This session will highlight key conceptual issues for education policy research and education policy researchers in schools, namely how ‘’policy’’ is conceptualised, and it will propose ways research can better capture and reflect what happens in schools.
At the heart of this presentation is the dichotomy between policy implementation research and policy enactment research, and the prevalence of the former at the expense of the latter. Such an orientation can imply that teachers are passive, unassertive, and devoid of agency but must teachers be conceived of in reductive ways or should theories be reviewed and revised to more accurately reflect the realities of teachers’ policy work? How might researchers deal with this conundrum?
This session presents the argument that the common conceptualisation of policy as something that is ‘implemented’ is insufficient and that the more critical policy enactment perspective is a more productive analytic for capturing what happens in schools. However, policy enactment research is not without its drawbacks and several ways forward for policy enactment research are outlined.
Bio
Dr Craig Skerritt is Senior Lecturer and Head of Department of Policy and Practice at Marino Institute of Education in Dublin, Ireland. Dr Skerritt is the editor of two edited books to be published by Bloomsbury in summer 2026: Advising on and Making Education Policy: New Perspectives on Past and Present Procedures and Opportunities and Challenges for Policy Advice and Policy Making in Education: Future Possibilities. This presentation draws on a series of Dr Skerritt’s publications in recent years, including a recent paper published in Journal of Education Policy entitled ‘’Little-p policy production: exploring policy making in schools through the analytic of policy enactment’’