More Than Just an Intellectual Exercise: Critical Policy Analysis, Community-Engaged Research, and Political Action

• In Event: Bolstering the Voices of Racially Marginalized Students and Families Through a Community-Based Approach to Leadership

Abstract

Objective & Theoretical Perspective
Education scholars who use critical policy analysis (CPA) in their work understand it to be both an evolving theory and a research method in which to critique policy, but also to promote agency for equity and justice. For example, CPA scholars purposefully engage with educational politics and political discourse, often tracking the policy process to reveal the differences between policy rhetoric and reality, the intended versus the unintended consequences of policy, how the policy unfolds from its development to actual implementation, and/or the means in which policy rhetoric and reality becomes institutionalized and internalized (Authors, 2014, 2015; Cahill, 2015). In addition, CPA can also be used to uncover whether and how an educational policy might perpetuate imbalances in power, resources, and knowledge.
Often, CPA scholars use qualitative methods to examine policy deliberation and discursive practices (Taylor, 1997). Yet, most CPA scholars examine political discourse from a distance and do not actively participate in political processes. Moreover, community members are rarely positioned as partners in the research process even though they are the true experts on their own lives and how policy will inevitably affect them (Author, 2018; Authors, 2018).
On the other hand, there has been emergent but notable growth in what some refer to as community-engaged research whereby academics partner with community members in their research endeavors (Foster, 2010; Kecskes & Foster, 2013). Relatedly, some universities are beginning to recognize the value of partnering with community stakeholders and have begun expressing their commitment to community engagement in their mission statements. A number of these universities are even going as far as advancing the policy, structural, and cultural changes needed to legitimize community engaged scholarship in the faculty promotion and tenure process (Basu, 2012; Pelco & Howard, 2016). Still, there is tension in doing community engaged research that authentically benefits the community over acquiescing the neoliberal demands of the academy where research production is increasingly commodified, so emphasizing the decolonization of research within the academy is paramount.

Methods, Results, & Significance
For the purposes of this paper, we argue that while useful as an academic exercise, CPA can also be conjoined with community partnerships, which in turn can evolve into meaningful networks for change (see Stovall, 2005). That is, not only do professional researchers conduct research with (rather than on) communities and schools, but they aim to use research findings to influence educational politics and policy for the public good. Thus, educational scholars are working alongside their communities to actually do critical policy work and engage democratic processes on the ground. Based on a subset of data from a larger study that asked educational policy scholars why and how CPA informs their work, we share specific examples from the findings of what conjoining CPA and community engagement looks by considering important questions such as: In what other ways can educational scholars be more authentically democratic in why and how research is conducted? Who ultimately benefits from the research we do—the academy or the community or both?

Authors

• Anjale DeVawn Welton, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Katherine Cumings Mansfield, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro