Contextualising policy work: policy enactment and the specificities of English secondary schools

ABSTRACT

This paper returns to a long-standing theme in education research, the ways in which ‘contextual factors impact on what schools do, as well as directly on what pupils achieve’ (Lupton, 2004, 4). Drawing on a project designed to explore the early effects of reforms to national examinations, the curriculum for 14−16 year olds and school accountability measures in English secondary schools, this paper considers the perceptions and experiences of teachers currently charged with enacting these reforms specifically in the light of their situated school realities in three different settings. A case is made for a contextually sensitive approach towards policy making and policy enactment that takes account of some of the more nuanced distinctions among schools’ contextual positionings.

KEYWORDS:

• Policy contexts
• policy enactment
• English secondary schools

Notes

1. Under ‘the under-occupancy penalty’ (colloquially known as the bedroom tax), introduced as part of the UK Welfare Reform Act 2012, tenants living in social housing with rooms deemed to be ‘spare’ experience a reduction in their benefit entitlement, resulting in them having to either fund this reduction from their incomes or face rent arrears and possible eviction.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Union of Teachers.

Notes on contributors

Meg Maguire

Meg Maguire has a long-standing interest in education policy and practice, social justice issues, the life and work of school teachers, teacher education and the challenges of inner-city schooling.

Sharon Gewirtz

Sharon Gewirtz is Professor of Education in the School of Education, Communication and Society at King’s College London where she also co-directs the Centre for Public Policy Research. Her research is in the sociology of education and education policy with a particular focus on issues of equality and social justice, teachers’ work and the changing culture and values of schooling and higher education in the context of managerial reform.

Emma Towers

Emma Towers is a Teaching Fellow in Education Policy in the School of Education, Communication and Society at King’s College London. Before joining King’s, Emma was a primary school teacher for 10 years in London. Her research interests include teachers‘ lives and career trajectories, urban education and policy and teacher identity.

Eszter Neumann

Eszter Neumann is a sociologist of education. She obtained her PhD at King’s College London in 2018. Her research concerns education policy making in England and Hungary, interethnic relations in schools, the production of social inequalities and normalization processes in schools. Her research approach has been profoundly inspired by policy sociology, ethnography of education, and action research.