This policy implementation study examines the experiences of four elementary school principals using photomethods. We employ Rancière and Merleau-Ponty’s theorizations on democracy and making sense to understand the lived policy experiences of school principals and these individual’s potential for practicing democratic politics. At its heart, implementation by local actors is a political undertaking. Our results indicate implementation is a spatially inhabited practice involving negotiation and strategy, where local actor’s experiences moderate and appropriate policy. Thus, we point out that attention to these spatially inhabited practices requires a fundamental shift in the frameworks and methodologies deployed in the investigation of policy implementation.
AnagnostopoulosD.RutledgeS. A. (2007). Making sense of school sanctioning policies in urban high schools. Teachers College Record, 109, 1261-1302.
2.
BakerB. D.CooperB. S. (2005). Do principals with stronger academic backgrounds hire better teachers? Policy implications for improving high-poverty schools. Educational Administration Quarterly, 41, 449-479.
3.
BallS.MaguireM.BraunA.HoskinsK. (2011). Policy actors: Doing policy work in schools. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 32, 625-639.
4.
BlackW. R. (2008). The contradictions of high-stakes accountability ‘success’: A casetudy of focused leadership and performance agency. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 11(1), 1-22. doi:10.1080/13603120701606964
5.
BoydW. L. (1987). Public education’s last hurrah? Schizophrenia, amnesia, and ignorance in school politics. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 9, 85-100.
6.
BoydW. L.CrowsonR. L. (1981). The changing conception and practice of public school administration. Review of Research in Education, 9, 311-373 .
7.
BrewerC. (2011). School leaders as political strategists: William Boyd’s contributions to our understanding of the politics of leadership. Peabody Journal of Education, 86, 450-463.
8.
BritzmanD. P. (1991). Practice makes practice: A critical study of learning to teach. Albany, NY: State University of New York.
9.
CarspeckenF. P. (1995). Critical ethnography in educational research: A theoretical and practical guide (critical social thought). New York, NY: Routledge.
10.
CoburnC. E. (2005). Shaping teacher sensemaking: School leaders and the enactment of reading policy. Educational Policy, 19, 476-509. doi:10.1177/0895904805276143
11.
CoburnC. E. (2006). Framing the problem of reading instruction: Using frame analysis to uncover the microprocesses of policy implementation. American Educational Research Journal, 43, 343-379.
12.
CoburnC.TalbertJ. (2006). Conceptions of evidence use in school districts: Mapping the terrain. American Journal of Education, 112, 469-495.
13.
CohenD. K.MoffitS.GoldinS. (2007). Policy and practice. In FuhrmanS. H.CohenD. K.MosherF. (Ed.), The state of education policy research (pp. 63-85). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
14.
CorbinJ.StraussA. (2007). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
15.
CrowG. M.HausmanC. S.ScribnerJ. (2002). Reshaping the role of the principal. Yearbook of the National Society of the Study of Education, 101, 189-209.
16.
DatnowA.ParkV. (2009). Conceptualizing policy implementation: Large-scale reform in an era of complexity. In SykesG.SchneiderB.PlankD. N. (Eds.), Handbook of education policy research (pp. 348-361). New York, NY: Routledge.
17.
ElmoreR. F. (1979-1980). Backward mapping: Implementation research and policy decisions. Political Science Quarterly, 94, 601-616.
18.
FirestoneW. A.ShippsD. (2005). How do leaders interpret conflicting accountabilities to improve student learning? In FirestoneW. A.RiehlC. (Eds.), A new agenda for research in educational leadership (pp. 81-100). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
19.
FullanM. (2008). What’s worth fighting for in the principalship? (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
20.
GonzalesR.FirestoneW. (2013). Educational tug-of-war: International and external accountability of principals in varied contexts. Journal of Educational Administration, 51, 383-406.
21.
GrbichC. (2007). Qualitative data analysis. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.
22.
GuilleminM.DrewS. (2010). Questions of process in participant-generated visual methodologies. Visual Studies, 25, 175-188.
23.
HarperD. (2002). Talking about pictures: A case for photo elicitation. Visual Studies, 17, 13-26. doi:10.1080/14725860220137345
24.
HillH. C. (2003). Understanding implementation: Street-level bureaucrats’ resources for reform. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 13, 265-282.
25.
HonigM. I. (Ed.). (2006). New directions in education policy implementation. Albany: State University of New York Press.
26.
HonigM. I. (2009). What works in defining “what works” in educational improvement: Lessons from education policy implementation research, directions for future research. In SykesG.SchneiderB.PlankD. N. (Eds.), Handbook of education policy research (pp. 333-347). New York, NY: Routledge.
27.
HonigM. I.HatchT. C. (2004). Crafting coherence: How schools strategically manage multiple, external demands. Educational Researcher, 33(8), 16-30.
28.
IngramH.SchneiderA. (1993). Constructing citizenship: The subtle messages of policy design. In SmithS. R.IngramH. (Eds.), Public policy for democracy (pp. 68-94). Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution.
29.
