topic 7 the meso context of policy studies: the institution pedu 6209 policy studies in education

Topic 7The Meso Context of Policy Studies:

The Institution

PEDU 6209

Policy Studies in Education

If public policy is (for simplicity sake) defined as what the state choose to act or not to act, these state actors certainly act in particular historical, socioeconomic, cultural and political contexts.

In the field of policy-making studies, it is common knowledge that policy-makers cannot employ their rationality freely to seek the maximal solutions for the policy problems at hand. As Herbert Simon has aptly reminded us that policy-makers' rationalities are "bounded" by the relational networks and the institutional environment, in which they reside.

Boundedness and Embeddedness of Public Policy

In the field of policy-implementation studies, it has become conventional wisdom that the state cannot omni-potently impose a policy directive onto the policy field and expects it to be carried out to the full because individuals as well as organizations responsible for the implementation are not operate in social vacuum but are heavily embedded in relational networks and institutional environments.


These conceptions of boundedness and embeddedness emerged from policy studies can be put against the theoretical framework of new institutionalism and construe them as enduring patterns found in institutions, organizations, interpersonal relationship, or even personal habitual actions and perceptions.


Douglass C. North stipulates that “institutions are rules of the game in a society or more formally, are the humanly devised constraint that shape human interaction. In consequence they structure incentives in human exchange, whether political, social or economic.” (North, 1990, p. 3)

Concept of Institution: The Contextual Embeddedness of Public Policy

Elinor Ostrom writes, “Broadly defined, institutions are the prescriptions that humans use to organize all forms of repetitive and structured interactions including those within families, neighborhoods, markets, firms, sports leagues, churches, private associations, and government at all scales. Individuals interacting within rule-structured situations face choices regarding the actions and strategies they take, leading to consequences for themselves and for others." (Ostrom, 2005, P.3)


James March and Johan Olsen’s conception:

“An institution is a relatively enduring collection of rules and organized practices, embedded in structures of meaning and resources that are relatively invariant in the face of turnover of individuals and relatively resilient to the idiosyncratic preferences and expectations of individuals and changing external circumstances.” (March and Olsen, 2006, p.1)


James March and Johan Olsen’s conception:

According, in institutions “There are constitutive rules and practices prescribing

appropriate behavior for specific actors in specific situations. There are structures of meaning, embedded in identities and

belongings: common purposes and accounts that give direction and meaning to behavior, and explain, justify and legitimate behavioral codes.

There are structures of resources that create capabilities for action.” (ibid)


John Campbell’s conception: “Institutions …consist of formal and informal rules,

monitoring and enforcing mechanisms, and systems of meaning that define the context within which individuals, corporations, labor unions, nation-states and other organizations operate and interact with each other. Institutions are settlements born from struggle and bargaining. They reflect the resources and power of those who made them and, in turn, affect the distribution of resources and power in society. Once created, institutions are powerful external forces that help determine how people make sense of their world and act in it. They channel and regulate conflict and thus ensure stability in society.” (Campbell, 2004, p. 1)


Richard Scott’s conception

“Institutions consist of cognitive, normative, and regulative structures and activities that provide stability and meaning to social behavior. Institutions are transported by various carries ── cultures, structures, and routines── and they operate at multiple levels of jurisdiction.” (Scott, 1995, p.33)


Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann indicate that “institutionalization occurs whenever there is a reciprocal typiifcation of habitualized actions by types of actors. Put differently, any such typification is an institution. What must be stressed is the reciprocity of institutional typifications and the typicality of not only the actions but the actors in institution. The typifications of habitualized actions that constitute institutions are always shared ones. They are available to all members of the particular social group in question, and the institution itself typifies individual actors as well as individual actions.” (1966, p. 72)


One of initiative of the new institutionalist perspective is the reaction to prevailing perspectives in political sciences in the 1960s. One is the “old institutionalism”, which focuses their studies of the political institutions on formal-legal structure of the government, e.g. the legislative, executive and juridical structures. The other is the political behavior approach, which applies the behaviorism in psychology and concentrate o analyzing the political behaviors of individual political actors, such as voters. In reaction to them, new institutionalism focuses on the political meanings, symbols and cultures that constitute the regularity and durability underwriting the political institution and its structures.

