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This chapter explores the ‘gap’ between policy intent and policy effect through the eyes of a group of practising school principals in China. The reform policies targeted are the new curriculum, the school review system and personnel system. The universalising tendency of educational reform towards decentralisation and marketisation has swept across China as it has in Western democracies. Another trend Chinese education shares with other systems is that central policy initiatives go through a complex process of interpretation and re-interpretation before they reach schools, a pattern that continues as schools struggle to implement them. Using interview data collected from 11 secondary school principals in Shanghai, China, the chapter suggests that the way in which policy is interpreted and translated in schools is influenced by the particularities of the context, and that the status of the school plays a particularly important role in this process. Despite the moderating role of the local context, some commonalities across principals' policy interpretations emerge. These commonalities suggest that universal education reform policies inevitably reflect cultural and societal characteristics when they are introduced and adapted to the specific national context.

This article addresses the question of the determinants of public policy at the local level. It is particularly concerned with local political leaders' interpretations of given socioeconomic environments, and the bearing these have on public policy formation.

This study explores the politics of ideology in the process of sensegiving and sensemaking at a Japanese retailer in Hong Kong. Studies on power and politics are scarce despite key role of power and politics in understanding the factors behind the conflict between the management's policy legitimization (sensegiving) and employees' policy interpretation (sensemaking). By using the three dimensions proposed in the critical sensemaking approach (discourse, rules and contexts), this paper explores the complex mechanism of power and politics in sensemaking and sensegiving.

Using 15 months of participant observation as a salesperson, this paper discusses how the Japan-centric customer service philosophy (dominant discourse), customer service policies and practices (organizational rules) and asymmetric power structure between the Japanese global headquarters and Hong Kong subsidiaries (formative contexts) are presented and perpetuated through the sensegiving–sensemaking process.

Dominant discourse was observed in the management's sensegiving, which placed the Japanese style of customer service over others. This ethnocentric dominant discourse informed the creation of customer service policies, although the realization of the discourse was determined by the employees' conflicting interpretations of the organizational rules. As a formative context, an asymmetric power structure was present that positioned the Hong Kong subsidiary as subservient to the global headquarters in Japan. This shows that the political process of sensegiving and sensemaking deeply implicates the dominant discourse, organizational rules and power structure as central forces that determine the level of perpetuating ideology.

This research illustrates the wider implications of power and politics in sensegiving–sensemaking studies and provides a complex picture of ethnocentric management.

Historically, Scottish education policymaking has been implemented independently of central educational policy makers, with policymakers negotiating with a variety of interest groups and elected policy makers. The paper discusses Scotland’s research policy; the purpose of research and its possible link to teaching and learning, the function of a research policy and a critical discussion of the theory of policy networks and policy communities to establish the key players who “really” shape and set Scotland’s research policy. The paper draws on documentary evidence to support recommendations on how to enhance the policy‐making process to ensure a greater representation and more effective implementation at the “grass roots” level of Scottish researchers and their academic managers.

This policy brief, the third in the AERI-NEPC eBrief series “Understanding validity issues around the world”, discusses validity issues surrounding International Large Scale Assessment (ILSA) programs. ILSA programs, such as the well-known Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), are rapidly expanding around the world today. In this eBrief, the authors examine what “validity” means when applied to published results and reports of programs like the PISA.

This policy brief is based on a synthesis of conference proceedings and review of selected pieces of extant literature. It begins by summarizing perspectives of an invited expert panel on the topic. To that synthesis, the authors add their own analysis of key issues. They conclude by offering recommendations for test developers and test users.

ILSA programs and tests, while offering valuable information, should be read and used cautiously and in context. All parties need to be on the same page to maximize valid use of ILSA results, to obtain the greatest educational and social benefits, and to minimize negative consequences. The authors propose several recommendations for test makers and ILSA program leaders, and ILSA users. To ILSA leaders and researchers: provide more cautionary information about how to correctly interpret the ILSA results, particularly country rankings, given contextual differences among nations. Provide continuing psychometric or research resources so as to address or reduce various sources of error in reports. Encourage policy makers in different nations to share the responsibility for ensuring more contextualized (and valid) interpretations of ILSA reports and subsequent policy development. Raise awareness among policy makers to look beyond simple rankings and pay more attention to inter-country differences. For consumers of ILSA results and reports: read the fine print, not just the country rankings, to interpret ILSA results correctly in particular regions/nations. When looking to high-ranking countries as role models, be sure to consider the “whole picture”. Use ILSA data as complements to other national- and state-level educational assessments to better gauge the status of the country's education system and subsequent policy directions.

By translating complex information on validity issues with all concerned ILSA stakeholders in mind, this policy brief will improve uses and applications of ILSA information in national and regional policy contexts.

This paper aims to consider the practices and experiences of the new school-based mentors for Early Career Teachers (ECT's), emerging from the UK Government's new early career framework (ECF) policy (DfE, 2019a). The paper uses Lipsky's (2010) framing of professionals as “street level bureaucrats” to consider the extent to which the ECT mentors, as new policy actors, exercise professional discretion (Lipsky, 2010) in negotiating and aligning the new ECF policy with existing practice.

To research the mentor's interpretation and enactment of the new ECF policy, semi structured interviews were undertaken with an initial sample of nine mentors and four induction tutors who were also mentors. Online semi structured interviews were held, lasting around 50 min. This method was largely pragmatic as the study started during a period when schools were still cautious of face-to-face visitors in terms of COVID-19. Although the benefits for the interviewer experiencing the culture and context in which the ECT mentor was situated were lost, offering online interviews was critical in securing mentors' time.

