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In this chapter, we focus on policy mobilities as a broad term that captures work identifying and conceptualizing how policy moves through multiple and diffuse means, including nonscalar modalities. We seek to highlight aspects of the continuing conceptual development of policy mobilities studies in education, and specifically those relating to the notion of topology. We use topological thinking to dig a little deeper into the intellectual lineages of the concepts that make up policy mobilities scholarship, including (i)Â networks, (ii) place, (iii) time and (iv) assemblage thinking. Next, we outline examples of the emerging empirical work that uses these policy mobilities concepts and approaches in the study of education policy. In addressing these two aims, we draw attention to concepts in policy mobilities and the methodological possibilities they might afford us, as well as the potential limitations of such approaches.
The movement of policy is a core feature of contemporary education reform. Many different concepts, including policy transfer, borrowing and lending, travelling, diffusion and mobility, have been deployed to study how and why policy moves across jurisdictions, scales of governance, policy sectors or organizations. However, the underlying theoretical perspectives and the foundational assumptions of different approaches to policy movement remain insufficiently discussed. To address this gap, this book places front and center questions of theory, ontology, epistemology and method related to policy movement. It explores a wide diversity of approaches to help understand the policy movement phenomena, providing a useful guide on global studies in education, as well as insights into the future of this dynamic area of work.
The literature on education policy movement – that is, the diffusion, transfer and translation of education policy globally – has continued to expand. This expanding research on policy movement has built on established approaches, while also reflecting the development of new approaches or the combination of existing ones. However, the underlying theoretical perspectives and the foundational assumptions of policy movement scholarship frequently remain implicit and insufficiently elaborated. This chapter responds by characterizing four related yet distinct orientations to understanding and studying education policy movement: cross-scalar approaches, discourse-centered approaches, policy mobilities approaches and decolonial approaches. The approaches discussed within and across these groups are distinguished in terms of their theoretical and methodological features. However, before presenting these approaches, the chapter first situates education policy movement within the broader phenomenon of globalization. This section explains how the political, economic and cultural dimensions of globalization affect education systems around the world and encourage or impede education policy movement. It is also attentive to how the features of globalization continue to evolve and, indeed, how globalization is experiencing a backlash along all three dimensions (political, economic and cultural). This discussion thus describes the “context of contexts” in which – and in reaction to which – scholarship on education policy movement itself continues to develop. The conclusions emphasize, first, that emerging approaches to education policy movement reflect eclecticism and, second, that the boundaries between different approaches to researching policy movement are now less clearly defined than before. The conclusions furthermore recognize the contributions and complementarities of different approaches, while also calling on scholars to strive for theoretical clarity, to move beyond descriptive studies and to engage with a range of theoretical perspectives in order to see and explain policy movement in new ways and to achieve more nuanced understandings of policy movement phenomena.
The movement of policy is a core feature of contemporary education reform. Many different concepts, including policy transfer, borrowing and lending, travelling, diffusion and mobility, have been deployed to study how and why policy moves across jurisdictions, scales of governance, policy sectors or organizations. However, the underlying theoretical perspectives and the foundational assumptions of different approaches to policy movement remain insufficiently discussed. To address this gap, this book places front and center questions of theory, ontology, epistemology and method related to policy movement. It explores a wide diversity of approaches to help understand the policy movement phenomena, providing a useful guide on global studies in education, as well as insights into the future of this dynamic area of work.
The movement of policy is a core feature of contemporary education reform. Many different concepts, including policy transfer, borrowing and lending, travelling, diffusion and mobility, have been deployed to study how and why policy moves across jurisdictions, scales of governance, policy sectors or organizations. However, the underlying theoretical perspectives and the foundational assumptions of different approaches to policy movement remain insufficiently discussed. To address this gap, this book places front and center questions of theory, ontology, epistemology and method related to policy movement. It explores a wide diversity of approaches to help understand the policy movement phenomena, providing a useful guide on global studies in education, as well as insights into the future of this dynamic area of work.
The movement of policy is a core feature of contemporary education reform. Many different concepts, including policy transfer, borrowing and lending, travelling, diffusion and mobility, have been deployed to study how and why policy moves across jurisdictions, scales of governance, policy sectors or organizations. However, the underlying theoretical perspectives and the foundational assumptions of different approaches to policy movement remain insufficiently discussed. To address this gap, this book places front and center questions of theory, ontology, epistemology and method related to policy movement. It explores a wide diversity of approaches to help understand the policy movement phenomena, providing a useful guide on global studies in education, as well as insights into the future of this dynamic area of work.
The movement of policy is a core feature of contemporary education reform. Many different concepts, including policy transfer, borrowing and lending, travelling, diffusion and mobility, have been deployed to study how and why policy moves across jurisdictions, scales of governance, policy sectors or organisations. However, the underlying theoretical perspectives and the foundational assumptions of different approaches to policy movement remain insufficiently discussed.
To address this gap, this book places front and center questions of theory, ontology, epistemology and method related to policy movement. It explores a wide diversity of approaches to help understand the policy movement phenomena, providing a useful guide on global studies in education, as well as insights into the future of this dynamic area of work.
