Transcript Education Policy & Practice in HK

EDD5213
Policy Studies in Education:
Definition of the Field
TSANG Wing-kwong
Ho Tim Building, Rm 416
Ext. 6922
[email protected]
WWW.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/~wktsang
Policy: In Search of Definition
Thomas Dye’s Definition:
“Public Policy is concerned with what governments
do, why they do it, and what difference it makes. It is
about political (/social) science(s) and the ability of
this discipline to describe, analyze, and explain
public policy. Public policy is whatever government
choose to do or not to do.”
Policy: In Search of Definition
Stuart S. Negal’s Definition
“Public Policy analysis can be defined as
determining which of various alternative public or
governmental policy will most achieve a given set of
goals in light of the relations between the policies
and the goals.
Stuart S. Negal’s Definition (cont’d)
 “That definition brings out four key elements of
policy evaluation which are:
 Goals, including normative constraints and relative
weights for the goals.
 Policies, programs, projects, decisions, options, means, or
other alternatives that are available for achieving the
goals.
 Relations between the policies and the goals, including
relations that are established by intuition, authority,
statistics, observation, deduction, guesses, or other
means
 Draw a conclusion as to which policy or combination of
policies is best to adopt in light of the goals, policies, and
relations.
Policy: In Search of Definition
The Interactionist Definition
“The conscious attempt of officials, legislators,
and interested publics to find constructive
responses to the needs and pathologies which
they observe in their surrounding culture.”
(The National Academy of Education)
Policy: In Search of Definition
Aron Wildovsky’s Definition
“Policy is a process as well as a product. It is used
to refer to a process of decision-making and also the
product of that process.” (1979)
Policy: In Search of Definition
 Frank Fischer’s Definition
 “Public policy is a discursive construct rather than a
self-defining phenomenon.” (Fischer, 2003, p. 69) ”
“We define policy as a political agreement on a course
of action (or inaction) designed to resolve or mitigate
problems on the political agenda. This agreement…is
an intellectual constructs rather than a self-defining
phenomenon. Discursively constructed, there can be
no inherently unique decision, institutions, or actors
constituting public policy that are to be identified,
uncovered, and explained. Public policy, as such, is an
analytical category with a substantive content cannot
be simply researched; more fundamentally, it has to be
interpreted.” (p.60)
Policy: In Search of Definition
 Stephen J. Ball’s Definition
“Policy is clearly a matter of the ‘authoritative
allocation of values’; policies are the operational
statements of values, ‘statements of prescriptive
intent’ (Kogan 1975 p.55). But values do not float free
of their social context. We need to ask whose values
are validated in policy, and whose are not. Thus, ‘The
authoritative allocation of values draws our attention
to the centrality of power and control in the concept of
policy’ (Prunty 1985 p.135). Policies project images of
an ideal society (education policies project definitions
of what counts as education).”
Constituents of Public Policy
Decision Makers
Actors
Administrative Officials
Program administrators
Front-line service deliverers
Recipients
Stakeholders
End users
Policy Goal
Policy Means and Measures
Policy Causality and Conclusion
Constituents of Public Policy
Policy Implementation
Stick: Regulations
Carrot: Economic policy instruments
Sermon: Information, education and persuasion
Policy Outcomes, Consequences, and
Evaluation
The Prevailed Values
Policy as text
Policy as signifiers
Policy as ideological apparatus
Policy Study: Definition of the Field
Study of the Policy
Study for the Policy
Policy Study: Definition of the Field
Study of the Policy
Study of the policy content
Study of the policy process
Study of the policy outcome
Study of the authoritatively allocated values
Study of the policy discourse
Policy Study: Definition of the Field
Study for the Policy
Study for policy making
Causal analysis
Feasibility study
Cost-effectiveness analysis
Cost-benefit analysis
Cost-utility analysis
Study for policy advocacy
Study for policy criticism
Perspectives in Policy Studies in
Education
Analytical-technical perspective in policy
studies in education
Epistemological assumptions
 Empirically, realities under study are observable,
recordable, measurable and calculable
 Analytically, the phenomena under study are
dividable into causally connected parts, which in
turn form a comprehensive whole
 Methodologically, propositions under investigation
are verifiable or even repeatable similar to
laboratorial experiments in natural sciences
 Results and conclusions drawn from studies are
universally applicable to great varieties of situations
Perspectives in Policy Studies in
Education
Analytical-technical perspective in policy
studies in education (cont’d)
 Practical assumptions
 Policy makings are technical and rational choices of the
best solutions to the well identified and defined
problems
 Technical procedures of intervention can therefore be
specified and even standardized
 Policy means and measures used to intervene can
manipulated and engineered
 The policy environments to be engineered will respond
and react according to engineering designs
 Designed policy effects are recordable and calculable
neutrally and objectively as stock taking and auditing
Perspectives in Policy Studies in
Education
Analytical-technical perspective in policy
studies in education (cont’d)
 Hence, policy studies and practices are
comprehended as scientific and engineering
projects
Perspectives in Policy Studies in
Education
Interpretative-political perspective in policy
studies in education
 Epistemological assumptions
 Realities under study are socially and culturally
constructed realities rather than objectively and
naturally preexisting realities
 Phenomena under study are embedded with
socially and culturally attributed or even imputed
meanings and values
 Methodologically, policy studies are to
understand the meanings and valued embedded
in policy environments and phenomena
Perspectives in Policy Studies in
Education
Interpretative-political perspective in policy
studies in education (cont’d)
 Practical assumptions
 Policy makings are political deliberations, negotiation,
checks and balances and building consensuses of
different or even contradictory interpretations of policy
realities and phenomena
 Policy implementations are processes of (second
round) negotiation, persuasions, and team-building in
which policy mandates are specified and localized into
social, political and cultural environments which policy
measures are supposed to take holds and materialized
Perspectives in Policy Studies in
Education
Interpretative-political perspective in policy
studies in education
 Practical assumptions (cont’d)
 Responses and reactions of policy environments are
not automatic but are open to negotiations, resistances
or even deliberately alterations
 Policy evaluations are yet another round of
interpretations and negotiations on the effectiveness,
benefits, and pitfalls of the policy measures concerned
Perspectives in Policy Studies in
Education
Interpretative-political perspective in policy
studies in education (cont’d)
 Hence, policy studies and practices are political
projects of negotiations, checks and balances,
compromises and trade-offs
Perspectives in Policy Studies in
Education
Discursive-critical perspective in policy
studies in education
 Epistemological assumptions
 Realities under study are socially and culturally
constructed realities hypostatized, frozen and probably
distorted by given historical, social and political
institutions
 Phenomena under study are assumed to be powerhypostatized and institution-biased in favor and/or
against different groupings in given historical and
social contexts
 Methodologically, policy studies are to reveal and
critique the systemic distortions and biases
hypostatized and legitimatized in given policy
phenomena
Perspectives in Policy Studies in
Education
Discursive-critical perspective in policy
studies in education
 Practical assumptions
 Policy makings are processes of finding and
constituting resolutions to rectify the systemic
distortions and biases embedded in given policy
realities
 Policy implementations are coercive processes of
redistributions of resources and powers in favor of the
“suppressed” groups and against the “suppressing
groups” existing in particular policy phenomena
 Hence, policy studies and practices are critical
projects of critiques and rectifications of systemic
distortions and biases in given policy realities
Topic 2
Policy Studies in Education:
Definition of the Field
End