Models of school policy implementation

Policy has been described as ‘outcomes of contested preferences expressed within the state and civil society, some of which go forward as practical programmes involving the allocation or reallocation of resources’ (p.17) (Fitz et al. 2006), although it has previously been considered as a reactive attempt to alleviate a perceived problem or threat to social order and wellbeing (Torres 1989). Drawing together findings from Pressman and Wildavsky’s (1974) work in the US, and Barrett and Fudge’s (1981) findings from research in the UK (Policy in Action, 1981), Schofield (2001) has noted that policy research is largely concerned with success or failure of policy implementation; seeking to explain why policy is or is not implemented as intended (Buck et al. 1993; Matland 1995; Ryan 1995).

O’Toole (1986) has identified three hundred variables that potentially influence the successful implementation of policy. Barriers to effective implementation include a lack of clear policy objectives, a multiplicity of actors and agencies, differences in inter and intra-organisational values in relation to the policy, and relative autonomies among implementing agents (Pressman and Wildavsky 1974; Sabatier 1999). They also include decision making, communication, bargaining, negotiation and conflict (Schofield 2001). O’Toole’s (1986) facilitators for effective policy implementation largely fall into four main groups of influence: policy and policy processes (Pressman and Wildavsky 1974; Mazmanien and Sabatier 1981), organisations and their characteristics or cultures (Rainey and Steinbauer 1999), agents with certain preferences or leadership abilities and styles (Lipsky 1980), and the wider implementation context such as political and economic conditions as well as public opinion (Mazmanien and Sabatier 1981).

Policy implementation processes have initially been considered as top- down, hierarchically occurring administrative and centrally controlled processes (Barrett 2004). For example, Mazmanien and Sabatier (1981) have conceptualised policy implementation as a predominantly administrative process seeing local actors as barriers to successful implementation that need to be controlled: ‘The starting point is the authoritative decision; as the name implies, centrally located actors are seen as most relevant to producing the desired effects’ (Mazmanien and Sabatier 1981, p. 145). The linearity of policy implementation processes implied by these top-down theories focuses on central control as key determinant, whilst it pays less attention to the interaction between agents and their context. Such a hierarchical perspective may limit approaches towards understanding bureaucratic discretion and motivation. Therefore, more recent arguments suggest a focus on a ‘policy-action dialectic’ that places more emphasis on ‘power-interest structures and relationships between participating actors and agencies and the nature of interactions taking place in the policy implementation process’ (Barrett 2004, p. 253).

Although much of previous policy research has attended to policy making processes, the role of implementers and how they shape policy has largely been overlooked (Hill 2003). Where it has been considered, it appears that the role of individual agents in policy implementation processes has not always been portrayed in a constructive way. For example, rational choice theory assumes that people’s decisions are shaped by their personal interest and an optimization of utility, and that choice is at the centre of a person’s life (Moessinger 2000). However, it fails to consider the complex sense- making processes that happen whilst actors understand and implement policies in their contexts. In addition, it places responsibility for the success or failure of this policy with the individual agent. It is therefore less helpful for understanding processes that may generate recommendations for change (Spillane et al. 2002).

Instead, theories developed on the basis of Lipsky’s (1980) concept of street level bureaucrats seek to explain why local actors’ policy implementation

differs from policy intentions, examining the disjuncture between policy objectives and actual implementation (Hill and Hupe 2002). According to this perspective, implementers consider which strategies are most appropriate for shaping practice according to policy requirements (Yanow 1996; Cohen et al. 1998; Spillane 1998; Lin 2000). Such sense-making processes shape the policy that ‘ultimately gets delivered to clients’. This means that simply by ‘doing their jobs, street level bureaucrats teachers, social workers and police officers, ‘make’ the policy citizens are experiencing. (pg. 266 - 272) (Lipsky 1980; Yanow 1996; Lin 2000; Hill 2003). Therefore, the concept of street level bureaucrats considers policy implementation as something taking place at two levels: policy is generated centrally by the government at the macro-implementation level and local actors or organisations at the micro-implementation level react to these policies and develop their own programmes (Berman 1978; Lipsky 1978; Hjern 1981). Such a consideration of policy implementation processes from a bottom-up perspective has been noted to gain increasing attention as it has the potential to explain the growing complexity of contexts in which policies are developed and implemented (Buse 2005; Walt 2008).

Taking account of this complexity, Walt and Gilson’s (1994) policy triangle framework suggests that the content of policy, actors, context and processes interact to influence policy implementation (Walt 2008). Elaborating on these interactions, Spillane’s cognitive framework of school policy implementation suggests that implementation occurs at three levels: First, individual cognition is influenced by the implementing agents’ beliefs, values and emotions. Second, situated cognition refers to the situational and social influences on individual sense-making. Third, individual sense- making shapes the way in which practice changes in response to policy (Spillane et al. 2002).

Another approach to explaining school policy implementation processes has been taken by Abbott et al. (2011), who have drawn upon Bernstein’s (1996) pedagogic device. Its rules influence the development of policy as well as its implementation. They explain, for example, how the context of

school policy enactment can lead to ‘the selective reproduction of educational discourse’ (Bernstein 1990, p. 191), as it highlights the interaction between policies, policymakers and influences on implementers. The distinction between distributive, re-contextualising and evaluative rules is considered as very permeable where actors that are internal and external to the system work with policies (Bernstein 1990, 1996; Coburn 2001; Hill 2001; Spillane 2002; Spillane et al. 2002).

The pedagogic device has originally been applied to explaining how educational knowledge is constructed and re-constructed. Whilst it may be useful for generating a wider understanding of school policy implementation, this focus aligns less well to lesson processes and intrapersonal determinants of health behaviours, the focus of this study. Other frameworks aimed at examining policy implementation, such as the ‘stages heuristic framework’ (Lasswell 1956) have been found to be useful for considering policy processes in their entirety. However, their linearity does not adequately generate an understanding of the reciprocal interaction between agents and their contexts (Spillane et al. 2002; Greenalgh et al. 2004).

These arguments suggest that Spillane’s (2002) framework presents the most comprehensive approach to examining policy implementation in the context of this study. It is specifically aimed at describing school policy implementation processes and its determinants offer a wider, more systematic and explicit insight into the different levels of influence that explain the pathway from policy implementation to lesson processes. In order to understand the complexity of school policy implementation processes, it is necessary to examine how the policy context, the widest level of influence on policy implementation described by Spillane (2002), re-emerges in classroom practice. Therefore, the next section considers in detail how the policy context, largely represented by graded exam performance, might influence lesson processes.

2.3.Manifestation of educational policy context in classroom practice