Using Butler to understand the multiplicity and variability of policy reception

Understanding how teachers make sense of education policy is important. We argue that an exploration of teacher reactions to policy requires an engagement with theory focused on the formation of ‘the subject’ since this form of theorisation addresses the creation of a seemingly coherent identity and attitude while acknowledging variation across different places and people. In this paper, we propose the utility of Butlerian ideas because of the focus on subjectivity that her work entails and the account she gives for social norms regulating people’s actions and attitudes. We use Butler’s stance on how ‘cultural intelligibility’ is formed to account for the complex, messy and sometimes contradictory ‘take up’ of curriculum policy by 10 teachers at a secondary school case study in Queensland, Australia. We use the phrase ‘policy reception’ to signify a particular theoretical line of thought we are forming with our application of Butlerian theory to the analysis of teacher attitudes toward curriculum policy, and to distinguish it from ‘policy interpretation’, ‘policy translation’ and ‘policy enactment’.

Policy, practice and purpose in the field of education : a critical review

This paper provides a critical review of papers in this special issue on Bourdieu and practice. What is different about this collection is that, in analysing policy and practice through a Bourdieusian lens, the thinking tools of field, disposition (collective and individual), logics of practice and doxa have been mobilised with regard to the social practices of educational policy - its production, circulation and reception. First, these papers illustrate how, as a field, education has its own language, boundaries and power relations informed by particular modes of distinction and legitimation around different forms of capital formation, thus providing explanations for both social mobility and social stratification. Second, this collection foregrounds 'policy as practice' in terms of the social practices involved in the production of policy, the practices involved with the articulation and vernacularisation of policy through the processes of its reception, as well as the intent and effects of policy changing practice. Third, in focusing on specific policy problematics in higher education and schools, teacher professional development, leadership and educational reform, these contributions illustrate multiple methodological approaches as to how Bourdieu's thinking tools can be used to theorise educational policy, change, practice and effects. The value of Bourdieu's work lies on getting past the impasses between divisions between material and cultural analyses, between the materialist and linguistic focus, by talking about social practices, what people are doing, how they are thinking and how they are acting.

The dynamic interplay of news media and bilingual education policy in Australia's Northern Territory 1988-2008

his study investigates the dynamic interplay between news media and the Northern Territory’s policy of bilingual education for indigenous children living in some remote communities. It provides evidence to support the argument that the media-related practices of a range of policy actors resulted in policy processes being shaped to a significant degree by ‘media logic’. The research is based on depth interviews and uses the spoken words of participants to gain access to the local experiences and perspectives of those invested in developing, influencing and communicating the bilingual education policy. Through the analysis of more than 20 interviews with journalists, public servants, academics, and politicians as well as indigenous and non-indigenous bilingual education advocates, I have identified a range of media-related practices that have enabled policy actors to penetrate the policy debate, define problems for policymaking and public discussion through the news media, and thereby exert particular forms of influence in the policy process. The study also provides a ‘southern theory’ analysis of the Yolngu public sphere and a Bourdesian understanding of the journalism sub-field of indigenous reporting in the Northern Territory. It shows that issues of physical and cultural remoteness and the need for journalists to develop cultural competence are the hallmarks of this reporting specialization. It also identifies marked differences in journalists’ relationships with government, academic and indigenous sources and how these differences play out in the way participants understand the production and reception of media texts. This research makes an innovative contribution to Australian Journalism Studies by demonstrating how indigenous epistemologies and knowledges offer fresh perspectives and insights about news media and indigeneity that can be brought into balance with northern theories to build what Connell (2007) has called ‘southern theory’. This dovetails with another key outcome, which is the development of an academic form of journalism that serves indigenous peoples’ self-determinist aims for scholarly research, based in indigenous perspectives and research methodologies.

Nordic policy lessons for Australia

This report considers public debate on Scandinavian and Finnish policy ideas of possible relevance to Australia since the publication in November 2014 by an Australian university press of Andrew Scott’s book Northern Lights: The Positive Policy Example of Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway. Two years on from the book’s publication, the report considers the varying reception in Australia of propositions advanced in Northern Lights for: expansion of public early childhood education and care and extension of paid parental leave, as well as properly enshrining children’s rights and other actions to reduce child poverty and improve children’s wellbeing (learning from Sweden); more equitable schools funding, better valuing of a quality teaching profession and more effective provision of vocational education in schools (learning from Finland); enhancement of support and skills retraining for mature-age workers displaced by job losses (learning from Denmark); and increasing revenue including through greater taxation and regulation of natural resource wealth (learning from Norway). The report then considers the main priority areas of Nordic achievement nominated by policy actors for additional consideration for Australia to now learn from. These are: better, healthier and more natural urban design, together with more balanced regional development; better workplace design – specifically the importance of taking into account aesthetics, ergonomics and nature in people’s workplace environments; and greater emphasis on both the prevention of crime and the rehabilitation of persons convicted of crimes. Sweden and Norway’s continuing leadership in the provision of quality foreign aid and other foreign policy initiatives such as Sweden's current “feminist foreign policy” are also discussed. Objections raised to the book’s premises, including to the possibility of policy transfer to Australia from nations presumed to be less multicultural, are evaluated.