Abstract
Although there are reasons to believe that policies emphasising testing, accountability, assessments, evaluation and inspections have unintended and undesirable consequences for teaching practice, such reforms continue to be widely used in many countries in order to meet challenges in their educational systems. However, it is difficult to critically discuss how these types of policies relate to teaching practice without either losing societal, critical perspectives, or circumscribing teachers' agency in analysis. This article addresses that challenge by setting out a conceptual framework, aimed at contributing to an understanding of how these types of policies relate to teaching practice. Inspired by French philosopher Paul Ricœur, a critical hermeneutical approach is suggested. It is argued that his discussion of the concept of practical reason can be used to depict teaching as existing in a field of tension between the regulatory and reflective dimensions of the practice. Further, it is argued that critical hermeneutics can frame a study of teaching, understood as practical reasoning, and provide a critique that is grounded in a discussion on how the mechanisms and assumptions behind (for example neoliberal) policy are mirrored in practice, without losing sight of either the agency of teachers or a societal perspective on teaching.
Introduction
Reform processes that aim at restructuring educational systems and the teaching profession have been a recurrent worldwide feature in politics over the last few decades (Lindblad and Goodson, 2011; Peters, 2012). Often, these processes have been focused on tools of operation that aim at the outcome of teaching, such as national education standards (Hopmann, 2008; Maisuria, 2005), high-stake testing (Hursh, 2004; Supovitz, 2009), accountability regimes (Allodi, 2013; Müller and Hernández, 2009), assessments (Mutch, 2012) or evaluations (Vedung, 2010). Although these policies are diverse and differ between countries, they often seem to embody political ambitions to regulate teaching towards predetermined targets, aims and criteria (Hopmann, 2007). Much research has shown that these types of reforms certainly regulate and have an impact on teaching, often with disturbing consequences that are in conflict with the reforms’ (rhetorical) intentions. Harlen and Deakin Crick (2002, 2003), for example, show how high-stake tests become a benchmark for teaching, and the Cambridge Primary Review (Alexander, 2010) concluded that tests tend to predominate over other (formative) forms of assessment in England. Similarly, Tanner (2013) and Valenzuela (2005) both describe how the US No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top reforms reduced pupils to test scores and were followed by an educational environment where teachers increasingly ‘teach to the test’.
However, conducting critical studies of how policy changes relate to teaching practices is challenging. Apple (2011) identifies a lack of connection with the realities of schools and classrooms in educational critical studies, calling for a more thorough connection to the everyday life of (for example) educators and pupils. One of the problems in linking policy changes and teachers' practice is that, although interdependent, they are often considered on different and separate epistemological levels. Hence, there is always a risk that teachers are depicted as passive implementers under the weight of ideology, or that analysis is conducted so close to teachers' practice that it prevents critique of ideology. Since teachers hold a central position for how policies actually affect teaching (Lipsky, 1980), handling these risks in studies of policy changes is indeed a delicate but necessary act of balance. In a way, teachers are situated between political ambitions and their everyday activities in classrooms, and thus mediate between structural processes and local practices within the educational system. This mediating position appears to be crucial for an understanding and critical discussion of how policy reforms relate to teaching practice.
This article will focus on and discuss a conceptual framework that addresses this act of balance, not by solving its tensions, but by placing them at the centre of analysis. Its aim is to frame the mediating position that teachers hold between policy and practice in order to identify a knowledge object that is particularly suitable for studies on what teaching entails under increased influence of assessments, testing, standards, evaluations, accountability, etc. It is built upon and inspired by the French philosopher Paul Ricœur's (2007a, 2007c) discussions on a critical hermeneutics and on the concept of practical reason.
The outline of the article is as follows. Firstly, a field of tension is defined, in which teaching is described as an activity situated between the regulatory and reflective dimensions of the practice. Trends in educational policy changes, which are likely to influence this field of tension, are also identified. Thereafter, a conceptual framework is set out, in which Ricœur's critical hermeneutics and his discussion on practical reason is presented as a productive approach that clarifies this field of tension.
