Excavating Policy for Democracy and Equity: A Forward-Looking Genealogy of the Anthropology of Education Policy

• In Event: 61.067 - Leveraging Anthropology of Education Policy in a World Turned Upside Down

Abstract

In this paper, we reflect backward and forward on the anthropology of education policy as a field of study and a site of social practice (Castagno & McCarty, 2018). The anthropology of education policy emerged from multiple theoretical orientations within the disciplines of anthropology and education, and from the direct involvement of anthropologists in policy formation, implementation, and evaluation. Indeed, anthropologists have been both policy researchers and policy actors. We take as a starting point the notion of policy as processual, dynamic, and in motion. As Walford (2001) explains, the ethnography of education policy recognizes that policy “is far more complex…and interactive than any of the traditional linear or staged models suggest” (p. 2). Moreover, “policy is not made ‘once and for all’ by people called ‘policy-makers’” (Walford, 2001, p. 2). One crucial implication of this approach is that policy is conceptualized as de jure and de facto, explicit and implicit, top-down and bottom-up. This does not diminish the significance of official, declared policy, but instead invites us to critically scrutinize the often covert ways in which official policies are constructed and become naturalized, while simultaneously attending to the ways in which people “make” policy in everyday social practice. In this regard, a growing body of ethnographic research positions classroom teachers as de facto policymakers (e.g., Menken & García, 2010; Ricento & Hornberger, 1996; Ramanthan & Morgan, 2007).
With this as a guiding orientation, our objectives in this paper are threefold. First, we situate the anthropology of education policy historically. Recognizing that the anthropology of education policy has emerged within multiple national contexts, in order to focus our discussion, we pivot temporally backward and forward from Brown v. Board, examining the field’s emergence in the U.S. Second, we lay out a broad conceptual framework for an anthropological understanding of education policy. Building on the late 20th century critical sociocultural “turn” in policy studies, we examine policy as processual (rather than artefactual), and as apprehended via its social meanings. We conclude by considering the potential of the anthropology of education policy to serve as a democratizing social science in times of growing social and educational inequity.
Shore and Wright (2011) proposed a “democratic notion of policy” that ensures “opening up and sustaining a space for reflection by critical and reasoning subjects” (p. 21). Ethnographic inquiries into education policy, and the nuanced sociocultural processes that are captured through such an approach, are essential to the project of democratizing policy itself. And as this year’s AERA meeting theme highlights, the current socio-political context both in the U.S. and globally presents a (re)newed urgency for a critical anthropology of education policy. The challenge before us is to engage the field in ways that both excavate policy meanings and influence future policy action. Lacking such an ethnographic commitment, says Hymes (1974, p. 54), “our work will drift backward into the service of domination.” Instead, we seek to push our work as educational researchers forward into the service of democracy and equity.

Authors

• Angelina E. Castagno, Northern Arizona University

• Teresa L. McCarty, University of California - Los Angeles