7: Bibliographic ethnography of global education policy documents: theoretical and methodological foundations for researching the work of citations in (con)text

Restricted access
Rights and permissions Cite this chapter

This chapter makes an intervention in the literature on knowledge mobilization and global education policy by presenting a novel approach to studying policy movement. The central purpose of this approach – labelled bibliographic ethnography – is to highlight the work that bibliographic references do in the context of academic and organizational texts, while also keeping one eye on the wider implications of the productive nature of such citations beyond the limits of the text itself. The approach brings an ethnographic sensitivity to the analysis of the role that citations play in the sense that it asks: what kinds of statements or claims are enabled in the context of academic and organizational texts by the invocation of a given reference? As will be explained, this analysis is then placed within a second level of reflection where the researcher assesses the work of citations in relation to the dominant features of the sociohistorical and political-economic context. Analysis of this kind necessarily has a political dimension, because the underlying phenomenon itself is political. That is, the issue of who to cite and how to interpret and instrumentalize existing research has political implications, even when authors do not have open political intentions with their research.

  • Anderson-Levitt, K. (2012). Complicating the concept of culture. Comparative Education, 48(4), 441454.

  • Bakhtin, M. (1981). Discourse in the novel. In M. Holquist (ed.) The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (pp 295422). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Barrera-Osorio, F. (2006). The impact of private provision of public education: empirical evidence from Bogotá’s concession schools. Work Bank Policy Research Working Paper 4121, Impact Evaluation Series No. 10.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Barrera-Osorio, F. (2009). The concession schools of Bogotá. In R. Chakrabarti and P. Peterson (eds) School Choice International: Exploring Public-Private Partnerships (pp 193218). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Bonilla, J. (2010). El impacto de los Colegios en Concesión en el rendimiento académico [The Impact of the Concession Schools on Academic Achievement]. College Park, MD: University of Maryland.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Bourdieu, P. (1991 ).Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity Press.

  • Edwards Jr., D.B. (2017). Global education policy as echo: unpacking the global promotion of Colombia’s charter school reform. Presented at the conference of the American Educational Research Association, San Antonio, Texas, April 27–May 1.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Edwards Jr., D.B. (2018). Global Education Policy, Impact Evaluations, and Alternatives: The Political Economy of Knowledge Production. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Edwards Jr., D.B. (2021). Globalization and education: understanding and problematizing approaches to global governance and the global education policy field. In H. Steyn and C. Wolhuter (eds) Critical Issues in Education Systems: Comparative International Perspectives (pp 247278). Sydney: Axiom.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Edwards Jr., D.B. and Hall, S. (2018). Neglected issues: how charter schools manage teachers and acquire resources. Teachers College Record, 120(10), 140.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Edwards Jr., D.B. and Loucel, C. (2016). The EDUCO Program, impact evaluations, and the political economy of global education reform. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 24(49), 150.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Edwards Jr., D.B., DeMatthews, D. and Hartley, H. (2017). Public-private partnerships, accountability, and competition: theory versus reality in concession schools in Bogotá, Colombia. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 25(10), 132.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Edwards Jr., D. B, Morrison, J. and Hall, S. (2020). The suspect statistics of best practices: a triple critique of knowledge production and mobilization in the global education policy field. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 18(2), 125148.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.

  • Gal, S. and Irvine, J. (2019). Signs of Difference: Language and Ideology in Social Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • Gershberg, A., González, P. and Meade, B. (2012). Understanding and improving accountability in education: a conceptual framework and guideposts from three decentralization reform experiences in Latin America. World Development, 40(5), 10241041.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Global Partnership for Output-Based Aid (2010). Output-based aid in education: a solution for quality education. OBApproaches. Note No. 32. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/379721468162252155/pdf/548510BRI0OBAp10Box349431B01PUBLIC1.pdf

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Goffman, E. (1974). Frame Analysis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

  • Goodman, J., Tomlinson, M. and Richland, J. (2014). Citational practices: knowledge, personhood, and subjectivity. Annual Review of Anthropology, 43, 449463.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Haas, P. (1992). Introduction: epistemic communities and international policy coordination. International Organization, 46(1), 135.