Practice in a field of tensions
Discussions on education embody ideas, perceptions, ideals, etc., of what teaching practice is, or perhaps more accurately, what teaching ought to be. As suggested above, a starting point for this article is that teachers act in a field of tension between, on one hand, such external, often highly politicised, values, and on the other hand the complex, changeable, relational and situational nature of classroom teaching. This field of tension permeates most discussions on what teaching is or ought to be. Three brief and by no means exhaustive examples can illustrate how the field is manifested on different levels that all relate to teaching practice:
On a curriculum level, the field of tension can be conceptualised in relation to different educational traditions. For example, a perspective on teaching with greater emphasis on predetermined educational outcomes is associated with the Anglo-Saxon curriculum tradition, relating the aims of teaching to the pupil's mastering of curricular content or skills. From such a perspective, a curriculum can be understood as a rational managerial framework, in which teachers are seen primarily as implementers who organise teaching in order to achieve predetermined objectives. However, another educational tradition, with largely opposing comprehensions of teaching, can be illustrated by the European continental-oriented didactic tradition. Here, the aims are rather related to a process of bildung 1 where content is separated from, and viewed as a tool for unfolding, pupils' individual meanings. Hence, rather than managing teaching, the curriculum allows teachers to interpret content, directed by the aim of bildung (Hopmann, 2007; Pantić and Wubbels, 2012) (for a longer discussion, see also Gundem and Hopmann, 1998).
On a scientific level, different perspectives on the aims, designs and utilisations of educational research lean towards different ways to comprehend teaching practice. Most commonly, the increasing emphasis on evidence-based practices in educational policy (Thomas and Pring, 2004) involves a hierarchical relation between research (often mediated through meta-analysis or systematic reviews) and teaching practices, where the latter is to be directed by ‘best practices’ (Slavin, 2004, 2008); other (less common) perspectives embrace more pluralistic and ambiguous approaches to evidence in order to mirror the context dependency and complexity of teaching practice (Bulterman-Bos, 2008; Oliver, 2005) (for a longer discussion, see also Levinsson, 2013; Traianou and Hammersley, 2008).
On a practical level, Carr and Kemmis (2004, 2005), in their influential work on action research, distinguish between a technical perspective on teaching that views it as a set of resources to achieve specific goals and a practical perspective that views teaching as an unpredictable, social and complex process. While the former, they state, can be reassuring in the sense that educational challenges appear to be relatively simple and resolvable, the latter denotes that ‘the events of school and classroom life will always have an open, undetermined character’ (Carr and Kemmis, 2004: 36).
The exposition presented here is excessively dichotomous in order to abstract certain features of the field of tension under discussion here. Besides existing on different levels (curriculum, research, practice), the above illustrates how two different positions that cut across these levels can be identified in how to apprehend teaching practice. One of these positions basically regards teaching as an act of technical implementation, based on the idea that, in short, there are specific and identifiable ways to teach in order to reach predetermined goals and increase effectiveness in terms of assessable outcomes. The second position regards teaching as a practical activity, based on ideas of its unpredictability, subjectivity and deep roots in, and dependence on, context (to put it briefly). Although these different apprehensions of teaching are sometimes pitted against each other (not least as illustrated in the three examples above), they will be used here as two dimensions of teaching that are always present and encountered in practice: on the one hand, what will here be called the regulatory dimensions of teaching, which are oriented towards the school as an institution, embodying conceptions of what education ought to be, articulated, for example, in a curriculum, research or political conceptions about practice; and on the other hand, what will here be called the reflective dimensions of teaching, which relate to teachers' complex everyday work with pupils (cf. McNess et al., 2003; Osborn, 2006). Of course, these dimensions do not exclude one another, but (contrary to the dichotomous disposition above and the polemic discussions that often arise on the subject of education) they probably overlap and coexist in practice. However, they do express how teaching practice embodies different and partly conflicting dimensions that need to be managed by teachers. While the regulatory dimensions are derived from more general political conceptions about school, the reflective dimensions are derived from the situational and relational characteristics of practice.
Policy changes
Although political conceptions about teaching relate to practice, the political ambition to control practice can be more or less explicit. Underpinned by neoliberal ideology, coupled with widespread criticisms of inefficiency, reforms have been implemented worldwide that involve decentralisation and corporate-style control of public services (Peters, 2012). These entail that public activities are to be governed by central regulations to a lesser degree, while autonomy, marketisation and public choice are to be emphasised (Tolofari, 2005). However, such a decentralised and deregulated system has also resulted in an increased need for accountability, transparency and control of outcomes. Quite often, the results of this are educational strategies that focus on monitoring the achievements of pupils and schools (Chisholm and Wildeman, 2013), an example of what Barber et al. (2011) call policies of deliverology. According to Schwandt (2005), the influence of these developments on practices such as teaching has been immense, not least in how the emphasis on assessment outcomes restructure the means and ends of teaching. For example, Leaton Gray (2007) has shown how teaching practice in England has become more of a technically standardised activity, less related to individual needs of pupils, as a result of inspections and national testing.
