302 ANALYZING DATA
In contrast, the value-critical approach was defined by Rein as one that “subjects goals and
values to critical review, that is, values themselves become the object of analysis; they are not
merely accepted as a voluntary choice of the will, unamenable to further debate” (Rein 1976, 13).
Nor, on the other hand, does the value-critical analyst begin with an unexamined faith in a set of
ideological commitments, as in the case of the value-committed approach. Rather, on the as-
sumption that values discourse can be conducted rationally, the analyst approaches public policy
aims with a skeptical spirit, seeking to subject them to rigorous, but not cynical, analysis. The aim
of value-critical analysis, then, is to contribute to the public discussion of policy conflicts by
taking the goals of policy seriously as subjects of analysis.
My book Language Policy and Identity Politics in the United States is an attempt to employ
Rein’s concept of value-critical policy analysis and to demonstrate its usefulness in illuminating
what is at stake in a hotly contested policy debate. The book aims to get to the root of the country’s
conflict over the most appropriate public policy responses to the fact that some 18 percent of the
U.S. population most frequently speaks a language other than English. The conflict centers on
three policy issues that have generated the most controversy: (1) education for non- and limited-
English-speaking students in the public schools (and particularly the role of bilingual education
for such students); (2) the degree to which non-English languages should be used or promoted by
the state to ensure “linguistic access” to civil and political rights (e.g., the right to vote, using non-
English ballots and election materials as required by amendments to the Voting Rights Act of
1965); and (3) whether English should be adopted as the sole “official” language of various levels
of government in the United States. And, as noted above, the analysis centers on the claim that
these debates are fundamentally grounded in a dispute over how to interpret the social identities
of U.S. nationals, and the role of language in that interpretation.VALUE-CRITICAL ANALYSIS: A STEP-BY-STEP ARTICULATIONHow can policy analysts work to systematically assess the value conflicts that underlie important
public policy issues? Rein has not, to date, presented an explicit, self-reflective account of how to
do value-critical analysis. So the following represents this author’s approach to a step-by-step
articulation that might be seen as fruitful by others. Each step requires the policy analyst to inter-
pret the meaning and significance of an important aspect of the public policy issue under study.
Before beginning these steps, of course, the analyst must gather information, the basic data from
which descriptions, interpretations, and analyses are drawn.^1 Where are these data found? Public
policy debates typically take place in a variety of forums but, among other sources, “raw materi-
als” about the protagonists, their policy positions, and their arguments can be gathered from
magazine and journal articles, newspaper accounts of the controversy, books by partisans and by
observers of the controversy, op-ed pieces in newspapers and magazines, and government docu-
ments (e.g., transcripts of legislative testimony, agency reports, committee investigations), as well
as directly from the protagonists themselves (e.g., from personal interviews, published materials,
or Web sites). Participant-observation is another very useful way in which to gather data for an
analysis of this type.
A second essential preliminary step is for the policy analyst to clarify her own value positions
in relation to the policy issue under study. During the process of gathering information about the
policy controversy and its primary protagonists, and then repeatedly throughout the analytical
process, the policy analyst should maintain and update an explicit and fairly detailed statement
regarding her own bent on this issue. Where do your sympathies lie when reading and/or listening
to the statements and arguments of the main protagonists in the debate? Can you identify what