of policy learning discussed in the literature, they are also different by focusing upon interactions and political dynamics between the European Commission and the member states. In seeking to understand how governing through learning occurs, we argue that any ‘impact’ of EU‐level policy‐learning is co‐constructed by both the European Commission and the member states. The analysis of this article is grounded in a discourse analytical and institutionalist perspective. It draws on qualitative data derived from semi‐structured interviews with officials from the Directorate General for Education and Culture in the European Commission and on EU documents generated during policy‐learning activities.     

Recognition of prior learning (RPL) policy in Australian higher education: the dynamics of position-taking

The Bourdieuian concept of ‘position-taking’ is applied in this analysis of recognition of prior learning (RPL) policy and practice in Australian higher education. Data from institutional documents and participant interviews indicate that, within RPL policy, the universities selectively employ prevailing discourses of ‘quality’ and ‘equity’ to reinforce or potentially improve their reputation and symbolic power in the field of higher education. There is no common consensus about either equity or quality across the sector, as each university interprets the two concepts for its own benefit. The evidence suggests that, despite rhetoric in government policy implying that both are equally important, quality is a far stronger discourse and policy imperative than equity in RPL policy and practice. Also, RPL policies and practices provide an insight into how the key policy priorities of equity and quality are addressed by universities, when applied to a specific educational process or practice.     

澳大利亚学前教育市场化改革:背景、历程与镜鉴

20世纪80年代以来,学前教育市场化改革成为世界主要国家应对全球经济危机与社会文化变迁的重要教育政策选择,为这些国家解决学前教育可获得性、可支付性和质量问题提供了一种解决方案,但也隐含着诸多难以规避的风险与挑战。作为学前教育市场化改革“激进派”的典型代表,澳大利亚学前教育在20世纪末从社区供给模式转变为市场供给模式,在扩大学前教育资源的同时,保教领域的内在矛盾也日渐突出,如质量标准的提高造成服务成本上升,小微型保教机构因利润微薄纷纷倒闭,反而营造了有利于营利性企业垄断发展的环境;政府对学前教育社会服务的财政投入持续增长,但保教服务价格持续攀升,形成了“高补贴、高收费”的怪圈;学前教育质量改革受到“成本”和“效率”问责,保教服务“去专业化”现象凸显,学前教育质量改革前景不明。以澳大利亚的经验为镜鉴,我国学前教育改革要明确政府的治理角色,避免“市场中心主义”思想,坚持“育人为本”的价值取向,鼓励学前教育治理制度创新,去除市场化改革路径依赖。     

缩小差距--中国教育政策的重大命题

教育差距的存在和持续拉大是我国当前教育发展的严峻现实,这种差距表现在城乡、地区、阶层、类别四个方面。如果从居民人均消费水平和人均教育支出、人均财政支出和生均预算内教育经费支出两组经济发展指标和教育投入指标来考察东部和西部地区的城乡经济和教育发展,就会发现教育差距比经济差距拉得更大更快。由于教育是经济和社会发展的基础,这种差距将会影响到建设小康社会和贯彻科学发展观、促进社会和谐发展的现实需要。导致差距的原因固然很多,但公共政策是最主要的。因此,消除教育贫困,缩小教育差距的责任主要在政府,政府应该通过调整和制定公共政策确保所有人都能公平地享受公共教育资源,这就要求公共教育政策领域必须逐步实现从精英教育向大众教育的转型。     

政府的基本教育责任:供给“公平”的教育政策

现代政府的基本教育职能之一是供给保障教育公平的有效率的教育政策,并作出相应的教育制度安排。长期以来,我国宏观教育政策活动存在明显的城市偏向、高等教育偏向、公办教育偏向和精英教育偏向,教育政策制定主要是以"自上而下"精英决策为主,难以全面保障教育的公益性、教育的公共参与以及教育利益分配、公共参与的公平性。政府有责任供给"公平"的教育政策,推动建立教育的公共治理模式。     

非政府组织与教育改革政策治理机制创新——以21世纪教育研究院为例

当前,人们意识到无论是国家政策还是理论探索,必须创新现有的政策治理机制,使教育改革与发展真正成为社会各界广泛关注、共同参与的公共议题。21世纪教育研究院这样的非政府组织恰好就是社会力量从政策层面参与教育治理的典范机构,其自身作为社会组织参与政策治理以及为动员公众参与政策治理所做的努力,可以为国家及理论界思考如何建构社会各界共同参与的政策治理机制提供经验与启示。     

