scholarly journals STREET-LEVEL BUREAUCRACY AND PUBLIC POLICIES: ANALYZING EDUCATIONAL POLICY IMPLEMENTATION FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
Author(s):  
BREYNNER RICARDO DE OLIVEIRA ◽  
MARIA DO CARMO DE LACERDA PEIXOTO
Keyword(s):  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Educational Policies ◽  
Local Policy ◽  
Discretionary Power ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Educational Decentralization ◽  
Bureaucracy Theory ◽  
Educational Policy Implementation ◽  
Street Level Bureaucracy

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the implementation of educational policies and the roles of school professionals considering the street-level bureaucracy theory (LIPSKY, 1980). This study assumes that educational reforms elect schools as planning and administration centers, making them and the professionals working there responsible for new attributions which are motivated by improved autonomy, in addition to administrative and educational decentralization. In these contexts, which are marked by schools’ increasing empowerment, the discretionary power exercised by its professionals (teachers, principals, coordinators, among others) is a key element to understanding the availability and implementation of programs and their ability to either influence or change the design of educational policies on a local level. This perspective emphasizes the importance of considering those closer to actions deriving from such policies, that is, the actors who see the bottom-up process because they are in the lower end. According to Lipsky (1980), these are the so-called local policy agents or street-level public agents. As for schools, we understand that to enforce a certain policy, factors such as interpersonal influence, commitments, and informal negotiations are as important as formal processes and regulations. Finally, this study attempts to prove the impacts and contours assumed by changes in school dynamics in terms of translating local educational policies.

scholarly journals Street-level bureaucracy and policy implementation in community public health nursing: a qualitative study of the experiences of student and novice health visitors

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (06) ◽  
pp. 586-598 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Hughes ◽  
Louise Condon
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Policy Reform ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Public Health Nursing ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Health Visitors ◽  
Health Nursing ◽  
Street Level Bureaucracy

AimTo explore the experiences of student and novice health visitors in implementing health visiting policy reform pre- and post-qualification.BackgroundIn England, public health nursing has been subject to major policy reform. The Health Visitor Implementation Plan (2011) set out a plan to recruit increasing numbers of nurses and midwives to the profession to deliver an expanded and refocussed health visiting service. Exploring this policy change from the viewpoint of those new to health visiting offers a unique perspective into how a specific policy vision is translated into nursing practice.MethodsA descriptive qualitative study in which participants were enrolled on a one-year post-graduate health visiting course at a University in South West of England. Qualitative data were collected pre- and post-qualification. A total of 16 interviews and a focus group were conducted with nine participants between September 2012 and March 2013.FindingsDescriptive data were interpreted using Lipsky’s theoretical framework of street-level bureaucracy. Three themes emerged which relate to this ‘bottom-up’ perspective on policy implementation; readiness to operationalise policy, challenges in delivering the service vision; and using discretion in delivering the vision. Community public health nurses operate as street-level bureaucrats in negotiating the demands of policy and practice, and by this means, attempt to reconcile professional values with institutional constraints. Barriers to policy implementation at a local level mediate the effects of policy reform, ultimately impacting upon outcomes for children and families.

scholarly journals When the workplace is the home: labour inspectors’ discretionary power in the field of domestic work – an institutional analysis

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Rebecca Paraciani ◽  
Roberto Rizza
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
Discretionary Power ◽  
Public Agencies ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Administrative Policy ◽  
Standards And Guidelines ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Street Level Bureaucracy

AbstractThis article builds on previous studies concerning the question of street-level bureaucracy, an expression coined by Lipsky (1980) – Street-Level Bureaucracy. Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services (New York: Russel Sage Foundation) – to highlight the importance of the discretionary power that professionals in public agencies exercise during the implementation of laws, standards and guidelines. Discretion may depend on the need to compromise between the limited resources available and the claims of citizens, or between administrative policy directives and assessments, on the one hand, and their interpretation by “street-level” bureaucrats, on the other. This article focuses on the dilemmas that labour inspectors face when dealing with employment irregularities involving domestic workers. Based on nine months of observations in a local office of the Italian Labour Inspectorate, it aims to understand how labour inspectors make use of their discretionary power when the workplace is the home. This article connects studies of street-level bureaucracy with the new institutional organisational analysis, focusing on the isomorphic pressures from the institutional field in which the labour inspectors operate, together with the manner in which such pressures shape labour inspectors’ discretion. Through this connection, the article aims to extend the scope of both theories.

scholarly journals Beyond the Front-Line: the Coping Strategies and Discretion of Lithuanian Street-Level Bureaucracy During COVID-19

2021 ◽  
pp. 3-28
Author(s):  
Jaroslav Dvorak ◽  
Remigijus Civinskas ◽  
Gintaras Šumskas
Keyword(s):  
Coping Strategies ◽  
Research Council ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
Information Uncertainty ◽  
Front Line ◽  
Street Level ◽  
And Coping ◽  
Bureaucracy Theory ◽  
Policy Solutions ◽  
Street Level Bureaucracy

This article presents the results of a project funded by the Research Council of Lithuania: ‘Public policy solutions and their improvement to overcome the COVID-19 crisis in Lithuanian municipalities: solution tools and service delivery.’ The research methodology is based on street-level bureaucracy theory and ongoing qualitative research in the form of interviews with social workers and doctors. Interviews were conducted in the Lithuanian municipalities which became the first COVID-19 hotspots in March-April 2020. The aim is to identify the response and coping strategies of street-level bureaucracy. The findings of current research suggest that the workload of street-level bureaucrats increased, the situation changed very rapidly, and there was a constant need to adopt rules and even recommendations issued by the ministry. Fear of COVID-19 infection, a lack of accurate information, uncertainty, and the possibility of allowing staff with children to leave the workplace led to staff shortages. This in turn motivated the administration and the remaining employees to look for suitable coping strategies.

