Critical Policy Inquiry


Book Description

Presenting a critical approach to the study of public policy and policy analysis, this book presents a postpositivist foundation that challenges empiricist and technocratic approaches to policy studies. Frank Fischer advances deliberative policy argumentation and the logic of practical reason, exploring how this approach can be used as a framework for interpreting the interaction of normative and empirical arguments in policy politics.




Handbook of Critical Policy Studies


Book Description

Critical policy studies, as illustrated in this Handbook, challenges the conventional approaches public policy inquiry. But it offers important innovations as well, in particular its focus on discursive politics, policy argumentation and deliberation, and interpretive modes of analysis.




Critical Policy Discourse Analysis


Book Description

This book provides a series of contemporary and international policy case studies analysed through discursive methodological approaches in the traditions of critical discourse analysis, social semiotics and discourse theory. This is the first volume that connects this discursive methodology systematically to the field of critical policy analysis and will therefore be an essential book for researchers who wish to include a discursive analysis in their critical policy research.




Critical Approaches to Education Policy Analysis


Book Description

This volume informs the growing number of educational policy scholars on the use of critical theoretical frameworks in their analyses. It offers insights on which theories are appropriate within the area of critical educational policy research and how theory and method interact and are applied in critical policy analyses. Highlighting how different critical theoretical frameworks are used in educational policy research to reshape and redefine the way scholars approach the field, the volume offers work by emerging and senior scholars in the field of educational policy who apply critical frameworks to their research. The chapters examine a wide range of current educational policy topics through different critical theoretical lenses, including critical race theory, critical discourse analysis, postmodernism, feminist poststructuralism, critical theories related to LGBTQ issues, and advocacy approaches.




Feminist Critical Policy Analysis I


Book Description

This text sets out to challenge the traditional power basis of the policy decision makers in education. It contests that others who have an equal right to be consulted and have their opinions known have been silenced, declared irrelevant, postponed and otherwise ignored. Policies have thus been formed and implemented without even a cursory feminist critical glance. The chapters in this text illustrate how to incorporate critical and feminist lenses and thus create policies to meet the lived realities, the needs, aspirations and values of women and girls. A particular focus is the primary and secondary sectors of education.




Feminist Critical Policy Analysis: A perspective from primary and secondary schooling


Book Description

This text sets out to challenge the traditional power basis of the policy decision makers in education. It contests that others who have an equal right to be consulted and have their opinions known have been silenced, declared irrelevant, postponed and otherwise ignored. Policies have thus been formed and implemented without even a cursory feminist critical glance. The chapters in this text illustrate how to incorporate critical and feminist lenses and thus create policies to meet the lived realities, the needs, aspirations and values of women and girls. A particular focus is the primary and secondary sectors of education.




Critical Inquiries for Social Justice in Mental Health


Book Description

An exceptional showcase of interdisciplinary research, Critical Inquiries for Social Justice in Mental Health presents various critical theories, methodologies, and methods for transforming mental health research and fostering socially-just mental health practices. Marina Morrow and Lorraine Halinka Malcoe have assembled an array of international scholars, activists, and practitioners whose work exposes and disrupts the dominant neoliberal and individualist practices found in contemporary mental research, policy, and practice. The contributors employ a variety of methodologies including intersectional, decolonizing, indigenous, feminist, post-structural, transgender, queer, and critical realist approaches in order to interrogate the manifestation of power relations in mental health systems and its impact on people with mental distress. Additionally, the contributors enable the reader to reimagine systems and supports designed from the bottom up, in which the people most affected have decision-making authority over their formations. Critical Inquiries for Social Justice in Mental Health demonstrates why and how theory matters for knowledge production, policy, and practice in mental health, and it creates new imaginings of decolonized and democratized mental health systems, of abundant community-centred supports, and of a world where human differences are affirmed.




Critical Policy Studies


Book Description

Traditional definitions of public policy in Canada have been challenged in recent years by globalization, the transition to a knowledge-based economy, and the rise of new technologies. Critical Policy Studies describes how new policy problems such as border screening and global warming have been catapulted onto the agenda in the neo-liberal era. The book also surveys the recent evolution of critical approaches to policy studies, which have transformed decades-old issues. Contributors conceptualize the ways in which public policy questions cut across the traditional fields of policy. They cover both topical approaches such as Foucauldian and post-empiricist analysis and new applications of established perspectives, such as political economy. Conventional methodologies reveal new connotations when used to explore such topics as security issues, Canadian sovereignty, welfare reform, environmental protocol, Aboriginal policy, and reproductive technologies. Critical Policy Studies provides an alternative to existing approaches to policy studies, and will be welcomed by scholars, students, and practitioners of political science and public policy.




Policy Analysis in the United States


Book Description

Policy Analysis in the United States gathers a group of original contributions by scholars and leading practitioners of public policy analysis. Originating in the United States, the field of public policy analysis has affected nations around the world and been enhanced by contributions of scholars and practitioners in other regions, but it remains most highly developed and practiced in education and government here. This volume explores the nature of policy analysis in different sectors and at different levels of government, as well as by nongovernmental actors, such as unions, businesses, NGOs, and the media.




Environmental Communication and Critical Coastal Policy


Book Description

The vast majority of the world’s population lives on or near the coast. These communities are an extraordinary and largely untapped resource that can be used to mitigate planetary disaster and foster environmental stewardship. Repeated waves of scientific fact and information are not inciting action, nor apparently producing enough momentum to change voting behaviour towards a progressive environmental politics. A critical coastal policy, underpinned by a deeper understanding of environmental communication, can offer something new to this status quo. Environmental Communication and Critical Coastal Policy argues that more science and ‘better’ communication has been largely responsible for the lacklustre response by citizens to environmental challenges. Foxwell-Norton asserts that the inclusion of a range of local meanings and cultural frameworks with which experts could engage would better incite participation in, and awareness of, local environmental issues. The value and possible role of ‘geo-community media’ (mainstream, alternative and social media) is examined here to illustrate and support the key argument that meaningful local engagement is a powerful tool in coastal management processes. This is a valuable resource for postgraduates, researchers and academics across environmental science and management, policy studies, communication studies and cultural studies.




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