En policys färd : Undersökandet av implementeringen av en utbildningspolicy inom högre utbildning

• This paper is a part of a larger project where we longitudinally (over seven years) analyze the implementation process of a policy instigating written assessment criteria for all courses in a traditional university faculty. The overarching question is: How does educational policy influence educational practice?The project adhere to a complex perspective on implementation (Gornitzka et al., 2005) as it sees a policy and its journey from formation to practice as a series of negotiations, sometimes called the implementation staircase (Saunders and Sin, 2015).The complexity of such a process is inevitably increased by a number of aspects (Røvik, 2016): the perceived value of the policy content by the owners of the practice (teaching), the organizational distance between those formulating the policy and the practitioners, the organizational culture/s and its relationship to the coordinative aspect of the policy (Schmidt, 2008), and the considerable timespan that implementation studies require (Sabatier, 2005). Moreover, a multitude of interacting time perspectives (as per the Annales School, eg. Braudel, 1995) in eg. various stakeholders’ expectations on outcomes, as well as the mutual influences by structures and events on each other in terms of change, obstructs the feasibility to identify and study a policy implementation as an isolated event. We therefore suggest that expectations on policy implementation in complex and autonomous institutions such as universities should acknowledge this very complexity as intrinsic.In this presentation, we use a framework suggested by Røvik, focusing especially on the negotiations performed by local leaders (study directors) and academic teachers.We have collected material through participation, as two of the authors, who are also active as pedagogical developers, have played active part in the formulation of the policy as well as in the process studied here. To this, we add repeated interviews with teachers, local leaders, and administrative personnel as well as with the deans active during the period studied. These interviews have been reflective in character, where we invite the interviewee to reflect on the process, thereby making the research approach participatory (Bergold and Thomas, 2012).Preliminary results suggest the process as signified by negotiations. The policy’s coordinative function is thereby challenged. In relation to Røvik’s framework, we see that both leaders and teachers construct individual interpretations of, as well as ways to enact, the policy; an observation that calls for modification of Røvik’s framework. This leads to arguments against a perspective on policy implementation as instrumental identification of impact.

• This paper is a part of a larger project where we longitudinally (over seven years) analyze the implementation process of a policy instigating written assessment criteria for all courses in a traditional university faculty. The overarching question is: How does educational policy influence educational practice? The project adhere to a complex perspective on implementation (Gornitzka et al., 2005) as it sees a policy and its journey from formation to practice as a series of negotiations, sometimes called the implementation staircase (Saunders and Sin, 2015). The complexity of such a process is inevitably increased by a number of aspects (Røvik, 2016): the perceived value of the policy content by the owners of the practice (teaching), the organizational distance between those formulating the policy and the practitioners, the organizational culture/s and its relationship to the coordinative aspect of the policy (Schmidt, 2008), and the considerable timespan that implementation studies require (Sabatier, 2005). Moreover, a multitude of interacting time perspectives (as per the Annales School, eg. Braudel, 1995) in eg. various stakeholders’ expectations on outcomes, as well as the mutual influences by structures and events on each other in terms of change, obstructs the feasibility to identify and study a policy implementation as an isolated event. We therefore suggest that expectations on policy implementation in complex and autonomous institutions such as universities should acknowledge this very complexity as intrinsic.In this presentation, we use a framework suggested by Røvik, focusing especially on the negotiations performed by local leaders (study directors) and academic teachers. We have collected material through participation, as two of the authors, who are also active as pedagogical developers, have played active part in the formulation of the policy as well as in the process studied here. To this, we add repeated interviews with teachers, local leaders, and administrative personnel as well as with the deans active during the period studied. These interviews have been reflective in character, where we invite the interviewee to reflect on the process, thereby making the research approach participatory (Bergold and Thomas, 2012).Preliminary results suggest the process as signified by negotiations. The policy’s coordinative function is thereby challenged. In relation to Røvik’s framework, we see that both leaders and teachers construct individual interpretations of, as well as ways to enact, the policy; an observation that calls for modification of Røvik’s framework. This leads to arguments against a perspective on policy implementation as instrumental identification of impact.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Pedagogik (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Pedagogy (hsv//eng)

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