Practitioners’ perception of the impact of the vision of policy‐makers on practice: the example of the recommendations of the Moser Commission

Abstract

This paper presents the perception of practitioners of the impact of the Moser Committee recommendations and the Skills for Life agenda it generated. The paper further explores areas of convergence and divergence between practitioners' perceptions and the underpinning values of the Moser Committee recommendations. The study utilised a range of research tools including an online questionnaire, documentary analysis and elements of discourse analysis in the collection and analysis of data. It found that there is substantial divergence between the perception of practitioners and the values underpinning policy. It concludes by suggesting that a varying perception of what constitutes sustainable education and the lack of input from practitioners into policy might be responsible for this significant divergence of opinion and also raised a question on the perceived role of practitioners in the policy-making process.

Practitioners’ Perceptions of The Gap Between the Rhetoric of Moser Committee SFL Recommendations and The Reality Of Policy Implementation

“…As reported in Ade-Ojo (2011) and Fowler, (2005, there is strong evidence that the recommendations of the committee were more informed by economic rather than emancipator and educational values. There is a strong sense from the focus group discussions that many of the participants were more driven by the latter rather than the former value position.…”

“…In the case of SfL policy, it would seem that this type of collaboration was limited as previous studies indicated that there was little or no involvement of practitioners in the policy formation process (See e.g. Ade-Ojo, 2011). This suggestion does not, however, ignore the problems of such a bottom -up approach including the tendency to eliminate a much desired bureaucratic accountability and the attendant difficulty of being able to evaluate the effects of policy (Steinbach 2009).…”

“…Almost without fail, these studies have all identified a gap between what might be called the rhetoric of policy and the reality of implementation ( Ade-Ojo, 2011, Results, 2010, Steinbach, 2009, Bossuyt/ECDPM, 2008, Yates and Payne, 2007, Callejo, 2006and Kelly, 1997. One other constant with these studies is the fact that most of them have drawn from a positivist cause-and -effect paradigm (Gilg and Kelly, 1997) which often tended to simply analyse structural and statistical evidence in their measurement of gap between policy and implementation (See e.g.…”

"You Just Figure It Out as You Go": Teachers' Sources of Policy Information

“…Many of the researchers who studied teachers' perspectives of education policy also described the importance of local context in education policy implementation. Teachers were often used as the unit of analysis in order to help education leaders create policies better aligned with classroom realities (e.g., Ade-Ojo, 2011) and to highlight the local variation that occurred as teachers made sense of policies in their local contexts (e.g., Russell & Bray, 2013). Researchers also pointed to gaps or lack of alignment between state or national policy requirements and teachers' understanding of their local context as a cause of teachers implementing policy in a manner contrary to policy makers' intentions (Hajisoteriou, 2013;Jones, 2014;Tuytens & Devos, 2009).…”

Teachers Making Sense of English Learner Education Policy

“…However, education policy has not historically resulted in widespread changes to teachers' instructional practices (Cuban, 2013). Furthermore, top-down policies do not account for the ways that diverse local contexts shape teachers' instructional decisions (Ade-Ojo, 2011;Esposito, Davis, & Swain, 2012). Teachers' intentions and values also shape their practice, but may not reflect policy goals (Kennedy, 2004).…”