KEYWORDS IN EDUCATION POLICY RESEARCH

A Conceptual Toolbox

Andrew Wilkins, Steven J. Courtney and Nelli Piattoeva

First published in Great Britain in 2024 by

Policy Press, an imprint of

Bristol University Press

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ISBN 978-1-4473-6009-4 hardcover

ISBN 978-1-4473-6010-0 paperback

ISBN 978-1-4473-6011-7 ePub

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A love letter to a field of inspiration

Contents

  • About the authors ix

  • Introduction 1

  • Keywords 9

  • A 11

    • Activism 11

    • Actor-Network Theory 12

    • Advocacy 14

    • Affect 16

    • Alignment 17

    • Anthropology 19

    • Archaeology 21

    • Artefact 23

    • Assemblage 25

    • Attraction 27

    • Automation 29

  • B 32

    • Borrowing 32

    • Bricolage 34

    • Broker 36

  • C 38

    • Community 38

    • Consultant 39

    • Context 41

    • Convergence 44

    • Criticality 45

    • Critical discourse analysis 48

    • Critical race theory 49

    • Cultural political economy 51

    • Cycle 53

  • D 56

    • Decoupling 56

    • Deliberative policy analysis 58

    • Deliverology 60

    • Dialogue 62

    • Diffusion 63

    • Digital education 65

    • Digital policy sociology 67

    • Discourse analysis 70

    • Dispositif 71

    • Divergence 73

    • Drift 75

  • E 78

    • Elite 78

    • Embodiment 79

    • Enactment 81

    • Entrepreneur 83

    • Environmental and sustainability policy analysis 85

    • Epistemology 87

    • Event 89

    • Experimentation 92

    • Expertise 94

  • F 97

    • Fast policy 97

    • Feminist policy analysis 99

    • Framing 101

  • G 104

    • Genealogy 104

    • Governance 105

    • Governmentality 107

  • H 110

    • Historiography 110

  • I 113

    • Implementation 113

    • Indigenous policy analysis 115

    • Infrastructure 117

    • Institutional theory 119

    • Instrument 122

    • Intermediary 125

    • Interpretive policy analysis 127

  • L 130

    • Leadership 130

  • M 132

    • Mediation 132

    • Mediatisation 133

    • Micro-credential 136

    • Mobility 138

    • Multiple-streams analysis 140

  • N 143

    • Narrative policy analysis 143

    • Neoliberalism 145

    • Numbers 146

  • O 149

  • P 151

    • Partnership 151

    • Performativity 152

    • Policy ethnography 155

    • Policy field analysis 157

    • Policy learning 159

    • Policy network analysis 160

    • Policy scholarship 162

    • Policy science 164

    • Policy sociology 166

    • Policy trajectory analysis 168

    • Policy work 170

    • Privatisation 172

    • Problematisation 174

  • Q 177

    • Queer policy analysis 177

  • R 179

    • Rationality 179

    • Regime 181

    • Regulation 183

    • Resistance 185

    • Rhetorical analysis 187

  • S 190

    • Scalar policy analysis 190

    • Silence 192

    • Social network analysis 194

    • Spatial policy analysis 196

  • T 199

    • Temporal policy analysis 199

    • Think tank 200

    • Topology 202

    • Transfer 204

    • Translation 206

  • U 209

    • Unbundling 209

  • V 212

    • Visual methods 212

  • W 215

    • World culture theory 215

About the authors

  • Andrew Wilkins is Reader in Education Policy and Director of Research in the Department of Educational Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London. He is a policy sociologist with research interests in education policy, comparative education and education governance.

  • Steven J. Courtney is Professor of Sociology of Education Leadership at the Manchester Institute of Education (MIE), University of Manchester. His research uses critical approaches which seek to explain and theorise education policy and educational leaders’ identity and practice, as well as the relationship between these. He is currently Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Critical Studies in Education.

  • Nelli Piattoeva is Professor of Sociology of Education at Tampere University, Finland. Her research focuses on the changing means of the governance of schooling (for example, datafication) and on the role of formal education in societal governance (for example, schools as sites of nation-building). She is Co-Director of the Laboratory of International Assessment Studies. At Tampere University, she leads an interdisciplinary Research Centre on Transnationalism and Transformation (TRANSIT).