Critical Policy Analysis: Staring into Space

Abstract

This paper engages with the relation between what could be characterised as an upsurge in interest around spatial theory across the social sciences and education policy research. A limited review of spatial theory is developed by way of illustrating the ontological and epistemological multiplicity within theorisations of space and place. While eschewing forms of theoretical spatial exuberance, the limited but productive attention to spatial theory in critical policy research is discussed. The paper concludes by attempting to develop a number of possibilities, lines of investigation, in looking towards space and the spatial within critical education policy analysis. In particular, spatial aspects of policy theory, policy discourse and policy at the level of implementation are explored.