Beck, Anna Dorothy

292 Pages·2017·2.81 MB·English

by  Anna Beck

Beck, Anna Dorothy (2016) Policy processes, professionalism and
partnership: an exploration of the implementation of 'Teaching Scotland's
Future'. PhD thesis.

http://theses.gla.ac.uk/8560/

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Enlighten:Theses
http://theses.gla.ac.uk/
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Policy processes, professionalism
and partnership:
An exploration of the
implementation of ‘Teaching
Scotland’s Future’

Anna Dorothy Beck
MRes, BA Hons

Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of
Philosophy

School of Education
College of Social Sciences
University of Glasgow
September 2016
Abstract

The aim of this research was to explore the implementation of the recommendations from a
recent teacher education policy in Scotland, ‘Teaching Scotland’s Future’ (TSF;
Donaldson, 2011), in ‘real time’, as the policy was alive and continuously evolving.

Shortly after the publication of TSF, the Scottish Government set up a partnership model,
the National Partnership Group (NPG) to refine and begin to implement a number of its
recommendations in partnership between key organisations in Scottish education. The
membership of the NPG consisted of representatives from these key organisations, as well
as a small number of individual teachers. The NPG, its structure, membership and the
multiple ways in which it operated, was the main focus of this research.

Taking a critical policy analysis approach, this research set out to investigate the
representation and participation of actors within the policy process and identify the voices
that were not heard within the NPG. The research employed elements of actor-network
theory (ANT) to conceptualise the participation of institutional actors as a process of
‘interest translation’ and drew on literature in the area of policy networks and democratic
network governance in order to examine the processes by which the NPG operated. The
data used in this research consisted of interviews conducted with members of the NPG and
documentary evidence in the form of minutes of meetings, policy documents and press
releases.

Drawing mainly on the perspectives of actors central to the process, this thesis highlights
the complexity and subtly of the policy processes at work. On the surface, the development
of a partnership model was regarded as evidence of the government’s apparent
commitment to collaborative and democratic policy-making. However, this research shows
that underneath this ‘simulacra of order’ lay great disorder: divergent institutional interests,
unequal power relations, strategic institutional positioning and a conservative network
culture that favoured the participation of some actors over others. Of even more concern
was the exclusion and restriction of the voice of the teaching profession. The non-
involvement of teacher unions and restriction individual teachers in the policy process sits
at odds with the overall policy vision set out in TSF: the development of teachers as
‘agents of change’ who can shape and lead educational change. The thesis concludes that
there is a significant tension between the overall intentions of the policy agenda and the
process that was designed to implement it and calls for a new model of policy-making
where disorder and divergent interests can be brought to the fore in a way that allows the
voice of the teaching profession to be heard.

