Employing a social justice framework, this book provides educational leaders and practitioners with tools and strategies for grappling with the political fray of education politics. The framework offers ways to critique, challenge, and alter social, cultural, and political patterns in organizations and systems that perpetuate inequities. The…

A barrage of pro-privatization policies that cascaded into North Carolina education statutes during the 2013-2014 legislative session helped spark a series of organized protests known as the Moral Monday Movement. Powerful and strategic policy networks, such as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), have made privatization and…

How has feminism mattered in the lives of particular academic feminists? Three scholars in education whose careers developed during the era of second-wave feminism describe how their personal and political stances were affected by theories, methodological advances, the milieus of academia as well as legal, and political events in the USA. The…

Before there can be an understanding of politics, policy, and action in education, there must be an understanding of the value systems of policymakers. Policymakers, in their talk, in their choices of symbols and metaphors, in their choices of strategies for dealing with conflict, reveal their own needs, their role orientations, their group…

In an attempt to lessen the tension which often exists between educators and policymakers, this article discusses each sector's world and then offers suggestions on how to construct bridges between these worlds so that mutual goals may be attained. (JL)

Challenges the parameters defining the field of educational politics and a dominant paradigm stifling the exercise of power and gender, social class, racial, and sexual difference. Briefly reviews current feminist theories and work in cultural studies as they relate to educational policy and politics. A newly defined "public sphere" has…

The complex and varied nature of state education policymaking is illustrated through six case studies detailing political influences at work in six states (Arizona, California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Wisconsin). (CB)

This article identifies, describes, and demonstrates theoretical and methodological developments through a study of policy cultures in six states (Arizona, California, Illinois, Penneylvania, West Virginia, and Wisconsin). (CB)

This case study of the Early Childhood Education Program (California) focuses on the political meaning of evaluation. It shows how analysis of evaluation politics reveals who controls education policy, which values are prevailing and dominant, and which definitions of policy goals constitute the assumptive world. (RDN)

Findings of a study that examined the teacher-administrator relationship from a micropolitical perspective are presented in this paper. Data were derived from interviews with 12 new administrators from school districts within a 50-mile radius of a major metropolitan area in the eastern United States. The micropolitical analysis identifies power…

Four data-based analyses and three commentaries concerning research into the micropolitics of education are introduced. The following themes in micropolitical analysis are considered: ideologies/values of teacher/administrator subsystems; bureaucratic myths; policy remaking in site-level implementation; bias in organizational life; reality…

Individual members of state legislatures wield the greatest influence in state level policy formation. This was one of the findings of a study that identified the power and influence context of state-level policymaking. Data were gathered from six states (Arizona, California, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Illinois) using an instrument…

Female researchers conducting field research in educational politics encounter special problems of access, entry, reciprocity, and ethics. Accordingly, this study focuses first on field research methods in policy settings as a general topic, then on problems specific to women in this area. A researcher must be aware of informal coalitions or…

This study of evaluation utilization identified organizational, political, and practical arrangements facilitating the wide use of "The Interim Report Evaluation" in policymaking for California's Early Childhood Education Program. In a program fraught by tensions, where evaluations had been political tools, this evaluation was special.…

Studies school-site administrators' understanding about ways of gaining/maintaining power, control, and predictability. Multisite study data concerning assistant principals identify rules of the game for four micropolitical (site-level assumptive world) domains. Assumptive worlds create avoidance of value conflicts and risky change, group-think…