Policy-practice Gaps Research Articles

A Document Review of Exclusionary Practices in the Context of Australian School Education Policy

AbstractInternationally, there is a commitment to inclusive education for students with disability. In Australia, equality of access to mainstream schools is a key policy feature, with educational exclusion of children with disability being unlawful. In this review, the aim was to identify and analyze contemporary documents that point to failures in inclusive policy and legislation in Australia and the state of Victoria by demonstrating educational exclusion of school students with disability. A search of the gray literature was conducted to identify relevant documents from 2010 to 2017. Reference lists of retrieved documents were also searched for other sources. The review included 23 documents and findings demonstrated that the needs of children and families are often not met, with a disconnection evident between inclusive educational policy, legislation, and practices that exclude children with disability from mainstream education. Restrictive practices and gatekeeping act to dissuade families from enrolling children in mainstream education, with many seeking enrolment in special schools. However, concerns with special school practices, such as the use of restrictive interventions have been documented. Parents have resorted to homeschooling, with associated emotional and economic consequences. Tensions between schools and parents were evident, with parents not always having the opportunity to be fully involved in decision‐making processes and planning. The key finding of this review was a clear gap between policy and legislative intentions and practices in schools. Lack of clarity on reasonable adjustments and an underpinning research evidence base to policy results in schools being left to develop their own practices. Strong leadership is needed from principals, and a whole of school commitment, to traverse policy practice gaps that continue to impact on the ability of children with disability to be well‐supported in accessing mainstream schools.

A conceptual model to improve links between science, policy and practice in coastal management

The literature has identified significant barriers to sustainable management of coastal resources due to lack of integration between science, policy and practice. The social and biophysical sciences are an important information source but are often neglected in policy and practice. The literature has identified the science, policy practice gaps as significant barriers to sustainable management of coastal resources. However, there is lack of research specifically covering the interactions between the three domains. This paper aims to: a) review the literature to identify gaps and related factors or themes contributing to the science-policy-practice disconnect; and b) propose a conceptual integrated model to address those gaps and to increase the uptake of science into policy and practice in coastal systems. The results confirm that there are gaps in the two way-links between science and policy and practice. Most research (64%) is published in the science to policy area, 32% in the policy and practice area, and only four % of the research is published in the science-policy-practice area. Effective integration is inhibited by issues of knowledge, uncertainty, communication, political and cultural issues and institutions or rules and a clear mechanism for linking science, policy and practice is needed. Frameworks may help alleviate the problem but may not be holistic or flexible enough to facilitate interactions across science-policy-practice. There needs to be a clear mechanism for integrating science, policy and practice. To address this a conceptual model of the interactions between science and policy and practice is proposed. The model includes two-way connections between science-policy-practice, mediated by both internal and external factors including key drivers, facilitators, inhibitors and barriers. The model is applied to three case studies, namely: implementing international level blue carbon policy at a local level; an historical perspective on mangrove damage and restoration at an Australian state level; and an Australian example of long-term interactions between science, policy and practice, illustrating how multiple connections and interactions can occur as projects proceed.

Critically studying openness: A way forward

Critically studying openness: A way forward

Reluctant Bureaucracy: Accounts, Narrative, and Negotiation in Serbian High School Classrooms

Despite anthropologists’ increased interest in bureaucracies, the pervasive role of talk for resolving policy–practice gaps and structuring citizen–bureaucrat encounters has been underanalyzed in the literature on the everyday practices of the state. This article examines classrooms in Belgrade, Serbia, as examples of sites in which some locally recognized features of bureaucratic interactions can be enacted and reproduced. I argue that frequent student‐teacher negotiations over grades, attendance, and behavior render the classroom a space for reluctant bureaucracy. Teachers, even those who criticize the bureaucratic rules that govern education, spend much of their time enforcing and interpreting an oft‐confusing set of state‐mandated school policies, while students use excuses, justifications, and narratives to negotiate outcomes. This situation parallels many Serbs’ experiences in government offices, where they believe the law is rarely applied fairly and success depends on making a persuasive case. Although student–teacher negotiations may reproduce some common features of bureaucratic interactions, teachers also demonstrate ambivalence toward the practice of negotiation—and its political implications—through an alternation of what I call the institutional voice and the intimate voice. Through this alternation, teachers critique the system that they simultaneously perpetuate and train students to manage.

Are educational governance reforms in a post-conflict society conforming to global standards? Examining the application of education convergence theory in an internationally supervised and politicized context

This article examines whether and to what extent educational reforms in a post-conflict society conform to “global (regional) standards,” and explores the meaning of inconsistencies observed in the process of global reform transfer. Among the nations of the world, nowhere is the influence of external forces on educational reforms more evident than in post-conflict nations under close international supervision. A case study of post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina revealed that not only policies but also national legislation conformed to European democratic norms, while the externally-induced and somewhat contradictory reforms of centralization and decentralization did not materialize in practice. Ultimately, policy–practice gaps and changeability of global reform models may be expected since they leave room for strategic interactions between national and international actors based on the pragmatic considerations of both parties to achieve their own mandates and purposes.

