People for Education: a critical policy history

Abstract

In this paper, we demonstrate how history informs how policy meanings are constructed and the rhetorical strategies used to convince others to accept these meanings. We have two goals: (a) to show how a group of non-governmental actors, People for Education, became part of Ontario, Canada’s policy discursive network; and (b) to demonstrate the utility of constructing cultural and microhistories in critical policy analysis. This article is important because it describes resistance from a critical perspective and offers a methodology for producing histories of struggles over meaning-making in educational politics.

Keywords:

• critical policy analysis
• microhistory
• cultural history

Notes

1. Articles include: Chackowicz, K. (1996, April 5). Letter, The Toronto Star; Crawford, T. (1996, April 21). Middle class standing up to be counted, Toronto Star, pp. F1, F5; Crawford, T. (1996, June 24). Performers protest school arts cuts: Story-tellers, dancers put on show at Queen's Park, The Toronto Star, p. A8; Galt, V. (1996, June 21). Use of workfare in schools proposed – Parents seek janitor at night so after-hours activities, curtailed by cutbacks, can continue, The Globe and Mail, p. A7; Galt, V. (1996, March 29). School fund raising raises hackles, too – Parents, teachers balk at unremitting pressure for extra money to offset cuts, The Globe and Mail, p. A1; Galt, V. (1996, September 26). Protesters challenge Snobelen on effect of spending cuts – Overcrowding, lack of services hurt classrooms, they say, The Globe and Mail, p. A10; Lautens, R. (1996, June 18). Group fights back [Photo], The Toronto Star; Mittelstaedt, M. (1996, September, 20). Snobelen begins examination to eliminate school boards – Ontario mulls taking over course-content development, bargaining role, The Globe and Mail, p. A6; Small, P. (1996, November 23). Parents protest education changes, The Toronto Star, p. A23; Small, P. (1996, November 28). Parents hit MPPs with petitions on education, The Toronto Star, p. A13; Talaga, T. (1996, March 31). Parents, kids protest school funding cuts, Toronto Star, p. A16; Wright, L. (1996, October 11). Parents gird for fight over education funding, The Toronto Star, p. A10; Wright, L. (1996, September 26). Plans for new education cuts spark protest, The Toronto Star, p. A15. We list these articles here rather than throughout the microhistories to enhance their readability. All direct quotes from these articles are cited in the text.

2. We have delineated the microhistories through the use of italics to notify when we as authors changed the timescale we were representing.