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Table of Contents

Abstract ................................................................................................................................. ii
Table of Contents ................................................................................................................. iii
List of Tables ....................................................................................................................... vii
List of Figures ..................................................................................................................... vii
Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ viii
Author’s Declaration ............................................................................................................ ix
Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1
Structure of thesis ........................................................................................................... 4
Chapter 1 Teacher education reform: global and local actors .......................................... 9
1.1 Policy re-contextualisation: a complex interplay of global and local forces......... 10
1.2 A global policy agenda .......................................................................................... 11
1.2.1 The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as a
transnational actor ........................................................................................................ 13
1.2.2 PISA: a powerful product of the OECD ........................................................ 15
1.2.3 Themes of teacher education reform .............................................................. 18
1.3 Local actors: the stories we tell ourselves ............................................................. 23
1.3.1 Conceptualising ‘myths’ as stories ................................................................. 24
1.3.2 Myths and national identity ............................................................................ 26
1.3.3 The distinctive nature of Scottish education .................................................. 28
1.3.4 The role of the myth in Scottish education policy: mask and sustenance ...... 29
1.3.5 The ‘shared assumptive world’ of the ‘traditional policy community’ .......... 30
1.4 Chapter summary .................................................................................................. 33
Chapter 2 Analysing the policy process ......................................................................... 34
2.1 Part one: conceptual frameworks .......................................................................... 34
2.1.1 Policy as text and policy as enactment ........................................................... 37
2.1.2 Network governance and policy networks ..................................................... 39
Metagovernance ........................................................................................................... 47
2.1.3 Actor-network theory ..................................................................................... 49
2.1.4 Conceptualising power in the policy process ................................................. 59
2.2 Research methods .................................................................................................. 60
2.2.1 Methodological tensions in conducting policy analysis ................................ 61
2.2.2 Semi-structured interviews............................................................................. 65
2.2.3 Interview data: stages of analysis ................................................................... 72
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2.2.4 Documentary and Network Analysis ............................................................. 78
2.2.5 Personal reflections: my positionality within the data ................................... 82
2.3 Chapter Summary .................................................................................................. 88
Chapter 3 The policy context for ‘Teaching Scotland’s Future ...................................... 90
3.1.1 McCrone reviews ........................................................................................... 90
3.1.5 A Curriculum for Excellence ............................................................................... 96
3.2 Teaching Scotland’s Future as a Policy Process .................................................... 99
3.2.1 The Review .................................................................................................. 102
3.2.3 The Review Process .......................................................................................... 104
3.3 The Report ........................................................................................................... 108
3.3.1 The Vision of the Teacher ............................................................................ 108
3.4 NPG: Overview of Analysis ................................................................................ 110
3.4.1 The NPG: Membership and Structure .......................................................... 111
3.5 Chapter Summary ................................................................................................ 116
Chapter 4 The policy process: characteristics of a partnership model ......................... 117
4.1 The partnership model choice ............................................................................. 118
4.1.1 Partnership between key institutional Actors .................................................... 119
4.1.2 Tradition, ‘myth’ and the simulacra of order .................................................... 122
4.1.3 Historical context of partnership development ................................................. 124
4.1.4 Power-dependency for policy ‘delivery’ ........................................................... 126
4.1.5 Institutional ‘buy in’, policy ownership, and engagement ................................ 129
4.2 The politics of representation .............................................................................. 131
4.2.1 Network membership: institutional actors ........................................................ 131
4.2.2 Criteria for selection of representatives ............................................................ 134
4.2.3 Institutional representation: an imbalance? ....................................................... 138
4.2.4 Fragmented actors, diverse interests, and multiple roles .................................. 141
4.3 The exclusion of teacher unions .......................................................................... 144
4.3.1 “A raft of people” .............................................................................................. 146
4.3.2 Stage of involvement ........................................................................................ 146
4.3.3 The common ‘misperception’ ........................................................................... 149
4.3.4 Inhibiting change ............................................................................................... 150
4.3.5 Perceptions about exclusion .............................................................................. 152
4.3.6 “Too in the tent” ................................................................................................ 155
4.3.7 The perceived implications of teacher union exclusion .................................... 155
4.3.8 The compromise solution: informal representation .......................................... 159
4.4 Individual teachers: representing the profession ................................................. 162
4.4.1 “It is the teachers that have to do the job” ........................................................ 163
4.4.2 The problem of democratic accountability ....................................................... 165
4.4.3 Raising awareness, encouraging ‘buy-in’, and developing ownership ............. 168
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4.5 Positioning of the General Teaching Council of Scotland .................................. 169
4.5.1 Perceptions of network members on GTCS positioning ................................... 171
4.5.2 Perceptions of GTCS actors .............................................................................. 171
4.5.3 GTCS positioning ............................................................................................. 173
4.5.4 Influencing without a chair ............................................................................... 177
4.6 Chapter summary ................................................................................................ 178
Chapter 5 The process of policy translation ................................................................. 181
5.1 Spaces of translation ............................................................................................ 181
5.1.1 Translation of recommendations to remits ........................................................ 183
5.1.2 Consultation through informal networks .......................................................... 184
5.1.3 “Drafting, re-drafting and re-drafting the re-drafts” ......................................... 187
5.1.4 Tripartite chairing model ................................................................................... 191
5.1.5 Communication flow between the sub-groups and the NPG ............................ 192
5.1.6 “Other meetings” ............................................................................................... 192
5.1.7 The power of the minute taker .......................................................................... 194
5.1.8 Writing the final NPG report ............................................................................. 196
5.2 Network culture ................................................................................................... 199
5.2.1 Understanding network culture ......................................................................... 199
5.2.2 A culture of consensus ....................................................................................... 200
5.3 Institutional participation .................................................................................... 211
5.3.1 Conservatism and resistance to change ............................................................. 213
5.3.2 Territorialism and the protection of proprietary interests.................................. 215
5.3.3 Subtle subversion of sub-group remits .............................................................. 220
5.4 Individual participation: teachers ........................................................................ 226
5.4.1 The co-construction of network rules ............................................................... 227
5.4.2 Knowledge of structures, procedures, culture and rules ................................... 229
5.4.3 Perceptions of self in the network ..................................................................... 230
5.4.4 Perceptions from others .................................................................................... 232
5.5 Chapter Summary ................................................................................................ 235
Chapter 6 Conclusion ................................................................................................... 237
6.1 Overview of the research ..................................................................................... 237
6.1.1 Question One: Who or what was included in or excluded from these spaces?
239
6.1.2 Question 2: How do individual actors represent the interests of an
institutional actor within this space? .......................................................................... 242
6.1.3 Question 3: How do institutional actors translate their interests into the policy
agenda? 244
6.2 Reflections on methodology ................................................................................ 247
6.3 Ideas for further work .......................................................................................... 249
6.4 Key contributions to education policy ................................................................. 251
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References .......................................................................................................................... 254
Appendices ......................................................................................................................... 269
Appendix A .................................................................................................................... 269
Appendix B .................................................................................................................... 271
Appendix C .................................................................................................................... 275
Appendix D .................................................................................................................... 277
Appendix E .................................................................................................................... 280

