Epistemological Premises in Education Policy Research: Exploring Theoretical Perspectives

1. 第二讲教育政策研究的知识论基础：理论视域的探讨第二讲教育政策研究的知识论基础：理论视域的探讨 北京师范大学 教育研究方法讲座系列 (2): 教育政策研究

2. Analytical-technical perspective Epistemological premise: Public policies are social facts. They are social actions, programs and projects undertaken by the modern state to intervene the state of affairs of particular public domains in a modern society. Aims of enquiry: Accordingly, policy studies is scientific enquiry aims to provide causal explanation for the question why the state undertaking particular policy actions and not the otherwise. More specifically, it aims to analytically identify and verify the antecedent conditions that caused the policy action to take place. Practical premise: Based on the causal relation verified by policy studies, policy makers can then make prediction, means-ends calculation, and technical engineering about the policy situation concerned. It aims to impose technical control over the situation. Perspectives in Policy Study: An Overview

3. Interpretive-political perspective: Epistemological premise: Public policies are social construction of realities. They are meanings, values, preferences and desires attributed by the modern state and others interest groups to the state of affairs of particular public domains in a modern society. Aim of enquiry: Accordingly, policy studies is social enquiry aims to interpret and explain why particular meanings and values are signified in a policy “text” in a policy context, and not the otherwise. Practical premise: Based on the interpretations and understandings revealed by policy studies, policy participants can then engage in communication and dialogue which aim to facilitate mutual understanding, to nurture consensus, and plausibly to work out politically reciprocal solution to the policy issue in point. Perspectives in Policy Study: An Overview

4. Discursive-critical perspective: Epistemological premise: Public policies are authoritative values and even “effective discursive totality” legitimized and imposed by the modern state on the state of affairs in a particular public domain in a modern society. Aim of enquiry: Accordingly, policy studies is critical enquiry aims to reveal how and why particular policy discourses are legitimized in a policy arena. Practical premise: Based on the critical studies on policy discourse, policy critics can then reveal and assess the possible systemic biases and distortions hypostatized and legitimatized in particular policy domain and to strive to liberate human and social potentials from these biases and distortions. Perspectives in Policy Study: An Overview

5. (I)The Analytical-Technical Perspective in Policy Studies in Education

6. Stuart Nagel’s simple policy analysis model “Public Policy analysis can be defined as determining which of various alternative public or governmental policy will most achieve a given set of goals in light of the relations between the policies and the goals. That definition brings out four key elements of policy evaluation which are: Goals, including normative constraints and relative weights for the goals. Policies, programs, projects, decisions, options, means, or other alternatives that are available for achieving the goals. Relations between the policies and the goals, including relations that are established by intuition, authority, statistics, observation, deduction, guesses, or other means Draw a conclusion as to which policy or combination of policies is best to adopt in light of the goals, policies, and relations.” Epistemological Basis: Analytic-Positivist Approach The End The Means The Causality The Choice

7. Stokey and Zeckhauser’s Framework for policy analysis Establishing the Context. What is the underlying problem that must be dealt with? What specific objectives are to be pursued in confronting this problem? Laying out thealternatives. What are the alternative courses of action? What are the possibilities for gathering further information? Predicting theconsequences. What are the consequences of each of the alternative actions? What techniques are relevant for predicting these consequences? If outcomes are uncertain, what is the estimated likelihood of each? Valuing the outcomes. By what criteria should we measure success in pursuing each objective? Recognizing that inevitably some alternatives will be superior with respect to certain objectives and inferior with respect to others, how should different combinations of valued objectives be compared with one another? Making a choice. Drawing all aspects of the analysis together, what is the preferred course of action? Epistemological Basis: Analytic-Positivist Approach

8. In searching of causality, prediction, and prescription for policy action and logical positivism emerged from natural science seemingly pointing the way. And three basic premises of logical positivism Methodological monism Logical empiricism as the ideal-typical method of verification Deductive-Nomological model as the idea-typical model of explanation Epistemological Basis: Analytic-Positivist Approach

