What crisis of representation? Challenging the realism of post-structuralist policy research in education

Abstract

Offered through a split-text, this article mounts/destabilises the argument that policy research that cites authors usually associated with post-structural thought and which is published in a mainstream education policy journal is overwhelmingly realist in its ontologising practices. It reminds the reader why that is problematic and calls for a stronger post-realist praxis.

Keywords:

• discourse analysis/semiotics
• educational policy
• Foucault
• post-structural/postmodern/critical theory
• writing

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Paul Davies for his help with the quantitative moves, to the participants at the Vancouver workshop who provided feedback on an earlier version and to Kalervo Gulson and Nicola Dugar for their encouragement.

Notes

1. It is for the period from 2003 to 2012, but there is a missing set of data from late 2003 (issues 5 and 6) to mid-2005 (issues 1–3).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eva Bendix Petersen

Eva Bendix Petersen is Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Newcastle, Australia. As an ethnographer of academic cultures, her interests include higher education policy enactments and negotiations, and she experiments with post-foundational knowledge production.