Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education

ISSN: 0159-6306 (Print) 1469-3739 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cdis20

Policy enactments in schools introduction:

towards a toolbox for theory and research

Annette Braun, Stephen J. Ball & Meg Maguire

To cite this article: Annette Braun, Stephen J. Ball & Meg Maguire (2011) Policy enactments
in schools introduction: towards a toolbox for theory and research, Discourse: Studies in the
Cultural Politics of Education, 32:4, 581-583, DOI: 10.1080/01596306.2011.601554

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2011.601554

Published online: 14 Sep 2011.

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Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education
Vol. 32, No. 4, October 2011, 581
583

INTRODUCTION TO SEMI-SPECIAL ISSUE: THEORISING

AND RESEARCHING POLICY ENACTMENT IN SCHOOLS
Policy enactments in schools introduction: towards a toolbox for theory
and research
Annette Brauna*, Stephen J. Balla and Meg Maguireb
a
Institute of Education, University of London, UK; bKing’s College, London, UK

Here we offer four inter-related papers which outline a set of concepts and ideas
intended to generate some theoretical leverage for making sense of education policies
in process in schools. We explore the ways in which ‘teachers come to understand
new policy ideas through the lens of their values and pre-existing knowledge and
practices, often interpreting, adapting, or transforming policy messages as they put
them in place’ (Coburn, 2005, p. 477) and the role of different kinds of policy actors
in ‘bringing off’ policy as a performance or an accomplishment that is ‘good
enough’. Over and against this we also identify different kinds of policies and policy
subjects and the ways in which policy speaks to teachers. We locate teachers as both
policy subjects and policy actors within the policy process and in doing so seek to
take account of and begin to explain both the complexity and incoherence of the
policy process and attend to the work of discourses, texts, artefacts (in this case visual
artefacts) and ‘policy technologies’ (Ball, 2008) in producing (teacher and student)
subjects as their effects. We also set the work of policy within a framework of
contingencies and materialities, that is the role of context (buildings, budgets,
staffing, intakes, etc.) in forming, framing and limiting interpretative and practical
responses to policy. We draw on a range of theoretical resources, including Foucault’s
work on discourse and governmentality, Barthes literary theory, some actor-network
theory and some earlier writing on the ‘policy cycle’ (Ball, 2006), and on the more
substantive work of Spillane (2004) and Supovitz and Weinbaum (2008).
The specifics of our analysis is set within the English ‘case’ and we draw upon and
contrast certain sets of policies in particular, e.g. standards policies, focused upon the
raising of test and exam performances, and learning policies, focused upon the
development of reflexive skills of ‘learning to learn’ such as Pupil Learning and
Thinking Skills (PLTS).1 In practice in schools these policies are set within a myriad
of others which address other aspects of school life and over-lap, inter-relate and
contradict
a kind of ‘policy soup’ which we have discussed elsewhere (see Braun,
Maguire, & Ball, 2010). Nonetheless, our intention here is not to focus on the case but
on the topic. That is, on the analysis and theorisation of policies and policy work in

*Corresponding author. Email: a.braun@ioe.ac.uk

ISSN 0159-6306 print/ISSN 1469-3739 online
# 2011 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/01596306.2011.601554
http://www.informaworld.com
582 Introduction

schools. We hope to outline some tools and concepts for thinking about policy which
have a general relevance to different national settings.
We are going to make unusual and cruel demands on the reader in suggesting that
the four papers are best read together and against one another. In particular, Papers
3 and 4 are an antagonistic pair, and the conclusion to Paper 4 reads as a conclusion
to both. These two papers need also to be set against the backdrop provided by Paper
1, whilst Paper 2 considers the often neglected dimension of policy texts in visuals
and artefacts. In one sense what we are attempting here is to point to and begin to fill
what we see as the omissions and misconceptions which exist in much of current
research and theorising of policy in schools.

The study
We are drawing on an ongoing study of policy enactments in secondary schools
(‘Policy Enactments in the Secondary School: Theory and Practice’, ESRC reference:
RES -062-23-1484, October 2008 to March 2011) which aims to provide a grounded
account of the complexities of the relations between policy and practice in schools in
a period of incessant change and policy ‘hyperactivity’ (Dunleavy, 1987). The study
has two main objectives, one theoretical, that is to develop a theory of policy
enactment, and one empirical, that is a critical exploration of the differences in the
enactment of policy in ‘similar’ contexts. The study focuses on four main issues: (1)
the localised nature of policy actions, that is the ‘secondary adjustments’ and
accommodations and conflicts which inflect and mediate policy; (2) the ways in
which many different (and sometimes contradictory) policies are simultaneously in
circulation and interact with, influence and inhibit one another; (3) the interpreta-
tional work of policy actors; and (4) the role of resource differences in limiting,
distorting or facilitating responses to policy.
We are carrying out ‘case-study’ work in four co-educational, non-denomina-
tional and non-selective secondary schools, what we have termed ‘ordinary schools’
(Maguire, Perryman, Ball, & Braun, 2011). The schools are moderately successful
with a sound track record of academic achievement, performing at around the
national average. They are from different Local Authorities, including one that is in
inner London (Atwood school), two in different parts of outer London (George
Eliot and Wesley schools) and a fourth in a county town (Campion school). We are
collecting four kinds of data: contextualising information from each school; policy
texts
national, local and school-centred; observations of meetings, training etc.;
and semi-structured interviews. The interviews with various policy actors in (or
connected with) the schools form the mainstay of the study. Interviewees include the
headteachers, members of the senior leadership teams, heads of department and
other middle managers, ‘ordinary’ classroom teachers, teaching assistants and other
non-teaching staff, as well as local authority representatives and relevant ‘outsiders’
with a link to the school. The research will generate a data set of over 90 digitally
recorded and transcribed interviews (89 interviews have been completed at the time
of writing), together with a wide range of documentary and observational data.
 Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 583

Note
1. See http://curriculum.qcda.gov.uk/key-stages-3-and-4/skills/plts/index.aspx, retrieved August
24, 2010.

References
Ball, S.J. (2006). Education policy and social class: The selected works of Stephen J. Ball.
London: Routledge.
Ball, S.J. (2008). The education debate. London: Policy Press.
Braun, A., Maguire, M., & Ball, S.J. (2010). Policy enactments in the UK secondary school:
Examining policy, practice and school positioning. Journal of Education Policy, 25, 547
560.
Coburn, C. (2005). Shaping teacher sensemaking: School leaders and the enactment of reading
policy. Education Policy, 19, 476
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Dunleavy, P. (1987). Theories of the state: The politics of liberal democracy. London:
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Maguire, M., Perryman, J., Ball, S.J., & Braun, A. (2011). The ordinary school
what is it?
British Journal of Sociology of Education, 32(1), 1
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Supovitz, J.A., & Weinbaum, E.H. (2008). The implementation gap: Understanding reforms in
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