9. The ideal-typical model of analytical-positivist perspective: Deductive-Nomological explanation The D-N explanation is the type of explanation commonly used in researches in natural sciences. It makes up of three parts: The explanatory premises or the casual law (covering law), which is a universal statement of the sufficient and necessary conditions (explanans/cause) for the truth of the explanandum (effect). Accordingly, a causal law in natural science must comprises the following components Epistemological Basis: Analytic-Positivist Approach

10. D-N explanation ….makes up of three parts: The explanatory premises or the casual law (covering law)… The factual truth of both the the explanandum (i.e. the phenonmenon to be explained) and the explanans. The conditionality between the explanandum and explanans Sufficient conditions: It refers to the kinds of conditionality between the explanandum and explanans, in which the explanans can exhaustively but not universally explain the truth of the explanandum. Necessary conditions: It refers to the kinds of conditionality between the explanandum and explanans, in which the explanans can universally but not exhaustively explain the truth of the explanandum. Sufficient and necessary conditions: It refers to the kinds of conditionality between the explanandum and explanans, in which the explanans can both exhaustively and universally explain the truth of the explanandum. The temporal order of the explanans must be in precedence to the explanandum Epistemological Basis: Analytic-Positivist Approach

11. D-N explanation ….makes up of three parts: The explanatory premises or the casual law (covering law)… ……… The initial condition, which defines the property of a specific case of the explanandum. The conclusion, which state the exhaustive explanation of the specific explicandum by the explicans. Epistemological Basis: Analytic-Positivist Approach

12. Deductive-Nomological Explanation • The syllogism (Theoretical syllogism) Antecedent condition (Cause) Explanans Covering Law (Nomology) Conclusion (Effect) Explanandum

13. Deductive-Nomological Explanation • The components of D-N Model of explanation Nomological Premise/Covering Law Sufficient & necessary condition Explanadum Explanans/ Cause Explanandum/Effect/ Object of Explanation conditionality

14. The compromised model: Statistical-Probabilistic (S-P) explanation: The S-P model is the type of explanation commonly use in quantitative researches in social sciences. It is also made up of three parts similar to those in nomological-deductive explanation. There are two differences in probabilistic explanation. One is that the explanatory premises is not in the form of law-like / nomological statement of the sufficient and necessary conditions of the truth of the explanandum but only a probabilistic statement specifying the likelihood of the causal relationship between the explanans and explanandum. The second difference is that in the conclusion, the specific explanandum under study cannot be exhaustive explained by the explanans but can only be explained in probabilistic terms. Epistemological Basis: Analytic-Positivist Approach

15. Deductive-Nomological Explanation • The syllogism (Theoretical syllogism) Antecedent condition (Cause) Explanans Probabilistic Law Conclusion (Effect) Explanandum

16. Statistical-Probabilistic Explanation • The components of S-P Model of explanation Probabilistic Premise Plausible condition Explanadum Explanans/ Cause Explanandum/Effect/ Object of Explanation Probability

17. Logical-empiricism: The exemplary method of verification in logical-positivism Empiricism: It refers to the method of verification based primary by sensory experiences of human being. More specifically, it is based on recorded experiences methodically collected by scientists. More importantly, these recorded experiences will then be set against their respective propositions to see whether they correspond each other. And it is through this operation of so call correspondence principle that scientific propositions will be verified against the external national world. Logicism: Apart from empirical verification that rely on human experiences, scientists can also rely on pure logical inference and mathematical calculations to verify their propositions. For example propositions in in geometry and mathematical physical are usually not verified with empirical data but pure mathematical and logical inferences. Epistemological Basis: Analytic-Positivist Approach

18. Dahl and Lindblom’s conception of rational calculation Limitations and difficulties in means-end rational calculation Information deficiency: Relevant or even essential information to the means-end rational calculation may be incomplete, unavailable, difficult to obtain, Communication problem: Available information may not be able to be dissimulated to all decision-making parties or the information may appear to be difficult to comprehend. The number of variables involved is too many to be exhausted. The complexity of the relations among variables is too complicated to be comprehended not to mention exhausted. Epistemological Basis: Analytic-Positivist Approach