  • Hull, M. (2012). Government of Paper: The Materiality of Bureaucracy in Urban Pakistan .Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

  • Jessop, B. (2001). Institutional re(turns) and the strategic: relational approach. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 33, 12131235.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Karseth, B., Sivesind, K. and Steiner-Khamsi, G. (eds) (2022). Evidence and Expertise in Nordic Education Policy. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Latour, B. (2010). The Making of Law: An Ethnography of the Conseil d’Etat, translated by M. Brilman and A. Pottage. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Levin, B. (2013). To know is not enough: research knowledge and its use. Review of Education, 1, 231.

  • López, A., Virguez, A., Sarmiento, J. and Silva, A. (2015). El efecto de la gerencia privada de escuelas públicas en el desempeño estudiantil en la educación media en Colombia .Ecos de Economía: A Latin American Journal of Applied Economics, 19(41), 109136.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Lubienski, C. and Weitzel, P. (eds) (2010). The Charter School Experiment: Expectations, Evidence, and Implications. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Malin, J.R. and Brown, C. (2020). Joining worlds: knowledge mobilization and evidence informed practice. In J.R. Malin and C. Brown (eds) The Role of Knowledge Brokers in Education: Connecting the Dots between Research and Practice (pp 112). Abingdon: Routledge.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Mertz, E. (1996). Recontextualization as socialization: texts and pragmatics in the law school classroom. In M. Silverstein and G. Urban (eds) Natural Histories of Discourse (pp 229249). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Mertz, E. (2007). The Language of Law School: Learning to “Think Like a Lawyer.” Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • Nakassis, C. (2012). Brand, citationality, performativity. American Anthropologist, 11(4), 624638.

  • Pink, S., Horst, H., Postill, J., Hjorth, L., Lewis, T. and Tacchi, J. (2015). Digital Ethnography: Principles and Practices .London: SAGE.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Restrepo, P. and Florez, J. (2008). La gobernabilidad: Conceptualización y una aplicación al sistema de educación básica en Colombia. Cadernos de Economia, 27(49), 155182.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Riles, A. (2006). Documents: Artifacts of Modern Knowledge .Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

  • Rogers, R. (2004). An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis in Education. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

  • Rogers, R., Malancharuvil-Berkes, E., Mosley, M., Hui, D. and O’Garro Joseph, G. (2005). Critical discourse analysis in education: a review of the literature. Review of Educational Research, 75(3), 365416.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Sarmiento, A., Alonso, C., Duncan, G. and Garzon, C. (2005). Evaluación de la Gestión de los Colegios en Concesión en Bogotá, 2000–2003. Archivos de Economía, Documento 291, Departamento Nacional de Planeación, Bogotá.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2022). What is in a reference? Theoretically understanding the uses of evidence in education policy. In B. Karseth, K. Sivesind and G. Steiner-Khamsi (eds) Evidence and Expertise in Nordic Education Policy (pp 3358). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Tannen, D. (2007). Power maneuvers and connection maneuvers in family interaction. In C., Gordon, D. Tannen and S. Kendall (eds) Family Talk: Discourse and Identity in Four American Families (pp 2748). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Thompson, J. (1991). Editor’s introduction. In P. Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power (pp 131). Cambridge: Polity Press.

  • Urciuoli, B. (2022). Neoliberalizing Diversity in Liberal Arts College Life .New York: Berghahn Books.

  • Vavrus, F. and Seghers, M. (2010). Critical discourse analysis in comparative education: a discursive study of “partnership” in Tanzania’s poverty reduction policies. Comparative Education Review, 54(1), 77103.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Vismann, C. (2008). Files: Law and Media Technology, translated by G. Winthrp-Young. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

  • World Bank (2009). Global Monitoring Report 2009: A Development Emergency. Washington DC: World Bank.

  • World Bank (2022a). Global Monitoring Report. https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/global-monitoring-report

  • World Bank (2022b). Global partnership on output-based aid. https://olc.worldbank.org/content/global-partnership-output-based-aid

  • World Bank (2022c). OBApproaches. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/9422

Content Metrics

May 2022 onwards Past Year Past 30 Days
Abstract Views 752 752 32
Full Text Views 2 2 0
PDF Downloads 2 2 0

Altmetrics