Media/ting change: the print media's role in mediating education policy in a period of radical reform in Victoria, Australia

This paper draws upon critical discourse analysis, cultural studies and communication theory, studies on media and educational reform, and the work of Bernstein, Bourdieu and Luhmann in particular, to explore how the print and media 'mediated' a period of educational change marked by moves to self-management in schools in Victoria, Australia. It considers how the media was mobilized by various education stakeholders, and in turn informed relations between schools and government, through policy discourses and texts. It considers why and how particular themes became media 'issues', how schools and teachers responded to these issues, and how the media was used by various stakeholders in education to shape policy debates. It is based on a year-long qualitative study that explored critical incidents and representations about education in the print media over a year in the daily press. It illustrates the ways in which a neo-liberal Victorian government mobilized the media to gain strategic advantage to promote radical education reform policies, considers the media effects of this media/tion process on schools and teachers, and conceptualizes how school and system performance is fed from and into media representations, public perceptions and community understandings of schools and teachers' work.

On-track to what? Foucauldian analysis of Victorian post-compulsory education policy

Current ideas of adolescent development portray a slow steady movement toward adulthood. These notions developed hand in hand with social practices that evolved in the latter half of the 19th century and contemporaneously with modernisation. During this period conceptions of adolescence included longer stays in school, organised leisure activities, juvenile justice policies and the protection of youth from child labour. Lesko (2001) works from a position that the modern age is defined by time, an understanding that events and change are meaningful in their occurrence in and through time. She examines adolescence as partaking of panoptical time which is condensed and commodified; a time framework that compels us - scholars, educators, parents, and teenagers - to attend to progress, precocity, arrest, or decline" (2001 p.41). Panoptical time can be used to explore how ideas of what is 'normal' development can be used to privilege particular ways of being an adolescent, to monitor who is deemed to be 'at risk' of not conforming to that model and to govern their behaviour. A Foucauldian analysis suggests the formation of 'at risk' identities reflects historically specific discourses. An understanding of how these and other discursive constructions are formed opens the way for resistance. This presentation explores the recent implementation of On-Track and On-Track Connect within Victorian government policy and explores the experience of a Local Learning and Employment Network in implementing the policy.

Global education policy directives : impact on teachers from the north and south

Education policies from international organisations such as the World Bank and OECD are restructuring education to promote a utilitarian vision of education. By examining the experiences and opinions of teachers from countries representing north-south global regions, it is possible to identify the social and political implications of education reform as it impacts on teachers as not only practitioners, but also as social and political agents. As global communities are more inexorably linked through global, macro policies, an outcome of this trend is a growing political and social divide between the global north and south. The paper aims to identify and discuss the significant concerns of teachers from the global north and south in relation to education reform.

Reconceptualising access in education policy : method and mindset

Enhancing access to education and knowledge is a long-held principle enshrined in education policy. Access to education offers leverage for educational attainment and achievement, at the individual and social levels. In policy, the term equates with concepts of inclusion, social justice and equity. Over the last decades, as education policy has responded to global social, cultural and economic reforms, concepts such as access have also undergone revision. This article revisits the relationship between access, education and knowledgemaking, in order to clarify the meaning of access in current education policies by reevaluating how access is constructed in policy and how the concept associates with other aspects of education. The research examines the concept of access in order to improve the efficacy of policy, opening the way for more systematic and transparent policy analysis and policy making centred on defining and delineating conceptual meanings such as access, as a basis for more targeted policy. Using evidence-based policy research, the article proposes a research process model based on the hierarchy of abstraction, to show that education policy requires systematic examination of key concepts as a fundamental step towards more clearly defined policy postulates that recognise and deal with contextual complexity of education policy. Defining and delineating the meaning of concepts such as access can help in the way that education policy contributes to guiding innovative knowledge construction.

The sociology of Pierre Bourdieu and researching education policy

Bourdieu did not write anything explicitly about education policy. Despite this neglect, we agree with van Zanten that his theoretical concepts and methodological approaches can contribute to researching and understanding educational policy in the context of globalisation and the economising of it. In applying Bourdieu's theory and methodology to research in education policy, we focus on developing his work to understand what we call 'cross-field effects' and for exploring the emergence of a 'global education policy field'. These concepts are derived from some of our recent research concerning globalisation and mediatisation of education policy. The paper considers three separate issues. The first deals with Bourdieu' s primary 'thinking tools', namely practice, habitus,capitals and fields and their application to policy studies. The second and third sections consider two additions to Bourdieu's thinking tools, as a way to reconceptualise the functioning of policy if considered as a social field. More specifically, the second section develops an argument around cross-field effects, as a way to group together, research and describe policy effects. The third section develops an argument about an emergent global education policy field, and considers ways that such a field affects national education policy fields.

New scalar politics : implications for education policy

This paper argues that globalisation has implications for research and theory in the social sciences, demanding that the social no longer be seen as homologous with nation, but also linked to postnational or global fields. This situation has theoretical and methodological implications for comparative education specifically focused on education policy, which traditionally has taken the nation-state as the unit of analysis, and also worked with 'methodological nationalism'. The paper argues that globalisation has witnessed a rescaling of educational politics and policymaking and relocated some political authority to an emergent global education policy field, with implications for the functioning of national political authority and national education policy fields. This rescaling and this reworking of political authority are illustrated through two cases: the first is concerned with the impact of a globalised policy discourse of the ‘knowledge economy’ proselytised by the OECD and its impact in Australian policy developments; the second is concerned explicitly with the constitution of a global education policy field as a commensurate space of equivalence, as evidenced in the OECD’s PISA and educational indicators work and their increasing global coverage. The paper indicatively utilises Bourdieu’s ‘thinking tools’ to understand the emergent global education policy field and suggest these are very useful for doing comparative education policy analysis.

Social justice in Australian higher education policy : an historical and conceptual account of student participation

This article provides a synoptic account of historically changing conceptions and practices of social justice in Australian higher education policy. It maps the changes in this policy arena, beginning with the period following the Second World War and concluding with an analysis of the most recent policy proposals of the Bradley Review. Concurrently, it explores the different meanings ascribed to social justice, equity and social inclusion over this time span and what these have meant and will mean for students, particularly those from low socio-economic backgrounds. It concludes that a relational understanding of social justice – ‘recognitive justice’ – is yet to inform student equity policy in higher education, although this is now what is required in the context of the planned shift from mass to universal participation.

Classroom teacher effectiveness research and inquiry, and its relevance to the development of public education policy: an Australian context

This paper has as its focus an analysis of the question and problem of classroom teacher effectiveness research and inquiry. It presents an examination of what counts as valid and worthwhile research in classroom teacher effectiveness studies for the development of education policy within an Australian context, the State of Victoria. The Government’s Blueprint, the major education policy document of the Victorian State Labour Government, outlines its educational approach. Important and core features of government direction for education policy include a focus on social and economic disadvantage. A priority for the Victorian State Labour Government is tangible and measurable improvement in the performance of the public education system. A particular concern is the problem of academic underperformance within public schools, particularly those designated as low-performing and situated in socially and economically disadvantaged communities. Building the capacity of the State’s teacher workforce forms a key component of the Blueprint, and State Government direction in public education. The paper utilises a qualitative theoretical framework. Eight education policy actor/participants were interviewed and their responses analysed using a critical discourse approach. The main findings indicate that education policy actors advocate a strong belief in particular forms of evidence-based research for the development of education policy in the area of classroom teacher effectiveness.