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List of Tables

Table 1 Interview Participants .............................................................. 67
Table 2 Interview themes and relation to research questions ............................... 70
Table 3 Initial themes from first stage of data analysis ..................................... 74
Table 4 Final themes used to analyse the entire dataset .................................... 77
Table 5 List of documents used in analysis ................................................. 79
Table 6 Membership of Implementation Group ............................................ 93
Table 7 Membership of Review Group: Second Stage Review of ITE .................... 95

List of Figures

Figure 1 Messy Methods .................................................................... 76
Figure 2 Teaching Scotland’s Future: Policy Process ..................................... 100
Figure 3 Institutional membership of NPG, SG1, SG2, SG3, and strategic reference group
.............................................................................................. 112
Figure 4 ‘Messy’ network diagram: NPG, SG1, SG2, SG3 and Strategic Reference Group
.............................................................................................. 115

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Acknowledgements

Firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisors, Professor James
Conroy and Professor Graham Donaldson for their support, patience and incredible insight
into the complexity of Scottish education policy processes. I would also like to thank
Professor Ian Menter for encouraging me to embark on this project and for his continued
support throughout my PhD.

This research was supported by the School of Education, University of Glasgow, from
which I received a PhD Scholarship for three years. I would like to show my gratitude to
the school, and to my colleagues, for their support during my studies. I would also like to
extend my appreciation to each of the individuals who gave up their time to participate in
an interview for this research.

A big thank you has to go to my colleagues and friends at the University of Strathclyde,
who have provided me with the support and space required to finish the thesis, and I would
like to extend a very special thank you to my new friends, Virginie, Markus and Alan, who
have kept me motivated in the final stages.

I would like to thank my friends - especially the ‘PhD Support Network’ – for their
continued encouragement and Jim, for his support and home-cooking during the hardest
stretch.

And the biggest thanks have to go to my Mum, my Dad and the rest of my family
(including Robbie the dog). I know you have lived every up and down with me!

viii
Author’s Declaration
I declare that, except there explicit reference is made to the contribution of others, that this
dissertation is the result of my own work and has not been submitted for any other degree
at the University of Glasgow or any other institution.

Signature

_______________________________

Printed name

Anna Dorothy Beck

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