Innovation Configuration mapping as a professional development tool: the case of one-to-one laptop computing

This article illustrates how findings from a study of teachers’ and students’ uses of laptop computers in a secondary school in Singapore informed the development of an Innovation Configuration (IC) Map – a tool for identifying and describing alternative ways of implementing innovations based on teachers’ unique feelings, preoccupations, thoughts and considerations. The authors used a descriptive case study design and qualitative data (interviews, lesson observations and focus group discussions) that identified policy–practice gaps and teacher uncertainty about the practicalities of the laptop programme. They suggest IC Maps are particularly useful in three specific areas of classroom and professional practice: (i) information and policy direction setting, (ii) aspirations relating to an innovation, and (iii) planning activities around areas of personal need and interest. The article concludes with some suggestions about how teachers’ professional development and growth can be facilitated through the mediating and socially coordinating roles of IC Maps.

Regional initiatives to address the challenges of tuberculosis in children: perspectives from the Asia-Pacific region

Increasing attention is being given to the challenges of management and prevention of tuberculosis in children and adolescents. There have been a number of recent important milestones achieved at the global level to address this previously neglected disease. There is now a need to increase activities and build partnerships at the regional and national levels in order to address the wide policy-practice gaps for implementation, and to take the key steps outlined in the Roadmap for Child Tuberculosis published in 2013. In this article, we provide the rationale and suggest strategies illustrated with examples to improve diagnosis, management, outcomes and prevention for children with tuberculosis in the Asia-Pacific region, with an emphasis on the need for greatly improved recording and reporting. Effective collaboration with community engagement between the child health sector, the National Tuberculosis control Programmes, community-based services and the communities themselves are essential.

Paediatric tuberculosis in Europe: lessons from Denmark and inclusive strategies to consider

Despite suffering high morbidity and mortality in tuberculosis (TB)-endemic areas, children with TB are generally less infectious than adult cases and are therefore low on the priority list of national tuberculosis control programmes [1]. Accurate disease burden assessment in children is hampered by diagnostic challenges [2], limited surveillance data and the poor quality of routinely collected programmatic data. In 2012, the World Health Organization (WHO) produced its first estimates of the TB disease burden suffered by children worldwide, which were updated in 2013: 530 000 cases and 74 000 child deaths were attributed to TB [3]. Many deficiencies were acknowledged and it probably is an underestimate given the conservative assumptions made [1]. However, it provided formal recognition of the plight of these children and supplemented the focus on paediatric TB during World TB Day commemorations in 2012. Despite improved awareness, pragmatic service delivery strategies are often lacking, with pronounced policy–practice gaps in TB-endemic areas with limited resources [3, 4]. This editorial puts recent paediatric TB trends in Denmark, as described by Hatleberg et al. [5] in this issue of the European Respiratory Journal , into perspective; it explores study findings that may seem counterintuitive, advises on the importance of consistent and accurate classification of clinical syndromes in order for reports to be more informative, and argues for new strategies to reduce TB transmission to a minimum in low-burden settings. Relatively good data exist on the paediatric TB disease burden in Europe. A descriptive analysis of European Union/European Economic Area surveillance data from 2000 to 2009 reported 39 695 paediatric cases, accounting for 4.3% of all notified TB cases [6]. Overall TB incidence rates in children <15 years of age dropped from 5.5 per 100 …

Bridging policy–practice gap: Protecting rights of youth with learning disabilities in Hong Kong

Abstract Discrepancies between policies and practices have been known to be key barriers to ascertain adequate service delivery for students with disabilities and their families. For students with learning disabilities, the policy–practice gap is manifested through three key barriers to education: the difficulty to operationalize the definition of learning disabilities in service delivery, psychosocial issues associated with their learning differences, and minimization of parent participation. The implementation status of recent policies to strengthen systematic intervention throughout various stages of schooling to post-school life in Hong Kong has not been examined. This study represents an initial effort to understand service delivery for youth with learning disabilities through their parents' account of experiences. Findings suggest wide policy–practice gaps in fulfilling the mandates of implementing the 3-Tier Intervention model, establishing student support teams for all eligible students, providing transition services, and engaging and supporting parents in the decision-making process. Bridging the policy–practice gaps and balancing the tension between standards-based education systems and support for diverse needs are universal challenges. An evidence-based approach to policymaking is necessary to increase effective policy implementation and the role of research to contribute to such an approach is discussed.