Academic Origins of New Institutionalism

Another initiative of the new institutionalist perspective is the reaction to the methodological individualism found in economics, which manifest in theories of rational choice and preference. In reaction to these, new institutionalism put its emphasis on meanings and cultures, i.e. the logic of appropriateness, underlying human behaviors and choice. Hence, the new institutionalism reinstates the methodological collectivism (or more specifically methodological institutionalism) in economics by accounting for economic actions with social units such as firms, classes, status groups, ethnic groups, nation, the commons, and so on rather than individuals’ preferences and choices.


Ronald CoaseNobel Lareate in Economic Science in 1991

Douglas NorthNobel Lareate in Economic Science in 1993

Nobel Lareate in Economic Science in 1993

Nobel Lareate in Economic Science in 2009 Oliver E. Williamson & Elinor Ostrom (1932- (1933-2012)

In sociology, the rise of new institutionalism is mainly in reaction to the legal-rational system model prevailing in organization studies and the structural-functionalism dominating the marco-sociological studies, such as development studies. Based on the social phenomenological perspective made popular by Berger and Luckmann in their work The Social Construction of Reality (1967), new institutionalists emphasize the informal structure of organization and the subjective elements underlying patterned actions and enduring practices.


Peter Hall and R.C.R. Taylor have distinguished three perspectives in new institutionalism in political science: Historical Institutionalism:

This perspective tends to see enduring human behavior-patterns as outcomes evolve from specific historical and socio-economic contexts. Hence “historical institutionalists tend to view have a view of institutional development that emphasizes path dependence and unintended consequences.” (P. 938)

“Historical institutionalists define institution the formal or informal procedures, routines, norms and conventions embedded in the organizational structure of the polity or political economy. They can range from the rules of a conventional order or the standard operating procedures of a bureaucracy to the conventional governing trade union behaviour or bank-firm relations.” (P. 938)

The Perspectives in New Institutionalism

Peter Hall and R.C.R. Taylor … Historical Institutionalism: …

“In this perspective, the individual is seen as an entity deeply embedded in a world of institutions, composed of symbols, scripts and routines, which provide the filters for interpretation, of both the situation and oneself, out of which a course of action is constructed. Not only do institutions provide strategically-useful information, they also affect the very identities, self-images and preferences of the actions.” (p. 939)\


Peter Hall and R.C.R. Taylor … Rational-choice institutionalism:

“The rational choice institutionalists in political science drew fruitful analytical tools from the ‘new economics of organization’, which emphasizes the importance of property rights, rent-seeking, and transactions costs, to the operation and development of institutions. Especially influential was Willamson’s argument that the particular organizational form can be explained as the result of an effort to reduce the transaction cost of undertaking the same activity without such as institutions.” (P. 943)

Rational-choice institutionalists “posit that the relevant actors have a fixed set of preferences or tastes, …behave entirely instrumentally so to maximize the attainment of these preferences and do so in a highly strategic manner that presumes extensive calculation.” (Pp. 944-945)


Peter Hall and R.C.R. Taylor … Rational-choice institutionalism:…

“Rational-choice institutionalist tend to see politics as a series of collective action dilemmas. The latter can be defined as instances when individuals acting to maximizing the attainment of their own preferences are likely to produce an outcome that is collectively suboptimal. …Typically, what prevents the actors from taking a collectively-superior course of action is absence of institutional arrangements that would guarantee complementary behaviour by others. Classic examples includes the ‘prisoner’s dilemma’ and the ‘tragedy of the commons’ and the political situations present a varieties of such problems.” (P. 945)


