This article, drawing especially but not exclusively on Bourdieu's work on practice and its relationships with habitus, capital, and field, argues for a perspective on policy, as informed by and as practice, and applies it across all elements of the policy cycle. It is argued that a practice perspective captures well the economies of power in…

This article brackets assumptions embedded in the framing of this special issue on "problematizing methodological simplicity in qualitative research" in a effort to understand why policymakers put pressure on all types of researchers, including those who use qualitative methods, to provide relatively simple, even somewhat mechanistic portrayals of…

This article argues that adult education policy in Scotland has been constructed, in particular ways which resonate with significant cultural themes, lending them a currency which appeals to a deep sense of identity. Using the theme of universal individualism, the paper considers how ideas of community and education have been used to maintain the…