This edited volume demonstrates some of the potential contributions of discourse analytic approaches to the study of education policy and its implementation within particular policy contexts. Contributing authors provide a range of perspectives, examining education policy using both micro-analytic traditions and more macro-analytic traditions. With examples of research focused on various stages of the policy process from agenda-setting and policy-making to implementation and media representations, this volume will appeal to scholars engaged in research at the intersection of education policy and discourse analysis, and to students with specific interests in education policy and qualitative research methods.

This edited volume brings together leading scholars from the fields of educational leadership and policy studies to discuss qualitative, quantitative, and mixed research methods in an accessible and pedagogically well-designed volume. Authors discuss ways in which various research methodologies and methods can productively be brought together to expand our current understanding of leadership issues and the contemporary policy context that surrounds them. Chapters provide both practical recommendations for using the methods discussed as well as suggestions for further reading.

Analysing Education Policy: Theory and Method provides a comprehensive overview of key approaches in critical education policy research. With chapters from internationally recognised and established scholars in the field, this book provides an authoritative account of how different questions may be approached and answered. Part 1 features chapters focused on text-based approaches to analysis, including critical discourse analysis, thinking with Foucault, Indigenist Policy Analysis, media analysis, the analysis of promotional texts in education, and the analysis of online networks. Part 2 features chapters focused on network ethnography, actor-network theory, materiality in policy, Institutional Ethnography, decolonising approaches to curriculum policy, working with children and young people, and working with education policy elites. These chapters are supported by an introduction to each section, as well as an overall introduction and conclusion chapter from the editors, drawing together key themes and ongoing considerations for the field. Critical education policy analysis takes many different forms, each of which works with distinctly different questions and fulfils different purposes. This book is the first to clearly map current common and influential approaches to answering these questions, providing important guidance for both new and established researchers.

Reading instruction is the most legislated area of education and the most frequently referenced metric for measuring educational progress. This book traces the trajectories of policy issues with direct implications for literacy teaching, learning, and research in order to illustrate the dynamic relationships between policy, research, and practice as they relate to perennial issues such as: retention in grade, remediation, intervention, instruction for English learners, early literacy instruction, coaching, and leadership. Using policy documents and peer-reviewed articles published from the 1960s to the present, the editor and authors illustrate how issues were framed, what was at stake, and how policy solutions to persistent questions have been understood over time. In doing so, the book link a generation of scholars with research that illustrates trajectories of development for ideas, strategies, and solutions.

In this book, leading teacher education researchers from Australia, Belgium, Canada, England, Finland, Hong Kong SAR, the Netherlands, New Zealand, North Ireland, Portugal, Scotland, the USA and Wales examine teacher education policy and research in each of their contexts. The book highlights the connections and disconnections between teacher education policy and research. It examines contemporary challenges and issues in teacher education including how high-quality teacher education is framed, how teaching quality is framed, and the role of teacher education research. It also considers future policy and research possibilities and opportunities for teacher education research, equity and preparing teachers for work within contexts of super-diversity, and early career teaching.

Employing a social justice framework, this book provides educational leaders and practitioners with tools and strategies for grappling with the political fray of education politics. The framework offers ways to critique, challenge, and alter social, cultural, and political patterns in organizations and systems that perpetuate inequities. The authors focus on the processes through which educational politics is enacted, illustrating how inequitable power relations are embedded in our democratic systems. Readers will explore education politics at five focal points of power (micro, local/district, state, federal, and global). The text provides examples of how to “work the system” in ways that move toward greater justice and equity in schools. “This book challenges those who want to work toward justice with critical starting points, conversation starters, and strategies for collaborative leadership.” —From the Foreword by Enrique Aleman, The University of Texas at San Antonio “If educators are truly committed to their students, this text provides the analytic tools and consequent strategies to make public schools better for all of our students. Bravo!” —Catherine A. Lugg, Rutgers University

Expanding Approaches to Thematic Analysis: Creative Engagements with Qualitative Data springboards readers into a world where generating themes from qualitative data is a creative, experimental, and wondrous process! While no one ever said it had to be, thematic analysis is invariably described as a step-by-step process that involves coding. Yet qualitative data analysis is more than a technical procedure—it invokes imagination and inspiration—intuitional engagements that are as vital to the data analysis process as they are difficult to describe. This edited book begins with two premises: (1) there is more than one way to theme data, and (2) qualitative researchers do not have to code to get to themes. Each chapter introduces readers to a different approach to thematic analysis, explores that approach’s theoretical and disciplinary roots, and illustrates how that approach can be used to generate themes. Approaches include annotating, memoing, storying, writing, composing poems, artmaking, meditating, and more, expanding conceptualizations of what themes and thematic analysis can be. The book also includes ‘methodologies in action’: helpful examples of creative theming from doctoral students and early career scholars. This book is as much a provocation for engaging thematic analysis beyond/without/in addition to coding as it is a resource for anyone interested in the rationale, justification, and examples for doing so. As such, it is a source of inspiration for any qualitative student, researcher, and scholar who wishes to expand their repertoire of approaches to thematic analysis.