Understanding Education Policy: The 'Four Education Orientations' Framework

Abstract

Education policy analysis often reveals the orientation of the policies under investigation. This is particularly true in approaches such as discourse analysis and genealogy. However, the orientation of the policy is often reflected on quite briefly, within the results section of reports. Terms such as 'conservative' and 'neo-liberal' are dropped into discussion sections without adequate definition; without earlier establishment of an appropriate conceptual framing; and with the assumption that their application to education policy is self-evident or common knowledge. Rigour and reproducibility become questionable when one policy is thus described as 'liberal', 'neo-liberal' or 'conservative' in alternate analyses. Introducing education policy theory, this SpringerBrief provides education researchers with an overarching framework for the 'four key orientations to education policy' that lie beneath much policy analysis (yet are rarely used directly, with accuracy or in much detail): conservative, liberal, critical and post-modern. It details their application to policy making, implementation and impact. It reflects on their use in analysis of a range of policy types. It argues the value of analysing a policy's orientation(s) by explicitly using a common education orientations framing, to improve clarity of analysis, reporting and discussion and allow broader paradigmatic, discursive and other taxonomic trends across the education policy field to emerge.