Using Butler to understand the multiplicity and variability of policy reception

Abstract

Understanding how teachers make sense of education policy is important. We argue that an exploration of teacher reactions to policy requires an engagement with theory focused on the formation of ‘the subject’ since this form of theorisation addresses the creation of a seemingly coherent identity and attitude while acknowledging variation across different places and people. In this paper, we propose the utility of Butlerian ideas because of the focus on subjectivity that her work entails and the account she gives for social norms regulating people’s actions and attitudes. We use Butler’s stance on how ‘cultural intelligibility’ is formed to account for the complex, messy and sometimes contradictory ‘take up’ of curriculum policy by 10 teachers at a secondary school case study in Queensland, Australia. We use the phrase ‘policy reception’ to signify a particular theoretical line of thought we are forming with our application of Butlerian theory to the analysis of teacher attitudes toward curriculum policy, and to distinguish it from ‘policy interpretation’, ‘policy translation’ and ‘policy enactment’.

Keywords:

• Butler
• cultural intelligibility
• policy enactment
• policy reception

Notes

1. In ‘Bodies that Matter’ Butler (1993) creates a line of thinking about the relationship between the social and nature. Nature meaning what is perceived to be neutral and pre-discursive. In terms of gender and sexuality research, this is understood as the physical body. The argument is that actions, including speaking, bring forth particular types of subjectivities. We see merit in applying this logic of thinking to policy since like a physical body, policy does not exist outside of discourse.