Educational Policy: Analysis,Action,and Advocacy Across Contexts

Abstract

This article is the introduction to a special issue of Educational Policy titled, “Educational Policy: Analysis, Action, and Advocacy Across Contexts.” The special issue presents contemporary education policy analyses from the United States, Canada, and Australia, which collectively represent methodological, contextual, and theoretical diversity. Individually, they offer detailed examinations of education policy processes and outcomes with a common focus on equity. The articles represent a spectrum of approaches to analysing education policymaking and enactment and point out various ways that educators, scholars, policymakers, and activists can take action. In this article, the co-editors identify key themes that distinguish the special issue’s contribution and explain the importance of education policy analysis that informs future advocacy toward more equitable policy processes and outcomes across contexts.

This special issue presents contemporary critical policy analyses (Diem et al., 2014) that collectively represent methodological, contextual, and theoretical diversity. Individually, they offer incisive critiques of localized policy processes and outcomes that shape the way equity, and indeed inequity, are manifest and shaped by policymaking and leadership practice (Diem & Young, 2015). Moreover, they examine ways in which local actors have interpreted and implemented education policy and practiced advocacy, activism and change from within systems to effect change toward social justice (Jean-Marie et al., 2009). Taken as a whole, the papers in this special issue represent a spectrum of approaches to understanding equity and influence in education and point out various ways that educators, scholars, policy makers, and activists can engage with systems to leverage change. The authors invite readers to consider the empirical and theoretical robustness of the studies and to take forward practical lessons about the potential for policy analysis, action, and advocacy to drive change toward more equitable processes and outcomes in schools and school systems.

The papers in this special issue deal with contemporary manifestations of longstanding educational policy topics: leadership (Brooks & Normore, 2017), funding (Kenway et al., 2024; Perry, 2024; Sinclair, in-press), racism (Irby, 2022), gender (Hogan & Barnes, 2024), technology (McLeod, 2021), activism and counter-activist efforts (Diem et al., 2022). Yet as we write this in 2024, many new challenges are looming on the horizon: political instability (Ozga & Lingard, 2007), artificial intelligence (Holmes et al., 2022; Rousell & Sinclair, 2024), environmental and sustainability (Aikens & McKenzie, 2021), multilinguistic dynamics (Hornberger, 2010), and First Nations issues (Carr-Stewart & Steeves, 2009), to name a few. To clarify, it is not so much that these topics are “new” in the sense that they are novel, but rather that they are under-researched as topics in education policy literatures. As such, it is important for critical policy analyses to evolve over the coming decades—theoretically, methodologically, and practically—as something that can offer both incisive and insightful critique and suggest courses of action for equity-minded education practitioners and scholars. The papers in this special issue are at the leading edge of work in this area, and while we commend them for this, we also challenge these authors, and others in the field, to create even more robust approaches and ask difficult and ambitious questions in the coming era.

Overview of Special Issue

This special issue presents contemporary education policy analysis research from the northern and southern hemispheres. Drawing on papers from the United States, Canada, and Australia, the collection provides insights for understanding why inequity continues to plague diverse education systems and the actions and strategies that can be employed to begin to make a difference now and into the future (Theoharis, 2024). While each of the seven articles employs education policy analysis as a way to investigate equity issues in education policy, individually, they offer in situ critiques of local, state, and national education policies that shape the way equity, and indeed inequity, are addressed (or not). As a whole, the special issue presents a catalog of approaches to researching (in)equity in education policy and shares various ways that educators, scholars, policymakers, and activists can understand, engage with, and influence education policy processes.

In the first article of the special issue, A Path Towards Racial Justice in Education: Anti-Racist Policy Decision Making in School Districts, Sarah Diem, Deonte Iverson, Anjalé D. Welton, and Sarah W. Foster Walters remind us that while the U.S. education system remains a battleground for racial equity, efforts to improve it often fall short due to entrenched norms of whiteness and white supremacy. The authors argue anti-racist educational leaders and practitioners are required to address these inequities, and that the use of an antiracist decision-making protocol can help create racially more just policies and environments. Despite challenges, the study demonstrates that empowering school-level leaders to reshape policies based on their realities is crucial for advancing social justice and combating systemic racism.