Hence, there is much to suggest that these developments involve a rather indirect control through the outcome of teaching that may derive from the introduction of New Public Management reforms in many countries (Apple, 2004). One way to frame and understand such a development in teaching is to depict it as a strengthening of its regulatory dimensions. However, the reflective dimensions of teaching will still remain. Certainly, teachers will continue to interact with pupils in dynamic classrooms under unpredictable circumstances, although under partially different conditions. In order to understand how these processes shape teaching, a conceptual framework needs to be constructed that captures how teachers mediate between these dimensions under the new conditions. In such a framework, the two dimensions should be viewed as interactive and mutually influenced by one another rather than as isolated phenomena. This seems to be crucial not only for an understanding of teaching in times of increased regulation, but also for a nuanced but critical understanding of these developments in themselves.
A conceptual framework
Hermeneutics is an elusive theoretical orientation that, in its broadest sense, is concerned with interpretation and understanding, including such diverse thinkers as Heidegger, Gadamer and Ricœur. However, the following discussion on a conceptual framework will not be grounded on a historical representation of hermeneutics, but will instead focus on critical hermeneutics, as discussed by Ricœur. This does not necessarily mean that the work of Ricœur stands above the work of other hermeneutical thinkers. Indeed, Ricœur's philosophical method implies that his work is built upon the work of others. What it does mean though is that a critical hermeneutical approach can provide a process of interpretation that neither regards teachers as anonymous cogs in the educational system nor considers them to be completely autonomous. Rather, the objective for a critical hermeneutical study would be to look upon teaching as characterised by both. The aim of such a process of interpretation is thus not merely to gain an understanding of teachers' actions, nor to provide an explanation grounded in external factors (such as policy), but to find a dialectic process of interpretation that relates to both the regulatory and reflective dimensions of practice.
The main argument for using Ricœur's philosophy here is that he rejected a separation between seemingly contradictory concepts in analysis, for example structure and agent, objectivity and subjectivity or universalism and particularism. Instead, he elaborated a dialectic view on human existence that partly corresponds with the different dimensions of teaching practice, as described above. This is clearly stated in one of his early works, where he identifies two different views on humanity that often are considered to be mutually exclusive: humans as objectively regulated by law and humans as reflecting subjects who desire agency over their own existence. Although different and conflicting, Ricœur saw these views as complementary dimensions of human existence, which give rise to a perpetual struggle. Hence, they need to be related rather than separated in the social sciences (Ricœur, 1981b, 2007b).
Teaching understood as practical reasoning
In order to make it possible to perform a critical hermeneutic study on teaching, framed within a field of tension between regulatory and reflective dimensions, teaching will here be considered as a form of practical reasoning. In general terms, Wallace states that practical reason refers to ‘the general human capacity for resolving, through reflection, the question of what one is to do’ (2014), and that the concept is used in discussions about the possibility of understanding humans’ decisions to act. Thus, in an educational setting, practical reason concerns how teachers weigh, assess and consider different alternatives and reasons for teaching. Here, the works of Ricœur (2007c) will be used to emphasise a mediating position of practical reason in a way that also permits an aspect of agency (and thus critique) among teachers. The idea here is that by depicting teaching as a knowledge object in terms of practical reason, the field of tension between the regulatory and reflective dimensions can be illuminated, thereby also illuminating an essential aspect of what teaching entails, in situations where the regulatory dimensions of practice are strengthened.
Although permeating many of Ricœur's writings, the dialectic view of existence is particularly explicit in his discussion on the concept of practical reason (Ricœur, 2007c). In accordance with his assumption that human existence is characterised by a struggle between objective regulation and subjective reflection, Ricœur (2007c) claimed that practical reason mediates between individual intentions and societal demands on action. Action can thus be seen as an individual undertaking, a desire to achieve something motivated by one's own intentions, but can also be seen as regulated by and given meaning through norms and rules, that is, a sociological rather than individual or psychological aspect of action. Action is hence dependent on cultural symbols and values, both formal ones articulated within institutions and informal acts of conduct.
