Policy actors: doing policy work in schools

TY - JOUR

T1 - Policy actors: doing policy work in schools

AU - Ball, Stephen J.

AU - Maguire, Meg

AU - Braun, Annette

AU - Hoskins, Kate

PY - 2011/10

Y1 - 2011/10

N2 - This paper considers the 'policy work' of teacher actors in schools. It focuses on the 'problem of meaning' and offers a typology of roles and positions through which teachers engage with policy and with which policies get 'enacted'. It argues that 'policy work' is made up of a set of complex and differentiated activities which involve both creative and disciplinary relations between teachers and are infused with power. This is the paradox of enactment. The teachers and other adults here are not naive actors, they are creative and sophisticated and they manage, but they are also tired and overloaded much of the time. They are engaged, coping with the meaningful and the meaningless, often self-mobilised around patterns of focus and neglect and torn between discomfort and pragmatism, but most are also very firmly embedded in the prevailing policies discourses.

AB - This paper considers the 'policy work' of teacher actors in schools. It focuses on the 'problem of meaning' and offers a typology of roles and positions through which teachers engage with policy and with which policies get 'enacted'. It argues that 'policy work' is made up of a set of complex and differentiated activities which involve both creative and disciplinary relations between teachers and are infused with power. This is the paradox of enactment. The teachers and other adults here are not naive actors, they are creative and sophisticated and they manage, but they are also tired and overloaded much of the time. They are engaged, coping with the meaningful and the meaningless, often self-mobilised around patterns of focus and neglect and torn between discomfort and pragmatism, but most are also very firmly embedded in the prevailing policies discourses.

U2 - 10.1080/01596306.2011.601565

DO - 10.1080/01596306.2011.601565

M3 - Article

VL - 32

SP - 625

EP - 639

JO - Discourse (Abingdon): studies in the cultural politics of education

JF - Discourse (Abingdon): studies in the cultural politics of education

IS - 4

ER -