The second article, Rezoning educational opportunities: The relationship between school attendance zone boundary changes and access to schools of varying quality, Sarah Asson argues that U.S. public schools offer varying educational opportunities, which are heavily influenced by attendance zone boundaries (AZBs). This study examines the impact of AZB changes in the Washington, D.C. area from 2000 to 2020, revealing that rezoning is disproportionately detrimental to Black and Hispanic children by increasing their travel times and limiting access to educational opportunities. The findings underscore the necessity for educational leaders to consider the equity implications of AZB changes.

The special issue’s third article, Hot Leadership, Cool Leadership: How Education Policies are Implemented (and Ignored) in Schools, Jeffrey and Melanie Brooks present a new framework for understanding the relationship between principal leadership and education policy implementation. The authors draw from a qualitative study in the Philippines, where they found that school-level policy interpretation and implementation are influenced by intrinsic and extrinsic dynamics shaped by individual, school, and community contexts. These localized factors, they argue, led principals to selectively ignore, monitor, or faithfully implement education policies.

In the fourth article, Not “Citizens in Waiting”: Student Counter-Narratives of Anti-Equity Campaignst, Kimberly Bridges, Andrene J. Castro, Kevin Clay, April Hewko, and Genevieve Siegel-Hawley show how efforts against race-related diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives have sparked localized public pushback. Addressing what they see as a limited focus on youth perspectives on these issues, the authors analyzed 224 student newspaper articles from Carmel, Indiana, and Loudoun County, Virginia, and highlight youths’ roles as engaged policy actors, demonstrating their political engagement and action in local equity reform debates. The authors also make recommendations for school leaders and policymakers to improve youth voice and engagement in education governance.

In article five, E-Learning for the Public Good? The Policy Trajectory of Online Education in Ontario, Canada, Beyhan Farhadi and Sue Winton examine e-learning policy in Ontario, Canada from 2006 to 2022. The authors highlight the influence of neoliberal discourses on personalization, access, and choice in relation to e-learning policy across three policy settlements. They go onto argue that e-learning in Ontario is centralized and standardized, contradicting government claims of personalization and customization. Additionally, the study underscores how online and in-person schooling are intertwined with social processes that perpetuate inequality, including gendered and racialized poverty.

The author of article six, Associations between Administrative Burden and Children’s ECE Stability During the Covid-19 Pandemic, Karen Babbs Hollett argues that participation in quality early care and education (ECE) leads to positive outcomes for children, while instability in ECE participation can result in negative academic and social impacts. In her study, she shows how the Covid-19 pandemic led to the closure of many early care and education (ECE) facilities. For the child care centers that obtained waivers to remain open, Hollett found that Black children were less likely than White children to be enrolled. The author concludes that racial disparities in ECE stability were linked to the more burdensome waiver application processes in communities where Black children reside.

Closing out the special issue, is the seventh article, School Funding and Equity in Australia: Critical Moments in the Context of Text Production Phase of the Education Policy Cycle, Matthew P. Sinclair and Jeffrey S. Brooks point out that few studies have focused on identifying and interrogating the key moments that shape an education policy’s equity trajectory. Using Bowe et al.’s (2017) policy cycle framework, our article examines the Context of Text Production phase in the 2011 Review of Funding for Schooling in Australia. We identify two “critical moments” that significantly influenced the panel’s approach to equity, which we argue offer valuable insights for researchers and stakeholders aiming to understand or impact education policy outcomes.

Conclusion

The diversity of approaches and findings in this special issue indicate that inequity persists across contexts and education systems, despite rhetoric, policy, and practice that avows equality as a goal. Collectively considered, the articles in this special issue lay bare entrenched and institutionalized forms of inequity that form a hegemony of disparity that marks many education systems. While the critiques offered in these articles are persuasive in an academic sense, it is incumbent on policy makers and advocates for education equity to use their voice and agency to effect change. Critical policy analyses are an important step toward improved equity of access and improved outcomes, but a necessary next step is for people to demand change at local, national, and global levels.