Findings suggest a disconnect between the intentions of the policy and the reality of its enactment at a local level. The ECT mentors have limited professional discretion, but some are exercising this in relation to their own professional development and the training they are providing for their ECTs. Most of the mentors are adapting the ECT's professional development journey whilst mindful of the programme requirements. The degree to which the ECT mentors used professional discretion was linked and limited largely by their own levels of confidence and experience of mentoring, and to a lesser extent the culture of their schools.

The ECF policy represents an important step in acknowledging the need to professionally develop mentors for the work they undertake supporting beginning teachers. However, the time and the content of the mentor training have not been given sufficient attention and remains a hugely missed opportunity. It does not appear to be recognised by the government policy makers but more significantly and concerning in this research sample it is not being recognised sufficiently by those mentoring the ECTs themselves.

There is an urgent need by the UK government and school leaders to understand the link between the quality of mentor preparation and the quality of the ECTs who will be entering the profession and influencing the quality of education in future years. More time and resourcing need to be focussed on the professional development of mentors enabling them to exercise professional discretion in increasingly sophisticated ways in relation to the implementation of the ECF policy.

The ECF policy is the latest English government response to international concerns around the recruitment and retention of teachers. The policy mandates for a new policy actor: the ECT mentor, responsible for the support and professional development of beginning teachers. The nature of the mentor's role in relation to the policy is emerging and provides an interesting case study in the disconnect between the intentions of a policy and its initial enactment on the ground. The mentors may be viewed as street level bureaucrats exercising degrees of professional discretion as they interpret the policy in their own school context.

To add new empirical knowledge to debates about social practices of peer production communities, and to conversations about bias and its implications for democracy. To help identify Wikipedia (WP) articles that are affected by systematic bias and hopefully help alleviate the impact of such bias on the general public, thus helping enhance both traditional (e.g. libraries) and online information services (e.g. Google) in ways that contribute to democracy. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned objectives.

Quantitatively, the authors identify edit-warring camps across many conflict zones of the English language WP, and profile and compare success rates and typologies of camp edits in the corresponding topic areas. Qualitatively, the authors analyze the edit war between two senior WP editors that resulted in imbalanced and biased articles throughout a topic area for such editorial characteristics through a close critical reading.

Through a large-scale quantitative study, the authors find that winner-take-all camps exhibit biasing editing behaviors to a much larger extent than the camps they successfully edit-war against, confirming findings of prior small-scale qualitative studies. The authors also confirm the employment of these behaviors and identify other behaviors in the successful silencing of traditional medicinal knowledge on WP by a scientism-biased senior WP editor through close reading.

WP sadly does, as previously claimed, appear to be a platform that represents the biased viewpoints of its most stridently opinionated Western white male editors, and routinely misrepresents scholarly work and scientific consensus, the authors find. WP is therefore in dire need of scholarly oversight and decolonization.

The authors independently verify findings from prior personal accounts of highly power-imbalanced fights of scholars against senior editors on WP through a third-party close reading of a much more power balanced edit war between senior WP editors. The authors confirm that these findings generalize well to edit wars across WP, through a large scale quantitative analysis of unbalanced edit wars across a wide range of zones of contention on WP.

Although frequently discussed as a singular policy, there is tremendous variation in the laws and regulations surrounding so-called decriminalization policies adopted by Western countries, with many jurisdictions adopting depenalization policies rather than policies that actually change the criminal status of cannabis possession offences. This paper provides a discussion of the liberalization policies being adopted in Western countries, highlighting distinct elements about particular policies that are important for proper analysis and interpretation of the policies. It then discusses some of the environmental factors that also shape these policies, and hence influence their potential impact, using data from the U.S.A. as a particular example. The results clearly show that researchers should be careful conducting intra- or international comparisons of policies because important aspects of these policies are frequently ignored.

The purpose of this article is to enhance understanding of influences on interaction between corporate personnel and development specialists and line functions associated with expatriating managers. Line managers are expected to accept greater responsibility for people management and development. But line managers' strategies for managing risks inherent in supervising expatriate managers may cause to surface incompatibilities with specialists' corporate “policy conscience” role. A pluralistically inclined perspective on “managerial interest streams” offers insights into inter‐group perceptions and behaviour.

Focusing on organisational actors' interpretations, a non‐standardised survey by e‐mail, covering a small sample of expatriate managers (n=20) employed in various countries by a large UK‐headquartered healthcare retail group, was complemented by semi‐structured interviews with personnel and development specialists in a further seven large multinational companies.

Potential tensions around the application of corporate expatriation policy may be attributed to factors “educating” line and specialist orientations to expatriate managers.

The value of the paper is in the development of an original model sketching pluralistically located interaction around expatriation management. While limited to an exploratory empirical investigation, the practical implications derive from specification of opportunities and threats to partnership building between those involved in expatriating managers.

Propose a more comprehensive explanation on the determinants and fluctuations of China’s exchange rate policy in the past decade (2005–2015).

Case study on China’s exchange rate policies in three respective stages since 2005 and then a comparative study on these three stages.

Put forward a two-pronged explanation on the determinants and fluctuations of China’s exchange rate policy in the past decade and arrive at three specific conclusions. First, external pressure is only one factor among many influencing the formation of China’s national interests (Guojia Liyi in Chinese) and the decision-making process on exchange rate policy. Second, national interest is the fundamental driving force and substratum for making China’s exchange rate policy. Third, in the short term, the specific exchange rate policies in different periods were not always in accordance to the national interests (or Guojia Liyi), due to the influences of some factors on the decision-making environment.

The comprehensive view is conducive to better explaining the formation and fluctuations of China’s exchange rate policy and consequently contributes to understanding and even predicting future policies.