Education Policy as a Practice of Power: Theoretical Tools, Ethnographic Methods, Democratic Options

This article outlines some theoretical and methodological parameters of a critical practice approach to policy. The article discusses the origins of this approach, how it can be uniquely adapted to educational analysis, and why it matters—not only for scholarly interpretation but also for the democratization of policy processes as well. Key to the exposition is the concept of appropriation as a form of creative interpretive practice necessarily engaged in by different people involved in the policy process. Another crucial distinction is made between authorized policy and unauthorized or informal policy; it is argued that when nonauthorized policy actors appropriate policy they are in effect often making new policy in situated locales and communities of practice.