Education Policy as a Practice of Power Theoretical Tools, Ethnographic Methods, Democratic Options

This article outlines some theoretical and methodological parameters of a critical practice approach to policy. The article discusses the origins of this approach, how it can be uniquely adapted to educational analysis, and why it matters-not only for scholarly interpretation but also for the democratization of policy processes as well. Key to the exposition is the concept of appropriation as a form of creative interpretive practice necessarily engaged in by different people involved in the policy process. Another crucial distinction is made between authorized policy and unauthorized or informal policy; it is argued that when nonauthorized policy actors appropriate policy they are in effect often making new policy in situated locales and communities of practice.