Purpose: This article explores the perceptions of professionals on the implementation and impact of Dual Vocational Training (Dual VET) in the Spanish education system. Design/methodology/approach: The study involves interviews with various professionals in the education and employment sectors and two discussion groups. Findings: Results reveal…

Transnational organizations like the OECD and the EU have, for many years, focussed on adult career guidance (ACG) as a policy for solving problems, especially those related to the labour market and labour market transitions. In this article, we take a closer look into the development of ACG policies in Finland and Denmark. Drawing on multiple…

Educating students of all levels from kindergarten to higher education in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is of high importance due to global goals for education as well as the life-long process of a single individual to become a better global citizen. Academic research and educational policies in recent years have focused a lot on…

How can science have more impact on policy decisions? The P-Cube Project has approached this question by creating five pedagogical computer games based on missions given to a policy entrepreneur (the player) advocating for science-informed policy decisions. The player explores simplified strategies for policy change rooted in a small number of…

This study presents a critical policy analysis of California's Assembly Bill 329 (AB 329) regarding inclusive sex education, coupled with a series of coding phases of relevant data. AB 329, enacted in 2015, mandates comprehensive sexual health education in California schools, aiming to address the needs of diverse student populations, including…

State higher education governing agencies in the United States are uniquely positioned between the state government and public postsecondary sector. However, few studies have considered how this organizational characteristic influences these agencies' role in the policy process. The current study seeks to contribute to this gap in the literature…

This paper revisits and reassesses the influence of the context of production on the origin, development and use of the term 'policy sociology' in research in the sociology of education in the UK from the 1980s to the contemporary period. Starting with the first use of the term 'policy sociology,' and its definition as 'rooted in social science…

Educational leadership scholars are unanimous in their appreciation of the importance of context. As a concept, however, context is not unproblematic and, while being scarcely theorised, the recent growing interest around the topic has shown fundamental differences in the way that it is approached with repercussions on how the field progresses.…

How do literacy coaches function as policy actors? Using a case study of literacy coaches in a small, rural South Carolina school district, this dissertation explored the ways coaches act as policy actors, the policies coaches create, and how they institutionalize policy. This study focused on literacy coaches as policy actors. The South Carolina…

A new state school finance policy--even one that is student-centered--does not guarantee that student outcomes will improve. What happens after the policy win determines whether new or reallocated state dollars translate into results. While the real work of leveraging resources to drive improvement happens at the local level, policymakers, state…

As interest in reducing the nation's incarceration rates grows, a shift in policy in favor of education for incarcerated individuals is occurring. This article focuses on the expansive role that community colleges have in offering educational opportunities to individuals in both jails and prisons around the country. This article provides an…

In this piece the author provides a critical response to the new 'Looking at Our School' quality framework in Ireland and illustrates how policy overlooks critical scholarship. The author questions the claim that the updated policy reflects recent thinking and developments, and critiques the policy's stance on notions of both distributed…

This paper aims to show the complex overlapping and interaction with exogenous influences in the processes of national policymaking by analysing a case of policy borrowing in Japan. Specifically, it explores the political circumstances under which the Council of Europe Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) was introduced to…

The exclusion of certain tribes in an educational system can be best understood from the context of national educational policy. The new national education policy in Indonesia causes the exclusion of minority tribes such as "Samin" community in Indonesia. This study investigates how the National Education law (SISDIKNAS) was implemented,…

The purpose of this dissertation is to understand how and why different state financial aid policy designs have developed, with particular attention to external influences, and what effect those design choices have on student outcomes. In the first essay, I use the theoretical framework of diffusion to understand the design and adoption of…