Using policy network analysis to understand ideological convergence and change in educational subsystems

Abstract

In recent years, education policy scholars have begun to utilize social network concepts and methods to describe contemporary policy changes across P-16 levels. While many insights have emerged from this growing literature base, we argue that a more formal network approach rooted in policy network analysis (PNA) is needed to fulfill its conceptual and analytical ambitions. Policy network analysis integrates concepts from social network analysis with theoretical assumptions developed in the field of political science. Toward this end, we first argue that a more rigorous treatment of policy beliefs is needed to analyze the impact of ideas on the policy agenda. Existing literature on the ideological dimensions of market-based reform movements tends to define them largely within the bounds of neo-liberalism and thus far has failed to systematically explain how policy beliefs emerge and converge in this context. Second, we contend that previous work has generally lacked theoretical grounding in formal policy network analysis (PNA). Although there are clear links between the concepts and findings in traditional PNA literature and educational research – particularly the use of networked governance as a concept for understanding the interconnectedness of educational reform networks – a more diligent application of PNA theory and methods would enable educational policy scholars to gain deeper insights into the explanatory processes of policy change. We pay particular attention to the usefulness of these approaches for examining two-mode network data and for modeling ideological policy change.

Critical policy scholarship in education: An overview

“…In critical research, social reality is accessed through the interpretation of tacit meanings embedded in discourses, frames, and metaphors through which issues are publicized as public agenda. Over the years, critical education policy scholars have deployed a range of analytical strategies, including discourse analysis, interpretive analysis, network analysis, assemblage study, frame analysis, and metaphor analysis (see Emery, 2016;Gale, 1999Gale, , 2001Galey-Horn & Ferrare, 2020;Lester et al, 2016;Mills et al, 2017;Molla & Gale, 2019;Molla & Nolan, 2019).…”

Redes políticas na educação brasileira: O caso da Base Nacional Comum Curricular

“…A investigação de redes políticas na educação tem se ampliado nos últimos anos, sendo crescente o número de artigos que incorporam a etnografia de redes e a noção de redes políticas nos modos de pesquisar a política curricular e educacional em diferentes países (ver, por exemplo, Ellison et al, 2019;Galey-Horn & Ferrare, 2020;Green Saraisky & Pizmony-Levy, 2020;Shiroma, 2020). Incorporamos contribuições de tais trabalhos, mas procuramos pensar tais noções de forma mediada pela interpretação da política como espaço de disputa não coerente nem racional, sem submissão a determinações estruturais, econômicas ou não, porque marcada por decisões contingentes em relações de poder desiguais (Lopes, 2018).…”

“…Outras investigações sobre políticas educacionais já salientaram essa convergência de políticas em direção ao consenso, existindo atores que facilitam as conexões entre as redes políticas em direção às mesmas ideias (Galey-Horn & Ferrare, 2020). Não ignoramos a presença desses atores, mas, por meio do enfoque pós-estrutural, destacamos o quanto os atores políticos filiados a agências e partidos os mais diferentes tendem a ser subjetivados, em contextos espaço-temporais distintos, por discursos apresentados como consensuais.…”