The main theories of the thriving field of study of public policies have been formulated at institutions of developed countries, mostly by the American academy, based on the particular conditions of policy-making processes of their own country. However, its heuristic premises are considered, initially, as universal and are used extensively in…

Foucauldian critical studies are cornucopian in illustrating how policy as discourse normalizes and yields human beings into made subjects in modern societies. However, Foucault's own slide from the 'terminal stage of discourse' pays little attention to the linguistic elements, and thus weakens the theory's potency in explaining the reality.…

There is continuing interest in using the best available research evidence to inform public health policy. However, all too often efforts to do so rely on mechanistic and unrealistic views of the process by which public policy is made. As a result, traditional dyadic knowledge translation (KT) approaches may not be particularly effective when…

When either privileged or under-resourced families navigate gray areas in the law, including federal laws related to students with disabilities such as Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, inequities are revealed. Research and emerging trends have raised increasing concerns about unfairness and abuses of disability policies, particularly with…

This article captures how scientific uncertainty is negotiated and its implications on public health policy. Through the case study of the Human Papillomavirus vaccine in Canada, we investigated how policymakers engage in 'sensemaking', the process whereby policymakers mediate shifting informational terrain to come to an understanding of what…

This essay reflects on the promise and challenges of community-engaged, critical participatory action research (CPAR) hinged to social policy in times of racialized state violence and massive community resistance. With cautious optimism, we argue for the potential of CPAR to facilitate more just social policy, by enhancing research validity,…

After the Civil War (1861-1865), the United States faced a problem of "reconstruction" similar to that confronted by other nations at the time and familiar to the US since at least the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). The problem was one of territorial and political (re)integration: how to take territories that had only recently been…

This paper traces the complexities, contingencies and tensions involved in the creation of a new, 'scientific' assessment in what we call Prefecture A in Japan. We start with a thick, granular description of the complicated and ongoing narrative of a new policy emergence. This descriptive account serves as a precursor to our application of an…

Concludes that the real challenge to social scientists in this administration, and any other, is not how to relate effectively and get more funds from the executive branch, but how to relate more effectively as teachers and learners in the political process--with the American people and their elected representatives in Congress. (Author/JM)

Issues concerning the role of the humanities and humanistic education in public policy, social issues, and politics are discussed in the contexts of both More's "Utopia" and the contemporary political situation in the United States, emphasizing the importance of developing a humanistic approach to power. (MSE)

Italy's approach to political decision making, increasingly a process of trying to reach collective agreement without changing anything, has paralyzed higher education and is moving it out of the mainstream of European higher education. (MSE)

Language-spread policy (LSP) is policy promulgated by groups seeking to spread their languages to speakers or communicative domains. LSP can be internal or external, overt or disguised, and related in different ways to national policy. Intent may be to increase native-language advantage in international communication, disseminate ideology, create…

Addresses the lack of progress by Black people and women to reach positions of power and policy influence and the authorities' failure to deliver services that meet the needs of both groups. Discusses issues related to local government in Great Britain. (JOW)

The author suggests that, as public agencies make more of our decisions, we lose our power. Soon citizens will no longer be able to continue to make their own choices in education, and large portions of our population will be deprived of fundamental political freedom by the year 2000. (KC)

Focuses on the efforts made in the decade of the 1960's to improve processes of social choice, so that the economic market could be improved or replaced by satisfactory political arrangements. (Author/JM)