While a great deal of attention has been given to evaluating how well policies are implemented, that is, how well they are realised in practice, less attention has been paid to understanding and documenting the ways in which schools actually deal with the multiple, and sometimes opaque and contradictory demands of different "types" of…

This paper presents a first attempt in an ongoing research study of the policy environments in four UK secondary schools to examine policy enactment, where "enactment" refers to an understanding that policies are interpreted and "translated" by diverse policy actors in the school environment, rather than simply implemented. The paper is divided…

The proliferation of policy think tanks and more broadly the rise of "policy networks" can be viewed as indicative of important global transformations in the nature of the state. That is, the emergence of new state modalities, with a shift away from government towards forms of polycentric governance, where policy is produced through multiple…

This paper explores some particular aspects of the privatisation of public sector education, mapping and analysing the participation of education businesses in a whole range of public sector education services both in the UK and overseas. It addresses some of the types of privatisation(s) which are taking place "of", "in" and "through" education…

This paper explores the ways in which working class mothers negotiate mothering and paid work. Drawing on interviews with 70 families with pre-school children, we examine how caring and working responsibilities are conceptualised and presented in mothers' narratives. Mothers showed a high degree of commitment to paid work and, in contrast to…

Argues that performativity is a new mode of state regulation that makes it possible to govern in an "advanced liberal" way. For example, it requires individual practitioners to organize themselves as a response to targets, indicators, and evaluations. For some, this is an opportunity to achieve success, while for others it portends inner…

Excoriates a (British) National Educational Research Academy consultation paper for its inadequate representation of educational research and its misconception of research's role and purpose as solely short-term and practical. The paper portends an absolute standardization of research purposes, procedures, reporting, and dissemination. (MLH)

Explores some theoretical issues raised in Hatcher and Troyna's critical discussion (in this issue of "Journal of Education Policy") of author's work on educational policy. Many of their criticisms are misplaced and rest upon flaws and limitations in their own theoretical work. Their discussion employs a set of unhelpful conceptual binaries that…