Peter Hall and R.C.R. Taylor … Sociological institutionalism:

"The sociological institutionalists tend to define institutions …not just formal rules, procedures or norms, but the symbol systems, cognitive scripts, and moral templates that provide the 'frames of meaning' guiding human action." (p. 948) Accordingly, they "argue that many of the institutional forms and procedures used by organizations were not adopted simply because they were most efficient for the tasks at hand. …Instead, they argued that many forms and procedures should be seen as culturally-specific practices, akin to the myths and ceremonies derived by many societies." (p. 947)


Peter Hall and R.C.R. Taylor … Sociological institutionalism: …

To some sociologists of new institutionalism, individual actions are construed as role performances or prescriptive norms of behavior attached in particular institutional contexts. "In this view, individuals who have been socialized into particular institutional roles internalize the norms associated with these roles, and in this way institutions are said to affect behaviour." (P. 948) Furthermore, some sociological institutionalists "emphasize the way in which institutions influence behaviour by providing the cognitive scripts, categories and models that are indispensable for action, not least because without them the world and the behaviour of others cannot be interpreted. Institutions influence behaviour not simply by specifying what one should do but also by specifying what one can imagine oneself in a given context." (p. 948)


Peter Hall and R.C.R. Taylor … Sociological institutionalism: …

One of the distinctive features of the sociological institutionalism is the explanation it offered for the endurance of institutional practices. Instead of accounting them for rational-choices out of game situations or traditional "dependent paths" inherited from the past, sociologists in new institutionalism strive to reveal the legitimate bases from which reciprocal practices among social actors derived and consensual arrangements among reasonable agents endure.


The conception of institutional elements: Richard Scott suggests that “institution are viewed as made up of three component elements” (1994, p.56) or as he later called three pillars (1995) The regulative pillar: The effect or order of institutions is

accounted for by ways of emphasizing the prominence of explicit regulative processes prevailing in institutions. They consist of “rule-setting, monitoring, and sanctioning activities” undertaken in institutions. Hence, the institutional effects, i.e. the institutional order, depend on “the capacity to establish rules, inspect or review others’ conformity to them, and as necessary, manipulate sanctions ──rewards or punishments── in an attempt to influence future behavior.” (Scotts, 1995, p. 35)

Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of Institutional Effects: Why Institutions Endure?

The conception of institutional elements: Richard Scott suggests that “institution are viewed as made up of three component elements” (1994, p.56) or as he later called three pillars (1995) The normative pillar: Theorists emphasize the normative pillar

in accounting for institutional effects by focusing on the “prescriptive, evaluative, and obligatory dimensions” of social life. “Normative systems include both values and norms. Values are conceptions of the preferred or the desirable together with the construction of the standards to which existing structures or behavior can be compared and assessed. Norms specify how things should be done; they define legitimate means to pursue value ends.” (p. 37)


The conception of institutional elements: Richard Scott suggests that “institution are viewed as made up of three component elements” (1994, p.56) or as he later called three pillars (1995) The cognitive pillar: The institutional effects can also be

accounted for by emphasizing cognitive elements in institutions, which refer to “the rules that constitute the nature of reality and the frames through which meaning is made.” (p. 40) Constitutive rules have been identified as the foremost cognitive elements in this perspective. By constitutive rules, it refers “rules involve the creation of categories and the construction of typifications: processes by which ‘concrete and subjectively unique experiences… are ongoingly subsumed under general orders of meaning that are both objectively and subjectively real.” (p.41)


Levels of institutional analysis: “Institutional arrangements (i.e. elements) can be found at a variety of levels in social system – in societies, in organizational fields, in individual organizations, and in primary and small groups” (Rowan & Miskel, 1999, p. 359; Scott, 1995, p. 55-60) System level – The conception of Institutional environment

Institutional environment: “Institutional environments are, by definition, those characterized by the elaboration of rules and requirements to which individual organizations must conform if they are to receive support and legitimacy” (Scott and Meyer, 1991, p.123)

Two of the most prominent institutional environments in modern society are the nation-state and market, both of which share one of the most salient features of modernity, namely, rationality.