19. Dahl and Lindblom’s conception of rational calculation Scientists’ solutions to cognitive deficiency in means-end rational calculation “Scientists deal with (a) the problem of information by systematic observation, (b) with the problem of communication by developing a precise and logical language usually including the language of mathematics, (c) with the problems of an excessive number of and complex relations among variables by specialization, controlled by experiment, quantification, rigorous and system analysis, and exclusion of phenomena not amenable to these methods.” (Dahl & Lindblom, 1992, p. 78) In summary, these methods include Epistemological Basis: Analytic-Positivist Approach

20. Dahl and Lindblom’s conception of rational calculation Scientists’ solutions to cognitive deficiency in means-end rational calculation: In summary, these methods include Codification: Method of reducing and unifying numerous, complicated and disorderly information into comprehensible units Quantification: Method of quantifying information and units into comparable values. Sampling: Selectively analyzing a fragment, a specimen of the phenomenon under observation. Observations in control situations or by randomization. Modeling: Model “is a purposeful reduction of a mass of information to a manageable size and shape, and hence is a principal tool in the analyst’s work-tool. Indeed, we will be employing models throughout this book.” (Stokey & Zeckhauser, 1978, p.9) Epistemological Basis: Analytic-Positivist Approach

21. The concept of instrumental and technical rationality The concept of rationality: Rationality can be defined as conscious and knowledgeable ways human beings approaches and even masters the world around them. Rationality therefore is a state of mind and a way of life, in which human beings strive to act on and master their environment . The concepts of instrumental and substantive rationality Instrumental rationality refers to conscious and knowledgeable process through which human beings calculate and choose the most expedient means to achieve preconceived and/or predetermined end. Substantive rationality refers to conscious and knowledgeable process through which human beings decide the ends most worthy of achieving. Technical-rational Perspective in Policy Study

22. The concept of instrumental and technical rationality The instrumental-technical turns in policy studies Policy scientists who adhere to value-neutral or even value-free method of inquiry advocate that substantive choice of policy end are political decisions and should be left to politicians. Accordingly, they contend that policy scientists should confine themselves to the technical issues of choosing the best, or more specifically the most cost-effective policy instruments or means to attain the “politically” pre-determined ends. Technical-rational Perspective in Policy Study

23. Technical-rational perspective in policy studies Following the conclusions drawn from analytic-positivist policy studies, the next task to be performed by policy analysts is to work out, if possible to the last technical details, the action plan to carry out the policy measures. Hence, it is a task guarded by instrument and technical rationality. Assumptions of comprehensive (technical) rational model in policy studies: (Forester, 1989, Pp. 49-54)… Technical-rational Perspective in Policy Study

24. Technical-rational perspective in policy studies Assumptions of comprehensive (technical) rational model in policy studies: (Forester, 1989, Pp. 49-54) The agent/actor: A single decision-maker (or a group of fully consenting decision makers) who is a utility-maximizing, instrumentally rational actor The setting: Analogous to the decision-maker’s office, “by assumption a closed system” The problem: Well defined problem, “its scope, time horizon, value dimensions, and chains of consequences are clearly given” and close at hand. Information: Assumed to be “perfect, complete, accessible, and comprehensible.” Outcome: A single best solution or the most optimum resolution Technical-rational Perspective in Policy Study

25. Analytical-Technical Perspective Education Policy Means End Antecedent Causes Causal Relationship Anticipated Effects To control & act To Know Analytical positivism Technical rationalism Analytical codification Manipulation of policy-means variables Omniscient assumption Omnipotent assumption Variable quantification Control & Randomization of other variables Generalization & sampling Empiriciization & observation Achievement of policy goals Modeling the policy world

26. Herbert Simon’s concept of bounded rationality Simon’s defines that “rationality denotes a style of behavior (A) that is appropriate to the achievement of a given goals, (B) within the limits imposed by given conditions and constraints.” (Simon, 1982, p.405) The concept of satisfice: Simon differentiates two stances in regard to (A), i.e. the degree of “appropriateness to goal achievement. Maximizing or optimizing stance of the “economic man”: “While economic man maximizes - selects the best alternative from among all those available to him” Satisficing stance of the “administrative man”: “Administrative man satisfices - look for a course of action that is satisfactory or ‘good enough’. (Simon, 1957, p. xxv) Revisions and Criticism on Analytic-Technical Perspective

