ERIC Number: EJ1216679
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019-May
Pages: 25
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-1068-2341
EISSN: N/A
Policy Field and Policy Discourse: The American Federation for Children Network
Ellison, B. Scott; Aloe, Ariel M.; Iqtadar, Shehreen
Education Policy Analysis Archives, v27 n48 May 2019
This article presents findings from an analysis of the American Federation for Children Network (AFC) policy network using tools from network ethnography and qualitative content analysis. Specifically, we examined tax forms and carried out extensive web searches to spatialize and map the AFC network, mined text from policy-actors in the AFC network, and analyzed the policy discourse promoted by these network actors to achieve their political goals. The task for this study was to use AFC as a heuristic device to explore the complexity of the education policy field and to understand how network policy-actors work to achieve their policy goals through advocacy and marketing. Findings from the study indicate that the AFC network demonstrates a hierarchical ordering, this hierarchical ordering is reflective of the elite planning and social engineering associated with neoliberal reforms, and that the policy-actors in the AFC network employ discursive strategies to frame an elite political project to advance school choice policies as an anti-elite movement oriented toward political empowerment and educational justice.
Descriptors: Educational Policy, Networks, Advocacy, Marketing, Politics of Education, Neoliberalism, Educational Change, School Choice, Equal Education
Colleges of Education at Arizona State University and the University of South Florida. c/o Editor, USF EDU162, 4202 East Fowler Avenue, Tampa, FL 33620-5650. Tel: 813-974-3400; Fax: 813-974-3826; Web site: http://epaa.asu.edu
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A