Levels of institutional analysis: Sector level – The conception of organizational fields

Organizational field: It refers to “a community of organizations that partakes of a common meanings system and whose participants interact more frequently and fatefully with one another than with actors outside of the field.” Hence, “fields are defined in terms of shared cognitive or normative frameworks or a common regulative system.” (Scott, 1995, p. 56)


Levels of institutional analysis: Sector level – The conception of organizational fields

Isomorphism: Organizations in an a organization field tends to become homogenous in terms of cognitive, normative and regulative aspects of the organizations. The concept best captures this process is isomorphism. “Isomorphism is a constraining process that forces one unit in a population to resemble other units that face the same set of environmental conditions.

Two of the forces at work in modern society are efficiency and legitimacy. The former is more likely to be related to the competitiveness of the market, while the latter to the state.


Levels of institutional analysis: Organization level – The formal structure of the

organization To comply with the isomorphic constraints of the

organizational field and institutional environment, individual organizations have to structure themselves in regulative, normative and cognitive aspects to meet with the institutional elements of the filed and environment.

As a result, two of the ideal types of formal structure of the organizations have constituted in modern society, the firm and the bureaucracy of government agencies.


Levels of institutional analysis: Human interaction level – “reciprocal typifications and

interpretations of habitualized actions” Members of an individual organization, organizational

field, or institutional environment will share many commonalities in meanings, interpretations, and typifications, i.e. common cognitive elements.

They will institutionalize common languages, interacting and communicating patterns, and routines in practices.

They will also institute common “logic of appropriateness and normative elements.

Their interactions are also subjected to the regulative elements of the institution in which they find themselves.


Levels of institutional analysis: Individual level - Internalization and Identity

In reaction to rational choice theory, new institutionalism perceives individuals not simply as actors governed by rational calculus of preferences and self-interest, i.e. logic of consequences (James, 1994, p.3) but as agent having internalized set of norms, values and rules and their agency is governed by the logic of appropriateness of particular institutional settings.

“When individuals and organizations fulfill identities, they follow rules or procedures that they see as appropriate to the situation in which they find themselves. Neither preference as they are normally conceived nor expectations of future consequences enter directly into the calculus.” (March, 1994, p. 57)


The concept of isomorphism: New Institutionalism at organizational level Conception of isomorphism: New institutionalists stipulate

that organizations in modern rational institutional environment and/or organizational field tend to develop similar structures, procedures and practices (organizational elements in Meyer & Rowan's terminology). They term this process of homogenization of organization isomorphism. "Isomorphism is a constraining process that forces one unit in a population to resemble other units that face the same set of environmental conditions." (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991, p.66)


The concept of isomorphism … Distinction between competitive and institutional

isomorphism: DiMaggio & Powell (1991) and Meyer & Rowan (1991) have made similar distinctions between competitive and institutional isomorphism. By competitive isomorphism, it refers to the process of

homogenization of organizations taken place in "those field which free and open competition exists." (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991, p.66) Organizations in these fields usually possess "clearly defined technologies to produce outputs" and therefore those "outputs can be easily evaluated" (Meyer & Rowan, 1991, p. 54) As a result, development of common organizational elements, i.e. isomorphism, can be attained through market competition, competitive niche, standardized output performance and organizational efficiency. (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991, p. 66)


The concept of isomorphism… Distinction between competitive and institutional

isomorphism: By institutional isomorphism, it refers to the process of

homogenization of organizations invoked in the context of "collective organized society" (Meyer & Rowan, 1991, p. 49) in which institutional environment of modern bureaucratic states have replaced market mechanism to act as institutional rules of the field. As a result, in institutional organizations, the development of common organizational elements can not be attain by market competition and internal efficiency, instead "they incorporate elements which are legitimated externally" and "they employ external or ceremonial assessment criteria to define the value of structural elements." (Meyer & Rowan, 1991, p. 49)


The concept of isomorphism… Mechanism of institutional isomorphism

DiMaggio & Powell identify three mechanism through which institutional isomorphism are achieved, maintained or changed. The thesis can be taken as analysis apparatus to study how schools, as institutional organization, adopt to education policy changes.



