Educational Sociology Commons^™

Inside The Black Box An Exploration Of The Impact Of Action And Activity In The Inner Spheres Of Policy Making On Early Childhood Education And Care Policy, Siobhan Bradley

Doctoral

While ECEC policy decisions usually reflect the predominant ideological stance of those actors involved, they also represent the outcome of a battle over values and objectives as vested interests within the inner spheres of policy making debate, contest and negotiate the nature of the problem and prescribe solutions to remedy it. Despite the integral importance of these processes, few studies explore how action and activity in these less visible arenas impact on policy design and outcome. By shifting the focus of policy analysis from the reified product of policy decisions to the behind the scenes processes of policy production, this …