Policy Research in Educational Settings : Contested Terrain

by Ozga, Jenny

• ISBN13: 9780335202959
• ISBN10: 0335202950
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-11-01
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill

Summary

This book argues for independent, critical research on education policy in the context of attacks on the quality and usefulness of educational research in general. It takes issue with the argument, promoted bygovernment departments and agencies that education policy research should be limited to work that assists policy-makers. Against this position, the book advocates independent, critical research that scrutinizes policy in relation to its consequences for equality and social justice. It argues that practitioners and academic researchers should form a research community that develops its own knowledge base from which so-called evidence based policymaking in education may be assessed and challenged. The book offers guidance on the theoretical and methodological resources available to practitioners and others with an interest in doing research on policy and discusses some of the main issues and problems in doing policy research on education. It offers examples of research on policy at different system levels, pursuing themes such as globalization, changing governance of education, selection, choice and exclusion, managerialism and the feminisation of educational management. It argues for attention to the history of policy in education as a resource for understanding the present, and concludes with recommendations for future research in areas where contestation of official agendas is needed.

Author Biography

Jenny Ozga is Professor of Education Policy at Keele University.

Table of Contents

Series editor's preface	ix
Acknowledgements	xiv
Researching education policy: some arguments	1	(12)
Introduction: policy research as contestation	1	(4)
Arguments for policy research in education	5	(3)
The purposes of education	8	(2)
Policy for teachers: direct and indirect rule	10	(3)
Teachers as a policy case	13	(25)
Policy stories about teachers	13	(1)
Professionalism as control	14	(4)
Reasserting control	18	(2)
The current state of policy for teachers	20	(5)
Professional work and flexibility	25	(1)
Teachers and research	26	(3)
Redefining education research: key policy texts	29	(9)
Theory, values and policy research in education	38	(18)
Defining policy: projects in the study of education policy	38	(4)
Theory and its uses	42	(2)
Values in policy research	44	(2)
Critical theory and social justice	46	(3)
The principle of choice	49	(1)
Dealing with complexity	50	(6)
The context of policy research	56	(12)
New policy formations	56	(1)
Post-Fordist pedagogy	57	(2)
Market principles	59	(1)
Markets and social justice	60	(2)
Controversial research on markets in education	62	(6)
Resources for policy research	68	(46)
The impact of the policy context on research work in education policy	68	(1)
Research as labour process	69	(2)
The researcher as entrepreneur	71	(3)
The field as a war zone	74	(2)
Policy-controlled and self-controlled research	76	(5)
Some methodological resources	81	(1)
Linking theory and methodology	82	(1)
Feminist research on policy	83	(2)
Using women to manage the unmanageable: is this policy?	85	(5)
Methodological controversies	90	(4)
Another example of theory-led research: textual analysis	94	(1)
Policy texts and social exclusion/inclusion	95	(12)
Exclusion and inclusion: some further investigations	107	(3)
Researching policy in process	110	(4)
History and education policy research	114	(15)
The importance of historical context	114	(3)
History as progress	117	(1)
An example: the 1944 Education Act	118	(3)
Elites in policy	121	(4)
Interviewing policy makers	125	(4)
Conclusions: contesting the future?	129	(3)
References	132	(8)
Index	140