KafkaJ. (2009). The principalship in historical perspective. Peabody Journal of Education, 84, 318-330.
30.
LouisK. S.RobinsonV. (2012). External mandates and instructional leadership: School leaders as mediating agents. Journal of Educational Administration, 50, 629-665.
31.
LouisK. S. (2008). Creating and sustaining professional communities. In BlanksteinA. M.HoustonP. D.ColeR. W. (Eds.), Sustaining professional learningcommunities (pp. 41-58). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
32.
MaguireM.BallS. J.BraunA. (2013). Whatever happened to . . .? “Personalised learning” as a case of policy dissipation. Journal of Education Policy, 28, 322-338.
33.
MarksH. M.NanceJ. P. (2007). Contexts of accountability under systemic reform: Implications for principal influence on instruction and supervision. Educational Administration Quarterly, 43, 3-37. doi:10.1177/0013161X06291414
34.
MarshallC.RossmanG. B. (2011). Designing qualitative research (5th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.
35.
McDonnellL. M. (1994). Assessment policy as persuasion and regulation. American Journal of Education, 102, 394-420.
36.
McLaughlinM. W. (1987). Learning from experience: Lessons from policy implementation. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 9, 171-178.
37.
McLaughlinM. W. (1991). The rand change agent study: Ten years later. In OddenA.(Ed.), Education policy implementation (pp. 143-156). Albany, NY: StateUniversity of New York Press.
38.
Merleau-PontyM. (1968). The world of perception (DavisO., Trans.). New York, NY: Routledge.
39.
Merleau-PontyM. (2002). Phenomenology of perception. New York, NY: Routledge.
40.
MerriamS. B. (2009). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
41.
MilesM. B.HubermanA. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
42.
MischenP. A.SinclairT. A. P. (2009). Making implementation more democratic through action implementation research. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 19, 145.
43.
NormoreA. H. (2004). The edge of chaos: School administrators and accountability. Journal of Educational Administration, 42, 55-77.
44.
OddenA. (1991). The evolution of education policy implementation. In OddenA. (Ed.), Education policy implementation (pp. 1-12). Albany: State University of New York Press.
45.
OzgaJ. (1987). Studying education policy through the lives of the policy-makers: An attempt to close the macro-micro gap. In WalkerS.BartonL. (Eds.), Changing policies, changing teachers: New directions for schooling? (pp. 138-150). Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press.
RancièreJ. (1991). The ignorant schoolmaster: Five lessons in intellectual emancipation (RossK., Trans.). Sanford, CA: Sanford University Press.
49.
RancièreJ. (1999). Disagreement: Politics and philosophy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.
50.
RutledgeS. A. (2010). Contest for jurisdiction: An occupational analysis of principals’ responses to test-based accountability. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 9, 78-107. doi:10.1080/15700760902781053
51.
ShippsD. (2012). Empowered or beleaguered? Principals’ accountability under New York City’s diverse provider regime. Educational Policy Analysis Archives, 20, 1-43.
52.
ShippsD.WhiteM. (2009). A new politics of the principalship? Accountability-driven change in New York City. Peabody Journal of Education, 84, 350-373. doi:10.1080/01619560902973563
53.
SippleJ. W.KilleenK. M. (2004). Context, capacity, and concern: A district-level analysis of the implementation of standards-based reform in New York state. Educational Policy, 18, 456-490. doi:10.1177/0895904804265639
54.
SpillaneJ. P.DiamondJ. B.BurchP.HallettT.JitaL.ZoltnersJ. (2002). Managing in the middle: School leaders and the enactment of accountability policy. Educational Policy, 16, 731-762.
55.
SpillaneJ. P.HalversonR.DiamondP. (2004). Towards a theory of leadership practice: A distributed perspective. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 36, 3-34.
56.
SpillaneJ. P.HuntB. (2010). Days of their lives: A mixed-methods, descriptive analysis of the men and women at work in the principal’s office. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 42, 293-331. doi:10.1080/00220270903527623
57.
SpillaneJ. P.ReiserB. J.ReimerT. (2002). Policy implementation and cognition: Reframing and refocusing implementation research. Review of Educational Research, 72, 387-431.
58.
StokerG. (2004). Transforming local governance: From Thatcherism to New Labour. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
59.
WagnerT.KeganR.LaheyL.LemonsR.GarnierJ.HelsingD.…ArkT. (2006). Change leadership: A practical guide to transforming our schools. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
60.
WangC. C.BurrisM. A. (1997). Photovoice: Concept, methodology, and use for participatory needs assessment. Health Education & Behavior, 24, 369-387.
61.
WeickK. E. (1995). Sensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
62.
WertsA. (2012). Towards an understanding of the principal-engaged-with-policy using theories of embodiment and the senses (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Clemson University, Clemson, SC.
63.
WertsA. B.BrewerC. A.MathewsS. A. (2012). Representing embodiment and the policy implementing principal using photovoice. Journal of Educational Administration, 50, 817-844.
64.
WirtF.KirstM. (2005). Political dynamics of American education. Richmond, CA: McCutchan.
