Policy Framing and Comparative Discourse Analysis

Quezon City and the City of Baguio enacted anti-discrimination ordinances to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT+) persons. The 2014 Quezon City Gender-Fair Ordinance (QCGFO) and the 2017 Anti-Discrimination Ordinance of the City of Baguio (ADOCB) criminalized discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or expression. With similar societal contexts, these two cities legislated two different anti-discrimination ordinances. Using comparative discourse analysis, this case study compares their formulation and framing. Data were gathered and evaluated through library research, documents analysis, and key informant interviews. With contextualization and process-tracing, this article also describes discursive policy frames that were utilized in formulating these ordinances. The QCGFO protects the local LGBT+ community, while the ADOCB considers multiple social sectors. These policies may provide potential opportunities to integrate intersectionality in anti-discrimination policy-making. In all, this study offers exploratory insights on policy framing strategies for anti-discriminatory policies in two contextually similar Philippine localities.

System Reform in the Early Childhood Education and Care Sector in Australia

Three normative accounts of formal early childhood education and care are evident within international, national, and local policy frames. Human capital theories, human rights discourses, and social pedagogic understandings shape policy frames in specific ways. The flow of global policy frames has influenced the formal early childhood education and care sector in Australia. Early childhood education and care have evolved as specific repositories of hope for nation states seeking to boost their productivity and secure enhanced life outcomes for citizens. There are structural challenges in translating an evidence base and apparent policy consensus into systemic change. It is therefore necessary to highlight the persistence of equity challenges that exist in the early childhood education and care sector in Australia.

Ethics in neoliberalism? Parental responsibility and education policy in Chile and Australia

This article questions the diverse and, in some cases, contradictory ethical forms present in contemporary neoliberal policy frames. In particular, we analyse the demands of responsibility – as a form of ethical commitment – requested of parents by education policies in the contexts of Chile and Australia. Assuming neoliberalism as a contextualised and multivocal form of governing, we applied a policy sociology approach to study the ethical implications for parents of two recent educational reforms developed in the national contexts of this research. Our analyses show that the emerging demands on parents for responsibility in the educational field exceed univocal forms of individual responsibilisation, encompassing expressions of responsibility that respond to collective and public goals.

Inequities in first education policy responses to the COVID-19 crisis: A comparative analysis in four Central and East European countries

The historically high inequities in the education systems of Central and East-European countries have been further exacerbated in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using critical frame analysis, we compared the education policy debates in Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Republic of Moldova during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic with a particular focus on inequities. We discuss the policy frames proposed and utilized by governmental and non-governmental actors to understand their roles played in articulating policy responses to the COVID-19 crisis, and highlight the specificities and commonalities of the political language within and across the national borders of the four countries. We conclude with our findings on the dynamics and structure of the policy debate between state and non-state actors in times of crisis with a particular focus on policy spaces and policy temporalities. Two ways of constructing spatio-temporalities co-exist: one is national, state and public health centric and focuses on governing ‘through’ the crisis; and the other is focused on long term planning while constructing the crisis as an opportunity for decisive intervention towards more equitable education.

Feminist perspectives to artificial intelligence: Comparing the policy frames of the European Union and Spain

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a disruptive technology that has gained interest among scholars, politicians, public servants, and citizens. In the debates on its advantages and risks, issues related to gender have arisen. In some cases, AI approaches depict a tool to promote gender equality, and in others, a contribution to perpetuating discrimination and biases. We develop a theoretical and analytical framework, combining the literature on technological frames and gender theory to better understand the gender perspective of the nature, strategy, and use of AI in two institutional contexts. Our research question is: What are the assumptions, expectations and knowledge of the European Union institutions and Spanish government on AI regarding gender? Methodologically, we conducted a document analysis of 23 official documents about AI issued by the European Union (EU) and Spain to understand how they frame the gender perspective in their discourses. According to our analysis, despite both the EU and Spain have developed gender-sensitive AI policy frames, doubts remain about the definitions of key terms and the practical implementation of their discourses.

Think Tanks and Foreign Policy

The role of think tanks as policy actors has developed over time and created significant global scholarship. Widely understood as non-state policy actors, think tanks established either with or without the support of government have evolved in various political contexts with varied characteristics. They are avenues for the discussion of new policy ideas as well as used for the consolidation of existing understandings of global and national political issues. As ideational actors think tanks interact with policy frameworks at different levels, either in the framing stage or at the stage of consensus building towards certain policies. Intellectual elites at think tanks allow for the introduction of think tank ideas into the policy frames as well as the creation of public opinion towards foreign policy decisions. Think tank deliberations involve an interaction with policymakers, academic experts, business and social actors, as well as the media to disseminate ideas. Institutionally, think tanks in a wide variety of political contexts play a critical role in the making of foreign policy and bring closer attention to processes of state–society interactions in different political environments.

Racial Equality Frames and Public Policy Support: Survey Experimental Evidence

How do racial attitudes shape policy preferences in the era of Black Lives Matter and increasingly liberal views on racial issues? A large body of research finds that highlighting the benefits of progressive policies for racial minorities undermines support for those policies. However, Democratic elites have started centering race in their messaging on progressive public policies. To explore this puzzle, in this paper we offer an empirical test that examines the effect of describing an ostensibly race-neutral progressive policy with racial framing, as used by Democratic elites, on support for that policy. To benchmark these effects, we compare a race policy frame with class, race and class, and neutral policy frames. We demonstrate that despite leftward shifts in public attitudes towards issues of racial equality, racial framing decreases support for race-neutral progressive policies. Generally, the class frame most successfully increases support for progressive policies across racial and political subgroups.

Perpetuating Inequalities: The Role of Political Distraction in Education Policy

The 2021 Politics of Education Yearbook brings together scholars from diverse theoretical orientations—including policy studies, critical trans politics, and Critical Race Theory—to explore the politics of distraction within education policymaking. This introductory article previews the work included in the Yearbook and presents a grounding framework for policy distraction, which we define as a persistent focus on a narrowly defined set of policy solutions that diverts attention from root causes, structural forces, and historical/contextual circumstances (Bell, 2003; Giroux, 2013, 2017; Spade, 2011, 2013, 2015). We articulate five elements of policy distraction. They (a) rely on narrow policy frames to address educational problems of practice; (b) name phenomena in ways that affect our understanding; and (c) largely ignore inequalities and structural conditions. In doing so, they may (d) reinforce the status quo; and (e) reify ideas of what counts as normal or, alternatively, as deviant (Spade, 2011).