Abstract
The orientations framework can be applied by researchers to analysis of many different types of education policy. When applying this framework, it is important to note that orientations should not be treated in a simplistic manner. The way an orientation manifests may change over time or across discourses. For example, in discussion of sex education discourses, Irvine (2002) discusses two key conservative sex education policy approaches: a censoring non-approach wherein ‘initiatives to protect children from exposure to allegedly corrupting sex talk, whether from sex education programs or the media, are central’ (p. 1) and a morality-based sex education approach where:
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- 1.
This comment also applies to other relevant faculties or research centres conducting education and education policy research, teacher education training or research student training. The author has personally experienced several different schools, education departments and university faculties/centres—some dominated by a more conservative orientation to education or policy research, others by critical framings informed by staff interests in emancipatory social research. Of course, individuals within these organisations certainly provide exceptions to the rule or may vary their approaches over time, and some institutions may host staff working within a broad spectrum of approaches.
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While my examples show discourses in education policies by orientation, similar taxonomies could well be created focussing other particular topics across the four orientations such as ‘teacher roles in mathematics education’, ‘constructions of learners in primary-school literacy’, ‘school administration’, ‘school-based disciplinary approaches’ and so on.
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Jones, T. (2013). Analysing Orientations in Policy. In: Understanding Education Policy. SpringerBriefs in Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6265-7_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6265-7_5
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