Education Policy Makers' Role Identity and Decision Making in an Era of Complexity

• In Event: 34.025 - The Impact of Ethics, Policy, and Equity on Decision Making and Outcomes

Abstract

Education policy carries wide-reaching and long-lasting effects; yet, research on educational policy decision-making often overlooks a critical component - the decision-makers themselves. Within a psychological-phenomenological frame and via The Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity, we investigate education policymakers’ role-identity and decision-making processes. The findings shed new insight into the dynamics of educational policymaking, highlighting decisions as emergent phenomena generated by a complex integration of personal elements and social-cultural narratives, which provides citizens, organizations, and researchers better means to engage policymakers by conceptualizing how they perceive their role and actions, and which provides a framework for policymakers themselves to reflect upon their role, the dimensions framing their decision-making, and their impact on public education.

Authors

• Benjamin Brock, Temple University

• Avi Kaplan, Temple University