‘Where you stand depends on where you sit’: the social construction of policy enactments in the (English) secondary school

Abstract

Drawing on a study of education policy enactments in four English secondary schools, this paper argues that different ‘types’ of policies call-up different forms of enactments, and that teachers and others who work in schools will have different orientations towards some of these possible ways of ‘doing’ school. Through exploring the ways in which two main policies are being enacted, ‘Behaviour Management’ and ‘Standards and Attainment’, we argue that policy type, power and positionality, space and time constraints, as well as different subjectivities, render policy enactment a more fragile and unstable process than is sometimes documented in policy analysis and implementation studies. Thus, in policy enactment terms, ‘where you stand depends on where you sit’.

Keywords:

• policy enactment
• policy actors
• positionality
• policy type
• context

Notes

1. ‘Policy enactments in the secondary school: theory and practice’, ESRC reference: RES -062-23-1484.

2. As we were finishing our fieldwork, the new Conservation Coalition Government changed the attainment goalposts for GCSE; students can now ‘gain’ an English Baccalaureate (Ebac) if they achieve GCSEs in English, mathematics, sciences, a language and a humanities subject (see Perryman et al., 2011). The inclusion of a language requirement has placed strains on schools, as modern foreign languages are not compulsory in English schools after the age of 14 years.