27. Herbert Simon’s concept of bounded rationality The concept of bounded rationality: In regard to (B), Simon indicates that “It is impossible for the behaviour of a single, isolated individual to reach any high degree of rationality. The number of alternatives he must explore is so great, the information he would need to evaluate them so vast that even an approximation to objective rationality is hard to conceive. Individual choice takes place in an environment of ‘givens’ – premises that are accepted by the subject as base for his choice; and behaviour is adaptive only within the limits set by these ‘givens’.” (Simon, 1957, p. 79; my emphasis) Revisions and Criticism on Analytic-Technical Mode

28. Herbert Simon’s concept of bounded rationality Simon specifies limitations imposed by the environment of givens are Limitation of the knowledge Incomplete and fragmented nature of knowledge, Limits of knowledge about the consequences, i.e. predictability of knowledge Limitations of the cognitive ability of the decider makers Limits of attention Limits on the storage capacity of human mind Limits of the learning ability of human beings, i.e. observation, communication, comprehension, …. Limits on changes of status quo, i.e. human habits, routine, mind set, … limits on organizational environments. Revisions and Criticism on Analytic-Technical Mode

29. Choices under calculated risk Risk can be construed as “the residual variance in a theory of ration choice” (March, 1994, p. 35) or more specifically, the unexplained variance in a causal modeling equation. It is basically grown out of the epistemological constraints of the scientific means-end rational model. Therefore, “calculated risks are often necessary because scientific methods have not yet produced tested knowledge about the probable consequences of large incremental changes…and existing reality is highly undesirable.” (Dahl & Lindblom, 1992, p. 85) Growing industry for risk estimation and risk management in public policy Revisions and Criticism on Analytic-Technical Mode

30. Charles Lindblom’s science of muddling through Charles Lindblom agrees with Simon on the limitations of human rationality, yet Lindblom diagnoses that the sources of these limitations are more than the cognitive capacity of human mind. He suggests that limitations are integral parts of the very process of policy making. Lindblom characterizes this process as “successive limited comparison” and “muddling through”. Revisions and Criticism on Analytic-Technical Mode

31. Charles Lindblom’s science of muddling through “Incrementalism is a method of social action that takes existing reality as one alternative and compares the probable gains and loses of closely related alternatives by making relatively small adjustments in existing reality, or making larger adjustments about whose consequences approximately as much is known as about the consequences of existing reality, or both.” (Dahl & Lindblom, p. 82) Lindblom’s two models of decision-making Revisions and Criticism on Analytic-Technical Mode

33. John Forester’s typology of bounded rationality Bounded rationality I: Cognitive limits Bounded rationality II: Social differentiation Bounded rationality III: Pluralist conflict Bounded rationality IV: Structural distortions Revisions and Criticism on Analytic-Technical Mode

35. (II)Interpretive-Political Perspectivein Policy Studies in Education

36. Interpretive Perspective in Public Policy Study • David Easton defines public policy as “the authoritative allocation of values for the whole society.” (Easton, 1953, p. 129)

37. Interpretive Perspective in Public Policy Study • Stephen Ball indicates that “Policy is clearly a matter of the ‘authoritative allocation of values’; policies are the operational statements of values, ‘statements of prescriptive intent’ (Kogan 1975 p.55). But values do not float free of their social context. We need to ask whose values are validated in policy, and whose are not. Thus, the authoritative allocation of values draws our attention to the centrality of power and control in the concept of policy’ (Prunty 1985 p.135). Policies project images of an ideal society (education policies project definitions of what counts as education).” (Ball, 1990, p. 3)

38. Interpretive Perspective in Public Policy Study • In another occasion, Ball specifies his own approach to policy study that “in current writing on policy issue I actually inhabit two very different conceptualization of policy. …I will call these policy as text and policy as discourse. …The point I am moving to is that policy is not one or the other, but both: they are ‘implicit in each other’.” (1994, p.15)

39. Interpretive Perspective in Public Policy Study • Dvora Yanow defines “public policy as texts that are interpreted as they are enacted by implementers, (and)…as texts that are ‘read’ by various stakeholder groups.” (2000, p. 17) Therefore, “an interpretive approach to policy analysis …is one that focuses on the meanings of policy, on values, feelings, or beliefs they express, and on the processes by which those meanings are communicated to and ‘read’ by various audiences.

