The analysis of the empirical data focuses on‘the discursive and material relations
created across social spaces in the designing of the CT programmes’(p. 712).
Theoretically, the article draws on policy sociology in relation to interactions of
knowledge and power in policymaking through the exploration of policy content
and policy mechanisms, as well as drawing on organisational development theory.
The aspiration for the impact of the article is that it provides an analytical frame-
work (discursive analysis) that can aid understanding of the complexities of the
policy process and enhance the critical awareness of those involved in the policy
process.
Watson and Fox (2014) focus explicitly on the development of professional
update policy, exploring how‘appraisal policies’work to create teacher subjec-
tivities. The work is‘supported by Education Scotland’, but no detail provided on
what that support entailed. It employs discourse analysis of interviews with senior
staff being prepared to carry out professional update interviews with their own staff
members. Theoretically, the piece considers the data within the context of appraisal
as a tool for accountability or for improvement. The article exposes what the
authors claim to be an attempt on behalf of the General Teaching Council for
Scotland (who have responsibility for overseeing the Professional Update process)
to conflate accountability and improvement in a process that started off life as an
accountability measure but is now presented to teachers as an improvement
measure.
Taken together, the articles represent output from academics infive of the eight
providers of teacher education in Scotland, published infive different academic
journals. While the sample is undoubtedly too small to draw clear conclusions from,
the fact that three of the articles are published inJournal of Education Policy, and
three inScottish Educational Review, perhaps points to the intention of the authors
to contribute to the critique of national policy, as opposed to simply seeing their
work as generic teacher education research.
In terms of policy focus, the articles provide a mix of specific policy initiatives
and generic teacher education policy, with Menter and Hulmes writing from more of
a Scotland/England comparative perspective. This can perhaps be explained by the
fact that both Menter and Hulme have professional and personal connections with
England as well as having spent considerable time working in Scottish universities.
In considering the intended purpose of the articles, the key purpose seems to be
to provide a challenge to, or alternative reading of, perceived policy wisdom, often
focusing on the ways in which specific language or terminology is used semanti-
cally to shape teachers’behaviour or compliance. Several studies also seek to
provide frameworks to aid interrogation and understanding of policy/ies beyond
superficial engagement.
With the exception of Watson and Fox’s (2015) article on Professional Update,
which acknowledges that it was‘supported by Education Scotland’, the other nine
do not acknowledge any funding source, suggesting that the majority of teacher
education policy studies in Scotland are self-motivated, standalone pieces of work,
carried out as part of academics’ongoing work rather than as part of specific funded
projects.
576 A. Kennedy