Street-Level Bureaucrats: Discretion and Compliance in Policy Implementation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Evans
Keyword(s):  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Service Workers ◽  
Frontline Workers ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Conflicting Demands ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats ◽  
Street Level Bureaucracy

In 1980 Michael Lipsky published “Street-level Bureaucracy,” arguing that public policy is often vague and imprecise, and relies on frontline workers to make sense of it on the ground in delivering public services. At the same time, the book is critical of frontline workers for not complying with policy in their use of discretion. Lipsky’s approach has influenced a great deal of subsequent analysis of public service provision, but continues to contain an unresolved tension at its core. If policy is vague, how can discretion be judged non-compliant against it? The street-level bureaucracy approach has tended to seek to resolve this tension by assuming that all public services are fundamentally the same and that all public service workers should use discretion in a particular way. While street-level bureaucracies—front line public services—are similar in that they are subject to policies, operate under conditions of inadequate resources, and afford frontline workers discretion in their work, there are also significant differences between types of public services in the ways they work with policy and the nature and extent of discretion of staff delivering the service. Different services do different things; the nature of the policy they work with varies, and the logic of provision and priorities vary between services. Policy, for instance, may refer to a precise set of instructions, or to setting out particular concerns or broad-brush commitments. Some services, such as benefits provision, are specified in detailed policy which not only sets out what they can do but also how decisions should be made. Others services, such as policing, are subject to a range of policies and concerns often expressed as conflicting demands that have to be balanced and managed in the particular circumstances of their application. And others, mainly human services, are primarily thought of in terms what the professionals within provide, and assumes a logic of service provision to be located in those providing the service. Policy is sometimes more explicit and discretion narrower; it is sometimes looser and relies more on discretion. It may, in some circumstances, be sufficient to refer to policy to understand what services are supposed to do; in other circumstances, policy alone provides a poor picture of what’s expected. Street-level bureaucracy analysis is too broad-brush and cannot capture the range of ideas of compliance in public services. It tends to equate policy with instruction and judgement with organizational thinking, and to see non-compliance as endemic in the use of discretion. In doing this, it fails to appreciate the variety of relationships between policy and public services; the varied extent of discretion in different settings, and the range of concerns and ethical commitments in different public services. Compliance in policy implementation needs to be sensitive to different types of public services and the subsequent variety of commitments and concerns of street-level bureaucrats in those public services.

scholarly journals Institutional logics of service provision: The national and urban governance of activation policies in three European countries

2020 ◽  
pp. 095892872097417
Author(s):  
Vanesa Fuertes ◽  
Ronald William McQuaid ◽  
Martin Heidenreich
Keyword(s):  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Institutional Logics ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Local Policy ◽  
Employment Services ◽  
Policy Conflicts ◽  
Collaborative Context ◽  
National Local

Labour market activation policies aimed at those with multiple barriers to employment require inter-agency collaboration between local organizations providing social and employment services. This local collaborative context is shaped by different institutional logics (state, markets, professions and community) that are crucial for policy implementation. Using case studies of nine German, UK and Swedish cities, it is argued that different institutional logics help shape the form and operation of local collaboration between different agencies and actors and thus the concrete support for service users at the local level. Although all three countries are characterized by centralized employment policies, each city shows a prevalence, but not exclusivity, of certain institutional logics over others. These differences, partly reflecting the local context, are likely to lead to local variations in understandings of solidarity, policy implementation, inter-agency collaboration and networks of actors and national–local tensions. The paper suggests that an institutional logics approach provides a useful framework for helping to understand local variations and potential national–local policy conflicts.

scholarly journals Implementing State-Level Technological Literacy Policy in Rural Pennsylvania

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey A Stone
Keyword(s):  
School Districts ◽  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Technological Literacy ◽  
Local Level ◽  
State Level ◽  
Successful Implementation ◽  
Rural School Districts ◽  
Educational Transformation ◽  
Classrooms For The Future ◽  
Educational Policy Implementation

This educational policy implementation study examines the implementation of Pennsylvania’s Classrooms for the Future (CFF) policy in a set of eight rural school districts. CFF implementation is investigated by combining considerations of local-level context with the perceptions and behaviors of teachers and administrators. The results suggest that the educational transformation promoted by CFF may not be occurring in the participating districts. Teachers and administrators differ in their perceptions of the implementation behaviors related to CFF and the use of ICT in the classroom, raising concerns about implementer discretion. Inadequate training, technical difficulties and prioritization are challenges to successful implementation.

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