The Feild of Policy Enactment

A field is a social space with a relatively autonomy and its own unique characteristics including the actors in the field, their position and disposition and the field specific logic and capital involved. Policy enactment at school level is a field with its own agents involved in the process of receiving, interpreting, articulating, translating, enacting and responding to a policy reform. With this in mind, policy enactment is considered a socially constituted process with its complex practices, unique tensions and conflicts, contestations and struggle, power relations, negotiations and position taking. According to Hardy (2015) ‘the field of policy enactment’ is “a social space characterized by conflicting pressure, demands, relations and dispositions amongst those affected about how best to respond to the policy push for curriculum reform” (p.78). 

The field of policy enactment has its own distinct actors functioning according to the logic of the field. The policy enactment actors are generally the school administration, teachers, students and parents and other stakeholders.  These actors although have a little say in the policy formation but they are imperative part of policy production at the local level. These actors of policy production have differentiated role and responsibilities which positions them as an objective structure depending upon the different forms of capital in possession. The actors use different strategies to improve or defend their positions within the field. Such an objective structure with different positions based on the capital in possession demands and elucidates differentiated actions and practices. Policy enactment thus is socially constructed and a complex interplay between agents occupying different positions based on their capital henceforth the field features struggle, competition and contestation. 

There are symbolic capital associated with the field autonomy. The actors in the field exhibit sings of embracement, reluctance, resistance, and criticism towards policy reform. These are sings of demand for autonomy as oppose to just complying with the state rules and demands. The actors in the enactment invest in making the reform workable during the enactment process at the school level.  The desire to make the reform workable manifests another level of autonomy as oppose to fidelity of implementation – teaching each unit as prescribed. Eventhough the school essentially continues the logic of the state – universality of curriculum by complying with the essence of the reform. For instance teachers are supported to modify, review, revise, and refine their units based on their students’ needs still retaining the intent of the unit –essentially retaining the state sanctions.

 In any field are generic capitals which can be across different fields and field specific capitals. The field specific capital involves in the enactment field are social, cultural and economic capital. Social capital is networks with other teachers, immediate authority; family members; and friendship circle with other teachers. While taking cultural capital into consideration, the policy enactment field values teacher education for teachers and teachers’ knowledge, understanding and interpreting the curriculum in relation to the students’ needs, the time constraints and the context of application is symbolic capital. Involvement and participation in the enactment process is a legitimate competence as symbolic capital to sustain or improves ones position. Economic capital is utilized for teachers’ professional development and resourcing for students’ learning. Pointing out these capital within policy enactment field one can reveal the underlying symbolic structure of the field.

The field of policy enactment involves power relation at two different levels: institutional level, and amongst the actors in the field. At the institutional level policy enactment is under a dominated policy field which always sits on top of the policy enactment field. Actors from the policy field insert pressure through different means such as high stake testing onto actors in the policy enactment field. There is power relation within the enactment field, with the admin staff holding positions of authority. Being at the authority position, the admin staff’s role overlaps with the policy field - they can serve their own interest in the very act of serving the state. The admin staff has access to the policy field and thus can negotiate and mediate the reform between the regional state and the local school. 

All in all it can be argued that policy enactment is a field overlapping yet autonomous field of the broader educational field given its differentiated practices associated with the actors their position in the field based on the capital they possess.