A mashup of policy tools and CDA as a framework for educational policy inquiry

ABSTRACT

This article uses an analytic approach that combines a classic educational policy framework with critical discourse analysis (CDA) to problematize power and meaning as expressed through educational legislation in the United States. This examination shows how state-level school desegregation policy documents construct particular understandings of how school districts should rectify contemporary problems of racial and ethnic inequalities that are rooted in historical discriminatory practices. Using an analytic perspective based on policy tools, and a conceptualization of CDA as an element of sociocultural research, I examine statutes designed to address school segregation and promote racial and ethnic integration in the state of Minnesota. In order for policies that shape social equity to succeed, they must address the social contexts in which inequalities have been constructed. Combining CDA approaches with traditional policy analysis frameworks offers one way to make the workings of political ideology visible in educational policy.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical discourse analysis
• policy tools
• educational policy
• school desegregation
• diversity and equity

Acknowledgments

The organization of Table 1 is adapted from Woodside-Jiron (2004, 7); that display demonstrated how a combination of lenses to inform critical discourse analysis was applied to a study of reading policy in California. I thank Dr. Bic Ngo for her insightful feedback regarding the ways in which policy language creates identities for implementers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Allison Mattheis

Allison Mattheis is an assistant professor in the Division of Applied and Advanced Studies in Education at California State University, Los Angeles. Her research explores issues of (in)equity in educational experiences and how educators and students interact with policy processes as members of multiple communities.