40. Interpretive Perspective in Public Policy Study • Basic assumptions of interpretive approach to the study of public policy: • Public policy is not construed as self-defined phenomenon and/or natural phenomenon treated in natural science, but is taken as human artifact deliberated and constructed by human beings with specific intents and particular meanings. Accordingly, policy studies are research efforts to identified the meanings and values allocated, imputed, and attributed to a particular policy phenomenon by all parties concerned.

41. Interpretive Perspective in Public Policy Study • Basic assumptions of interpretive approach to the study of public policy: • Since the primary meaning-constructor (or more appropriately put ‘author’) of public policy is the modern state. As by definition the modern state is the sovereign power and authority over a definitive territory and its residents, hence public policy studies are research efforts to investigate what are the intents, meanings or values that the state has ascribed to a particular public policies and why.

42. Interpretive Perspective in Public Policy Study • Basic assumptions of interpretive approach to the study of public policy: • Furthermore, in pluralistic and democratic political system, the author of public policy is not confined to the sovereign state. Various interested parties may also attribute different or even contradictory meanings to a same policy phenomenon and take different or even antagonistic stances towards a policy prescription.

43. Interpretive Perspective in Public Policy Study • Basic assumptions of interpretive approach to the study of public policy: • Accordingly, public policy study is research efforts striving • to explore what and how meanings and values are written / encoded into policy “texts” by the state or the government. • to explore what and how meanings and values are read / decoded from public policy “texts” by interest groups / interpretive communities, i.e. hermeneutic and ethnographic studies of interpretations of public policy by social groups.

44. Interpretive Perspective in Public Policy Study • Basic assumptions of interpretive approach to the study of public policy: • Accordingly, public policy study is research efforts striving … • to explore what authoritative meanings and values are emerged and constituted amid these diverse interpretations of public policy. • to expose the politicking processes via which authoritative meanings and values are constructed within the political context of a public policy.

45. Intentional explanation: Explaining the State’s Acts • Georg H. von Wright’s Two Traditions of Inquiry 1916-2003

46. Intentional explanation: Explaining the State’s Acts • Georg H. von Wright’s Two Traditions of Inquiry • “It is therefore misleading to say that understanding versus explanation marks the difference between two types of scientific intelligibility. But one could say that the intentional or nonintentional character of their objects marks the difference between two types of understanding and of explanation.” (von Wright, 1971, p.135)

47. Intentional explanation: Explaining the State’s Acts • Von Wright’s Two Traditions of Inquiry… • Distinction between causal and teleological explanations • Causal explanation: It refers to the mode of explanation, which attempt to seek the sufficient and/or necessary conditions (i.e. explanans) which antecede the phenomenon to be explained (i.e. explanandum). Causal explanations normally point to the past. ‘This happened, because that had occurred’ is the typical form in language.” (von Wright, 1971, p. 83) It seeks to verify the antecedent conditions for an observed natural phenomenon. This mode of explanation can further be differentiated into • Deductive-nomological explanation • Inductive-probabilistic explanation

48. Deductive-Nomological Explanation • The components of deductive-nomologicalexplanation Nomological Premise/Covering Law Sufficient & necessary condition Explanadum Explanans/ Cause Explanandum/Effect/ Object of Explanation conditionality

49. Intentional explanation: Explaining the State’s Acts • Wright’s Two Traditions of Inquiry… • Distinction between causal and teleological explanations • Teleological explanation: It refers to the mode of explanation, which attempt to reveal the goals and/or intentions, which generate or motivate the explanadum (usually an action to be explained) to take place. “Teleological explanations point to the future. ‘This happened in order that that should occur.’” (von Wright, 1971, p. 83) This mode of explanation can be differentiated into • Intentional explanation • Rational-choice explanation • Functional explanation (Quasi-teleological explanation)

50. Distinctive features of intentional (teleological) explanations Causal explanation Antecedent Condition: Cause retrospective attribution Explanandum: An apple falls Explanandum: A man acts Reason prospective protention Intent/goal Intentional /Teological explanation