The ghosts of higher education reform: on the organisational processes surrounding policy borrowing

The Bologna Process is one of the most extensive examples of policy borrowing processes. Based on qualitative data, this article argues in favour of studying part of this process as ‘global smallness’, centring on the organisational effects of the implementation of a globalised curriculum. Through Derrida's notion on hauntology, Fenwick and Edward's analysis of multiple reals, and Barad's understanding of entanglement and time, this article explores how the implementation processes evoke simultaneously existing worlds of practices propelled by the agency of the past troubling present higher education reform. Finally, this article addresses how ongoing reforms tend to increase the stretch between ‘what is performed on the outside’ and ‘what is practiced on the inside’.     

Teacher blogs and education policy in a publicly private world: filling the gap between policy and practice

K-12 teachers who write about their daily work on blogs and other social media platforms share local knowledge and wisdom from the immediate view of the classroom. These first-hand retellings of everyday classroom life offer a unique critique of educational policy from the teachers’ perspective. Reporting on the analysis of 14 public-facing blogs written by New York City public school teachers, this paper highlights the possibilities held in these digital narratives by painting a picture of how teachers respond to the implementation of new educational policies.     

PISA as an ideational roadmap for policy change: exploring Germany and England in a comparative perspective

Education policy has undergone transformation in many countries over the last decade. In this article, we focus on the effects of the most significant international initiative in secondary education, which is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). We analyse two countries that provide variation regarding the degree of change in their respective education policy-making due to this study; while Germany substantially reformed its education system in reaction to its mediocre PISA results, almost no change has been observed in England. As we show, alterations and shifts in ideas of education policy best account for such a change.     

Communities of Practice as a Social Theory of Learning: a Conversation with Etienne Wenger

The aim of this article is to contribute to the understanding and use of the theory of communities of practice. In order to clarify terms, explore applications for education and reflect on various critiques of the theory in the literature, two educational researchers conducted a series of interviews with the theorist Etienne Wenger-Trayner. The interviews have been thematically organised around key concepts from the theory. By relating the concepts to their uses in research and to other social theories, Wenger-Trayner clarifies key ideas of the theory including what constitutes a ‘community of practice’. He explains how he conceptualises identity and participation in order to develop a social theory of learning in which power and boundaries are inherent. The interviewers draw on these conceptual discussions with Wenger-Trayner to consider how the theory of communities of practice resonates with key debates and issues in education. By unpacking some key concepts of the theory from an educational perspective, we provide researchers with conceptual tools to support the complex decision-making that is involved in selecting the best and most appropriate theory or theories to use in their research.     

Citizenship,civic education and politics: the education policy context for young Australian citizens

Citizenship education in Australia is embedded throughout the school curriculum. Despite a coherent policy context for the inclusion of citizenship and civic education at all levels of schooling, the links between education and civic minded citizens are tenuous. This paper explores these connections by drawing on the views of participants in an international community service program between Western Australia and Tanzania. By situating the interview data in relation to the policy goals, the paper argues that the current policy framework ‘sanitises’ the political nature of modern citizenship. The results from this study demonstrate that students have little understanding of the connections between the civic, the social and the political realms of citizenship. These results suggest that the current policy context does not adequately prepare young people to position themselves in the political realm.     

德育政策中的公民教育:文本分析与政策建构

公民教育是当前世界各国教育发展的基本趋势,也是我国传统德育在转型过程中不得不面对的议题。公民教育思想在当前的课程实践以及新的课程标准和教科书中都有一定的体现,但公民教育的完整概念和明确表述还没有真正进入德育政策设计的范围中。公民教育的理论研究及其实践尝试都给德育政策的设计带来了挑战,德育政策必须面对公民教育思想的冲击,在政策设计中积极建构公民教育内容。     

Slippage and/or symbolism: gender,policy and educational governance in Scotland and Sweden

This article provides an overview and analysis of the relationship between gender, educational policy, and governance in Scotland and Sweden and the two countries’ response to European Union and global legislative and policy change. In Scotland, gender is mainly invisible in recent policies on inclusion, achievement beyond academic attainment, and the idealisation of the child. Gender is thus marginalised within a range of factors contributing to social in/equality. In Sweden, in contrast, gender has higher visibility in policy and governance as both an indicator of democracy and a means of preserving social democratic consensus and prosperity. However, recently its privileged position has come under attack. We draw on social capital, gender, and policy theory to analyse the range of influences on gender and educational governance in the two countries including that of the social capital of organised feminism.