The function of practical reason, according to Ricœur (2007c), is that of an arbitrator and judge, which establishes a mean between the individual and societal aspects of action. This, he continues, is possible because individuals have a ‘properly reflexive distance’ to both their own intentions and to different and opposing normative claims on action. Without distance, it would not be possible to weigh different reasons for actions or their consequences. A view of humans as capable (Homo capax) of solving the struggles of existence thus emerges (Ricœur, 2011). The possibility of such a distance is created by the intermediate character of practical reason, it being neither a theory for practice, nor something which can be reduced to arbitrary opinions (Ricœur, 2007c: 201). This is an important feature of practical reason, since the domain of practice itself is that of diversity and unpredictability. In order to qualify as both practical and reasoning, it must hold this intermediate position. Practical reason can thus never become a theory or science of practice, since that would mean the loss of its flexibility, which is necessary to manage the struggle between individual intentions, normative claims and the complexities of practice. Hence, practical reason holds a mediating position between institution and practice.
If the act of teaching is considered as practical reasoning, certain aspects become available for analysis. The mediating characteristics of practical reason mean that teaching and teachers cannot be depicted as passive objects that merely implement reforms, policy or ideological values. Neither can they be depicted as merely autonomous subjects who are directed by their own motives, intentions and deliberations. The point here is that if teaching is considered as a form of practical reasoning, focus in analysis is directed towards teachers' struggle with contradictions and tensions in practice. This, however, does not meant that teachers solve these contradictions and tensions, or that they always act in a correct, desirable or rational manner. Rather, it is an acknowledgement that only teachers and the act of teaching are situated where policy, reforms and ideology intersect with practice. It is this intersection that is the starting point for analysis if the concept of practical reason is made a knowledge object.
To sum up, if we recollect the different levels that initially illustrated the field of tension of practice, practical reason binds together seemingly conflicting views on teaching. Teaching appears as an activity that oscillates between the regulatory and reflective dimensions of practice, rather than primarily belonging to one or the other. From an ideological viewpoint, teaching oscillates between frameworks, possibilities and limitations of the curriculum and informal aims, bildung ideals and learning opportunities with individual pupils; from a scientific viewpoint, teaching's relation to research oscillates between implementing scientifically legitimate best practices and accepting, refusing or adapting these practices to unique circumstances; and from a practical viewpoint, teaching oscillates between technical and practical rationalities.
The concept of practical reason thus depicts how the regulatory and reflective dimensions of teaching are intertwined rather than separate. It depicts how teachers are both controlled and have agency. Although the regulative dimensions of practice control and give meaning to practice, practical reason means that teachers also maintain a distance from practice. This critical aspect of practical reason ensures that teachers, although being more thoroughly regulated, have a certain amount of agency to alter or to manipulate regulation in practice. However, educational reforms, policies and ideology can lean towards one or the other direction, be more or less distant from the conditions of practice, and ultimately leave more or less room for teachers' practical reasoning.
The study of practical reason – critical hermeneutics
According to Kristensson Uggla (1994), one central aim of Ricœur's critical hermeneutics was not to harmonise interpretations but rather to strive for new insights acquired through conflict. This is a general characteristic of Ricœur's philosophical method: to abstract seemingly opposing positions and then relate them in a conflictual and creative mediation of meaning. To illustrate such a process of interpretation, Ricœur (2007a) depicted it as an arc, where an approach striving for understanding of subjective meaning is strengthened by an explanatory objectifying approach. The analogue of an arc is used by Ricœur to demonstrate how a naïve understanding always precedes interpretation but is developed by the explanatory approach in an arched movement towards informed understanding. The references to explanation and understanding come from Ricœur's attempt to bridge a longstanding division made within hermeneutics between, on the one hand, approaches primarily associated with the natural sciences and positivistic social sciences (explanation), and on the other hand, interpretative approaches, primarily associated with the human sciences (understanding). In accordance with his view on human existence, Ricœur did not consider these approaches to be mutually exclusive, but as core characteristics of any process of interpretation. Hence, for a deepened understanding of human phenomena, this struggle needs to be addressed as ‘causation that has to be explained and not understood and motivation belonging to a purely rational understanding’ (Ricœur, 2007a: 130).
There are some examples where Ricœur's thinking and a critical hermeneutical process of interpretation have been operationalised for empirical (although not educational) research: Phillips and Brown (1993) have developed a tangible analytical framework in their study of advertisements, and Lindseth and Norberg (2004) present a related yet different model in the field of health and care sciences. Although concerned with different fields of interest, a common feature in the two models is that they involve three phases 2 that can be related to Ricœur's arc analogy above. Therefore, a tripartite conceptual framework will be presented below that is partly built on these models, and also continues from and emphasises some other parts of Ricœur's philosophy, not least the concept of practical reason and the role of distanciation for critique. The main idea behind this framework is that the interdependence between understanding and explanation is operationalised as an oscillation between different ways to approach the policy–practice relation. The intended basis for the framework is a body of material consisting of, for example, transcribed interviews, field notes and texts concerning the reforms (government documents, historical literature, etc.).
