Meaning-Making and Policy Design in a Federal Agency

• In Event: Every Move We Make: Philanthropy Across the Educational Ecology

Abstract

This paper examines how grantmakers at a federal agency modeled after private philanthropy understand the purpose of their work and their agency in relation to the broader purposes and ideals of postsecondary education. Using a cultural codes framework, we use interview and archival data to denote policy designs as artifacts, identifying them as the real-time manifestations of these codes.

Authors

• Pooja R. Patel, University of Pennsylvania

• Heather N. McCambly, University of Pittsburgh