Education Policy Analysis Archives

Introduction to the special issue: Transforming school systems

2025-01-23T15:10:48-08:00

As scholars studying school districts, we became increasingly concerned with how research from the Global North dominates global understandings of school governance, organization, and reform—what we term coloniality in global education reform. This special issue seeks to broaden these perspectives by examining how schools might be governed and organized with a focus on power, history, local and regional contexts, multiple ways of knowing, and sociopolitical dynamics. Through six articles, this issue interrogates how power operates and shifts across school organizing, governance, and community engagement. Featured studies span topics such as anti-racist leadership practices, the sociopolitical contexts of reform implementation, the reproduction of inequalities through “shadow education,” and the racialized dynamics of state takeovers. Insights from the Global South, particularly from Mexico and Brazil, challenge dominant narratives rooted in the Global North, highlighting the need to decenter Eurocentric perspectives. Extending this analysis, we reflect on how coloniality shaped the editorial process itself, revealing tensions around language, power, and representation in academic publishing. By questioning both global education reform practices and traditional approaches to academic scholarship, this special issue invites readers to critically examine with us the dominant paradigms and imagine more just, inclusive, and contextually-grounded possibilities for school governance and organization.

Educational policies of the extreme right in Europe: The formation of an Ultra-Right International in Education through a common agenda?

2024-09-30T01:43:35-07:00

This article analyses the political proposals for education made by extreme right-wing parties in Europe, with the aim of analysing whether they share the same educational agenda or differ in their strategic lines. For this purpose, the educational proposals of the European far-right political groups with significant representation in the last European elections held in June 2024 have been selected. The methodology used was critical discourse analysis (CDA) of these parties’ political programmes and statements on education. The results show that the educational model they defend follows similar patterns that are replicated, with different emphases on some aspects, but under the same general parameters that include recovering traditional and xenophobic approaches as well as the defense of radical neoliberal educational policies. We conclude that a common political agenda in education exists, which we characterize as an Ultra-Right International in Education (IdUE). Public education and education policy, in turn, is a crucial space for preventing the rise of neo-fascism and its progressive “normalization” by society, although it is argued that this is not the exclusive responsibility of schools.

Mapping the community school policy network using Twitter data and social network analysis

2024-12-17T10:07:03-08:00

This research sought to understand how organizations have adapted to the evolving policy ecosystem to scale and sustain a justice-orientated approach to education reform. Using descriptive social network analysis to map the policy information network that formed around Community Schools, the authors identified the influential organizations in the network and described key characteristics of its structure. They drew from Twitter data and related media articles over a five-year period to categorize the actors engaged in the Community School information network and map its geographic distribution across the United States. The findings depict a broad, multi-state network focused on promoting a proactive, positive policy agenda that differed substantially from those described in extant studies of resource networks that advance neoliberal education reforms. The authors close by discussing Twitter as a policy platform and how community-based coalitions can influence education politics and policy.

An analytic framework for theorizing the anti-gender agenda in education

2024-08-06T03:36:07-07:00

This article theorizes the global anti-gender movement in education. This conservative movement opposes “gender ideology,” which is perceived as a threat to traditional social values. Building on a systematic literature review of how the anti-gender movement shapes educational policies, politics, and practices, with a specific focus on Brazil and the US, this article presents a theoretical framework for conceptualizing: 1) the contested meanings of “gender ideology”; 2) its discursive components; 3) the characteristics and composition of anti-gender alliances; 4) the anti-gender agenda’s manifestations in curriculum, pedagogy, the social relations of schooling, and education policy. We attempt to highlight the ways in which anti-gender politics often operate together with racial politics to reveal the ways in which conservative, right-wing alliances, frequently predicated on and united through anti-Blackness, white supremacy, homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny, exert influence on educational policies, politics, and practices to simultaneously maintain a white supremacist, cis-heteronormative, and patriarchal state. We conclude with a discussion of the contradictions of this agenda and resistances to these conservative attacks on equity, inclusion, diversity, and human rights.

Research on Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers: Developing and fortifying policies that diversify the educator workforce

2024-06-30T13:39:47-07:00

This special issue expands upon the Handbook of Research on Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers (Gist & Bristol, 2022a) and the practitioner-focused Phi Delta Kappan special issue, “Learning from the Voices of Black, Indigenous and People of Color Educators: Charting New Directions for Research, Policy, and Practice” (Gist & Bristol, 2021). The co-created articles in this special issue highlight the combined expertise of policy makers and education researchers. While the Handbook featured empirical research, and the Phi Delta Kappan special issue featured research briefs and teacher testimonies, the policy-driven articles in this special issue explore how research can be applied at district, state and national levels. A primary goal of this special issue is to provide evidence-based policy recommendations to support policymakers with strategies to address ethnoracial diversity related to one or more of the Handbook’s 11 research domains (i.e., recruitment, program design, mentorship, professional development, retention, pedagogical and leadership practices, induction and human resource development, intersectionalities, educational impact, minority serving institutions, and policy).

From innovation to routine: Hopes, challenges, ands frustrations among primary education teachers

2024-06-02T23:54:25-07:00

Difficulties in introducing active methodologies in the classroom may be related to the teachers’ lack of training, as they might not recognize the benefits that these methodologies offer or may not know how to implement them. Based on a qualitative ethnographic study conducted in two bilingual public primary schools in Andalusia, with a variable mix of middle-class and lower-middle-class students, this study investigated these assumptions and observed the relationship between the persistence of these innovative practices and their alignment with the grammar of schooling and micropolitics of the school. The results show that attempts to introduce these methodologies by a group of novice teachers seeking support from professionals to improve their practices led to the abandonment of the most effective tools for maintaining the legitimacy of their own position in the face of the intentions and interests of other agents. The difficulties generated by this dynamic resulted in the discrediting of specialist groups among these teachers and the emergence of a set of local pedagogical strategies that diverged from expert recommendations.

Local education governance and policy transfer in early childhood within Latin America and the Caribbean

2024-07-08T06:34:05-07:00

The article analyzes the diffusion of the global governance agenda for early childhood in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) through the transfer of educational policies between multilateral organizations (MOs) and their adaptation in national contexts. Using a descriptive-analytical methodology, the study examines national and international documents to map childhood education policies and programs adopted by countries through agreements with MOs. The analysis highlights the convergence between the global-regional agenda and childhood education policies in the region, with MOs playing a significant role in policy transfer. Organizations such as UNESCO and UNICEF act as mediators in this process, building alliances and institutionalizing specific policies, such as non-formal intersectoral programs for early childhood education. The transfer of education policies, combined with research on global expert networks, enhances the understanding of mechanisms for reproducing and adapting global policies to local contexts. In summary, the study emphasizes that the alignment of international and national agendas influences the implementation of education reforms in Latin America and the Caribbean, showing that it is not a spontaneous phenomenon but a result of social and political construction.

Policy rhetoric, realities, and burdens: Using critical policy analysis to center at-promise student success in the McNair program

2024-09-12T19:41:31-07:00

Educational policies designed to benefit students from first-generation, low-income, and racially minoritized backgrounds do not always consider the realities these students experience during college. Instead, students participating in compensatory education programs can endure further marginalization. Using critical policy analysis’ core tenets as guiding principles to frame our study and guide our analysis, we conducted a three-phase qualitative analytic study. We examined interviews with students and McNair program policy documents to interrogate policymakers’ hidden assumptions and the (de)centering of minoritized student perspectives in the McNair program policy. Students in the program discussed varied and conflicting definitions of success, such as learning they did not want to attend graduate school—a primary goal and measure of success for the federal government. They also highlighted advisors as a source of support. By centering the experiences of students, our findings highlight this critical gap and draw attention to the administrative burdens placed on at-promise students, emphasize the need for holistic socio-emotional support in federal policy, and underscore the powerful role of supportive faculty and staff.

Relationship between school expenditure and educational outcomes: A systematic literature review

2024-08-13T12:45:57-07:00

This article analyzes literature on the relationship between school spending and educational outcomes through a systematic literature review. Forty-five documents were collected from Scopus, Web of Science, ProQuest, SAGE Open, Wiley, and Scielo databases, covering the period from 2015 to 2022. The studies were classified into causal and non-causal research designs, and analyzed based on the policies and interventions addressed. Policies were categorized into additional financial aid, school funding reforms, capital expenditures, and changes in revenue sources. Influenced by the ‘credibility revolution,’ recent literature demonstrates a diverse array of applications and significant impacts of educational spending on outcomes, though most research focuses on developed countries. The studies demonstrate improvements in academic performance and educational progress, across different intervention types, particularly for students in vulnerable areas or with low school achievement. Consequently, analyses for developing countries like Brazil, where educational levels and per-student spending are lower, may yield different results and policy implications.

The self-taught school: Inclusion of foreign students according to public action in Chile

2024-04-05T17:02:28-07:00

The consolidation of migratory flows to Chile and the concentration of foreign students in public schools have led the State and the Ministry of Education to implement regulatory bodies and design guides and guidelines to promote school inclusion processes. The objective of this study is to analyze publicly accessible documents addressing the inclusion of foreign students based on what schools are expected to do in managing cultural diversity. Eighteen official documents were analyzed using the discourse analysis technique. The results show that the texts configure a voluntaristic school, responsible for a large number of tasks without the delivery of necessary resources and without a specific diversity management model. However, in the context of the pandemic, a shift towards comprehensiveness is perceived: new challenges and dimensions appear to address the inclusion of migrant communities.