1 – Close understanding
As stated earlier, reforms, policy and ideology are realised in practice by an individual teacher, in relation to different groups of pupils, with access to certain resources, under the influence of different circumstances and so on. A critical hermeneutical framework acknowledges the importance of such aspects for an understanding of how policy and practice are related. In the first phase of their model, Lindseth and Norberg (2004) emphasise an open attitude in interpretation in order to allow for the text (in their case interview transcripts) to speak to the researcher. A similar approach in this framework would be that a researcher strives for an understanding and a closeness to teaching, which means that the researcher needs to assume a listening and empathic attitude towards teachers' understandings, interpretations and management of policy in practice. In other words, it is the experiences of the teachers that are of interest in this phase of the conceptual framework.
There are several methodological approaches that are appropriate for such an interpretation, for example interviews, participatory observation or artefact analysis. The aim is to depict how teachers experience and understand policy in relation to their practice, which is why the use of a certain methodology is subordinated to the ideal of openness. Hence, specific methodological choices need to be made by the researcher in relation to particular research questions. On a more general level though, interpretation can be guided by questions such as: How do teachers interpret reforms? How do teachers understand and relate policy to practice? What concerns and possibilities are experienced and expressed by teachers when policy meets practice?
This phase of the conceptual framework aims at providing an understanding of teachers' experiences and the context in which policy is implemented. In the words of Ricœur (2007a), such an understanding is naïve in the sense that the interpretation lacks structural analysis and critique of ideology. The function of the second explanatory phase is thus to provide an interpretation that provides these elements.
2 – Distanced explanation
Building on the works of Marx, Nietzsche and Freud, Ricœur acknowledged that distortions and power relations permeate communication, culture and consciousness. A critical hermeneutical interpretation therefore needs to combine the listening, empathic attitude described above with critical suspicion (Kristensson Uggla, 1994). While the previous phase of the framework highlighted context and the subjectivity of teachers, this phase is thus focused on finding themes that have a certain distance from teachers. The aim is to go ‘as far as possible along the route of objectification’ (Ricœur, 1981a: 93) in order to allow structure and critique in interpretation.
In their critical hermeneutical models, both Phillips and Brown (1993) and Lindseth and Norberg (2004) emphasise the need for a decontextualised and objectified element in interpretation. Although using different methods (semiotics and thematic structural analysis), both models have a section where meaning units are identified and considered ‘as independent as possible from their context in the text’ (Lindseth and Norberg, 2004: 150). If the previous phase of this framework focused on practice in the policy–practice relation, focus here is rather on policy, which is regarded as a structure that is placed upon, shapes and determines parts of teaching practice. A thematic analysis can by no means explain every aspect of teaching, but may identify certain features and elements that can be related to policy and direct further interpretations. On a more general level, interpretation can be guided by questions such as: Do different structural circumstances (for example socioeconomic background of pupils) influence how policy affects practice? Does policy have unintended effects on teaching? In what ways does policy limit or enable different forms of teaching practices? How is teachers’ discretion affected? These kinds of questions are by no means separate from the questions in the previous phase, but come from a different, distanced position where the policy–practice relation is considered from above rather than from below. From such a perspective, policy explains (parts of) teaching rather than being a negotiable part of teachers’ practice.
3 – Teaching understood as practical reason revisited
Although the different phases have been described as clear, identifiable and separate entities, this is merely a result of analytical abstraction. In the analytical work, the phases are interdependent and need to be conducted in parallel and in relation to each other. The third phase of this framework thus addresses how the previous phases can be synthesised into an interpretative whole. As suggested earlier, Ricœur (2007a) stressed the importance of not regarding these approaches as separate elements of interpretation but rather as complementary, although conflicting, elements of a more complex and wider concept of interpretation. In this phase, therefore, it is shown how, rather than being separate, the different phases correct and provide one another with direction in a creative interpretative whole.
In the conceptual framework, teachers' practical reasoning functions as a reconciling knowledge object that can focus a seemingly disparate and fragmented process of interpretation. In addition, if teaching is regarded as a form of practical reasoning, focus in analysis is shifted away from right/wrong dichotomies or questions about whether teachers comply with policy or not. Instead, focus is placed on how teachers try to reconcile the regulatory and reflective dimensions of practice. Hence, instead of articulating a theory for how practice is or ought to be, teaching is acknowledged to be a perpetual struggle, a delicate balance between the regulatory and reflective dimensions.
