Policy Culture and Change in Higher Education

1. On successful completion of this unit, participants will be able to:
2. Apply appropriate theoretical frameworks for policy analysis and theories of change to a Higher Education policy and practice context
3. Critically examine processes of change and innovation and or policy implementation in a Higher Education context.
4. Justify how theoretical and policy analysis can enhance Higher Education professional practice

The curriculum will cover the following areas:

• The contemporary HE policy and change environment
• HE paradigm shifts and ideologies: human and social capital, globalisation, internationalisation, citizenship and social justice, marketisation, massification, audit culture, New Managerialism, New Public Management, Neo-liberalism and Academic Capitalism.
• What is education policy: purposes, processes and product?
• Policy making and implementation processes: analysis for policy and analysis of policy.
• Policy and multi-level HE perspectives: macro, meso and micro
• Encoding and decoding policy: policy as text and policy as discourse
• Implementation and reception of policy: top down, bottom up and hybrid approaches
• Implementation staircase, loose coupling, the implementation gap and dynamic multiple cultural configurations
• Theoretical frameworks for policy analysis: critical theory, post-structuralism, policy trajectory studies, critical discourse analysis, social practice theory
• Conceptualising HE institutional cultures and the implications for change
• Disciplines: epistemological and moderate essentialism
• Teaching and Learning Regimes: HE and the practice sensibility
• The ‘site ontologies’ of organisations: academic departments as bundles of human practices and material arrangements
• The Third Space: professional services and fluid academic identities
• Theories of change in a HE context: social practice theory, resource dependency theory, rational purposive theory, nudge theory, individualism, scientific management, evolutionary, political, social cognition, cultural and institutional and neo-institutional,
• Analytical levels: structure and agency and the Transformational Model of Social Action
• Researching for change in your own institution: the challenges of doing HE insider-research
• Policy evaluation and evidence: the RUFDATA planning tool and engineering, enlightening and realistic approaches

Critical analysis of a Higher Education policy or change implementation (100%)

Either

1. Identify a process of change or innovation in Higher Education and by applying any one or more of the theories of change you have researched in the unit, critically examine why and how this change was introduced and implemented.

Or

2. Choose an educational policy document either internal or external to your Higher Education institution and critically examine its underlying rationale, ideological narrative and implementation within a chosen practice context whilst relevantly applying any of the theoretical frameworks for policy analysis.

Whether you choose option 1 or 2, your submission must include:

• Change or policy HE context
• Study rationale: what, why and how
• Application of relevant HE policy or change literature
• Critical analysis of chosen policy or change scenario
• Conclusions

Guide length: 4000 words

Number of credits: 30

Mode of study: online

Number of sessions: 6 (3 hour sessions)

Type of session: Workshop and discussion

Assessment type and size: Formative - presentation of draft summative assessment work in progress in conjunction with tutor and peer feedback. Summative - critical analysis of a Higher Education policy or change implementation (100%)

Prior knowledge and or experience required: Sufficient experience of working in HE. It is a requirement that applicants have successfully completed a core MA/PG Certificate unit before undertaking this unit.

When will it run: from September over the Autumn and Winter terms.

Unit leader/contact: Eileen Pollard E.Pollard@mmu.ac.uk.