Towards a dialogical and progressive educational policy framework: Manoeuvring a middle way among the polarised constructs

Abstract

Policy science and practice around the world, including educational policies, are dominated by popular, extreme approaches such as market-orientated approaches at one end and critical argumentative approaches at the other end. This study therefore aims to manoeuvre a middle way to propose a dialogical and progressive educational policy framework and explores the research question: ‘how could a middle way (a dialogical and progressive framework) be manoeuvred among the polarised policy constructs?’ The study embraces Lynham’s five phases of theory building as the basis for this research, which includes conceptual development, operationalisation, confirmation/disconfirmation, application, and continuous refinement. The study explores some of the known existing policy frameworks for conceptual mapping, investigates the underlying dynamics and discourses to operationalise, uses diverse arguments in the literature to confirm/disconfirm and proposes to mark the emerging patterns, trends, and gaps in policy research to apply and refine. The study contends that if it is possible to have a polarised market-oriented and critical argumentative policy frameworks, it is then possible to have a dialogical, progressive middle-way policy framework. The study had to limit to the most important and related theories, and models to focus. Future works could explore a wide range of other relevant theories and models to further investigate this framework. Furthermore, application of the proposed dialogical, progressive educational policy framework in specific context/case may help to refine it. The study contends that the proposed middle way is not a perfect space but a potential space in which a dialogical and progressive educational policy may thrive.