Summary of the conceptual framework.
The results from this process of interpretation cannot be predicted before the previous phases have been conducted and combined, or as Phillips and Brown (1993) put it, ‘critical hermeneutics always precedes in uncertainty’ (p. 1568). Basically, however, the process involves a progression from close understanding, over distanced explanation to a deepened understanding that has the potential to be both creative and critical. This progression needs to characterise the entire scientific process. Data needs to be collected via, for example, observations and interviews so that teachers’ experiences, interpretations, actions, intentions, etc., can be depicted; and via official sources, governmental documents and (not least) previous research on policy in order to frame these data. Once collected, the material needs to be read from different perspectives; on one hand the material is approached in its entirety in order to depict a cohesive understanding of teachers’ comprehensions of their practice in relation to policy; and on the other hand it is approached thematically against a background of ideological aims and objectives inherent in policy. Finally, during writing, focus is primarily drawn towards the points where the previous phases intersect, when tensions arise or where policy and practice harmonise. As can be seen, oscillation between close understanding and distanced explanation frames all steps of analysis. However, it is the process of distanciation that drives interpretation and provides it with direction, creativity and critique. According to Ricœur (2007a), distanciation functions as a mediating ‘moment’ that can direct interpretation towards alternative understandings, and thus enable critique of, for example, asymmetries, practice-alienated ideology or illegitimate power relations.
In this framework, distanciation works on two levels: Firstly, on the level of teacher agency, since the concept of practical reason assumes that teachers maintain a certain distance from both their own intentions and from different and opposing normative claims on action (for example policy). Ricœur (2007c) meant that the mediating position of practical reason can ‘unmask the hidden mechanisms of distortion’ (p. 202) when the rhetorical and symbolic character of institutions are alienated from the demands and prerequisites of practice. To some extent, this attitude towards teacher agency is in contrast with the notion that teaching is characterised by such features as conservatism, presentism and routine (cf. Lortie, 2002). Similar statements may hold some truth, and can certainly be included in the practice's regulatory dimensions. However, the use of practical reason in the framework illustrates an intrinsic ambition and belief that teachers can and ought to be more involved in critical discussions on how educational ideologies relate to practice (cf. Apple, 2011).
Secondly, distanciation works on the level of interpretation, since teaching is not only regarded as an individual expression of teachers, but also as an expression of structures that are imbued with ideology. The conceptual framework thus makes it possible for a researcher to alternate between perspectives that look upon teaching from a distance, as part of an ideologically imbued educational system, and also as an individual expression that can be related to structural prerequisites. This is a recognition that critical discussions cannot merely assume the perspectives of those inside of a system (which might be suggested from the discussion on distanciation above), but also need a certain weight and direction from an external perspective.
Conclusions
To sum up, this conceptual framework can provide a critique that is grounded in a discussion on how the mechanisms and assumptions behind (for example neoliberal) policy is mirrored in practice, without losing sight of either the agency of teachers or a societal perspective on teaching.
In such a discussion, Ricœur's statement that there can never be, or never ought to be, a theory of practice (a fundamental feature of practical reason), is indeed an important construct here. The increasing emphasis on standards, testing, accountability, assessment, evaluation, etc., entails a risk that policy increasingly becomes a theory of teaching practice, thus distancing and alienating it from the demands and prerequisites of practice. However, the caution against a theory for practice can also be directed towards the academic community, not least towards critical policy analysis. If, for example, a concept such as neoliberalism is ascribed too much power in restructuring teaching and schooling, there is an evident risk that yet another, although critical, theory of practice is articulated that describes/prescribes how teachers act or ought to act. The conceptual framework discussed here can reduce the risk of such tendencies in policy analysis, and the concept of practical reason in particular can serve as a cautionary reminder against an overly passive and deterministic view of how ideology is manifested in practice (Apple, 2006). Teaching understood as practical reasoning illustrates not only how policy controls practice, and that this control can be circumvented to a certain degree, but also how more ambiguous features of reforms interact with practice, such as how policy reforms can be negotiated, adapted and sometimes provide meaning for teachers in the complexities of practice. Such features do not make a critique unnecessary, but exact a nuanced and complex representation of the relation between policy and practice from academia.
Footnotes
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.