Which Way toward the Year 2000? Contrasting Policy Discourses in Two Education Systems

ABSTRACT

It is argued in this paper that education systems are engaged in a flurry of education policy development, characterized by goal setting and strategic planning, as we move toward the year 2000. In order to understand the meaning of this policy work, we need to consider the ways in which policies act as both “texts” and “discourses.” However, analyzing policy discourse, while useful for identifying ranges of possible policy responses, does not in itself enable the identification of wider social themes or provide a basis for the critique of policy discourse. It is argued that Habermas's theory of system colonization of the lifeworld is a theme of social processes that provides an analytic tool to deepen understanding of public policy discourse, and that the principles of communicative ethics provide a basis for making judgments concerning the legitimacy of public policy discourses.

Two extracts from the policy ensemble of “toward 2000” education policy discourse are examined, and the themes of system/lifeworld colonization and the principles of communicative ethics are applied to the discursive analysis of these documents. The two works examined are the New South Wales document Excellence and Equity and the document Year 2000: A Framework for Learning from British Columbia. These documents have been selected for this analysis because they represent contrasting policy discourses. The focus of this analysis is “actual policy”—the discourse of the policy documents themselves.