Middle leaders as policy translators: prime actors in the enactment of policy

Figures & data

Figure 1. The six-step SSE process (Department of Education and Skills 2016a)

Table 1. Policy actors and ‘policy work’ (Ball et al. 2011a, 2012).

Policy actors	Policy work
Narrators	Interpretation, selection and enforcement of meanings, mainly done by head teachers and senior leaders
Entrepreneurs	Advocacy, creativity and integration
Outsiders	Entrepreneurship, partnership and monitoring
Transactors	Accounting, reporting, monitoring/ supporting, facilitating
Enthusiasts	Investment, creativity, satisfaction and career
Translators	Production of texts, artifact and events
Critics	Union representative: monitoring of management, maintaining counter -discourses
Receivers	Mainly junior teachers and teaching assistants :coping, defending and dependency

Table 2. The research participants

	Small schools	Medium schools	Large schools	Retired
Middle leaders	Post-holder 1 Post-holder 2	Post-holder 3 Post-holder 4	(Post-holder 5) (Post-holder 6)
Senior leaders	Principal 1 Principal 2	Principal 3 Deputy principal	Principal 4 Principal 5
School inspectors				Inspector

Department of Education and Skills. 2016a. School Self-Evaluation Guidelines 2016-2020: Primary. Dublin: Department of Education and Skills.

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Ball, S.J., M. Maguire, A. Braun, and K. Hoskins. 2011a. “Policy Actors: Doing Policy Work in Schools.” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 32 (4): 625–639.

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Ball, S.J., M. Maguire, and A. Braun. 2012. How Schools Do Policy: Policy Enactments in Secondary Schools. Oxon: Routledge.

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