Coercive isomorphism: "Coercive isomorphism results from both formal and informal pressures exerted on organizations by other organizations upon which they are dependent and by cultural expectations in the society within which organizations function. Such pressures may be felt as force, as persuasion, or as invitations to join in collusion." (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991, p. 67)

Organizational restructures undertaken by HK schools in response to Quality-Assurance Inspection, School Self Evaluation, External School Review, Senior-Secondary Curriculum reform, School-based Management and Incorporated Management Committee, etc. may be analyze in light of the concept of coercive isomorphism.



Mimetic isomorphism: Apart from coercive authority, "uncertainty is also a powerful force that encourages imitation. When organizational technologies are poorly understood, when goals are ambiguous, or when the environment creates symbolic uncertainty, organizations may model themselves on other organization." (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991, p. 69)

Confronted by collective puzzlement in policy implementation, such as those initiated by Senior-Secondary curriculum reform or more specifically the teaching of Liberal Studies, or School-Self Evaluation, most HK schools could only imitate, model or simply copy from other schools.



Normative isomorphism: Instead of compliance with modern institutional environments of competitive market or bureaucratic-rational state, isomorphism may take the form of professionalization. Organizations and their operations, which are predominately identified with a profession, such as hospitals with doctors and schools with teachers, can incorporate cognitive, normative and regulative bases of that profession into their organizations and apply them as criteria in assessing the performance as well and legitimation bases of their organization.


The concept of social capital: New institutionalism at interpersonal level: According to Berger and Luckmann, institution embeds in

individuals and groups of individuals in the form of "reciprocal typifications" and "habitualized actions." In recent years sociologists have initiated concepts such as social network and social capital to depict the enduring interpersonal relationship in institutional context. For example Lin conceptualizes that "social capital as …is rooted in social network and social relations, and must be measured relative to its roots. Therefore social capital can be defined as resources embedded in a social structure which are accessed and/or mobilized in purposive action." (Lin, 2001, p.12)


The concept of social capital: Portes and Sensenbrenner (1998) have specified four sources

from which enduring interpersonal co-operations, i.e. social capitals, are constituted. Value introjection: It refers to "moral character" and "value

imperatives" individuals learned in the process of socialization. (Portes and Sensenbrenner, 1998, p. 129) This resource is basically in congruent with Beger and Luckmann's conception of internalization in the process of institutionalization at individual level.

Reciprocity transactions: It "consists of an accumulation of 'chits' earned through previous good deeds to others, backed by the norm of reciprocity." In comparison with value introjection, in this type of social capital "individuals are not expected to behave according to a higher group morality but rather to pure selfish end." (p. 130)



from which enduring interpersonal co-operations, i.e. social capitals, are constituted. Bounded solidarity: It refers to social capitals invoke from

"situational circumstances leading to the emergence of principled group-orientated behavior. …Its classic sources are best exemplified by Marx and Engels's analysis of the rise of proletarian consciousness and the transformation of workers into class for themselves." (p. 130)

This type of collective sentiments grown out of common (usually socially inferior) situations can also be found in unions, minority groups, etc.



from which enduring interpersonal co-operations, i.e. social capitals, are constituted. Enforceable trust: It refers of social capitals grown out of

community, in which "particularistic rewards and sanctions" are enforceable on its members in the form of collective expectation and trusts. This type of social capitals may manifest in informal institutional settings such as peer group pressures or solidarity within new immigrant communities or in formal institutional setting such as community sanction in professional associations.


Identifying types of institutional changes Categorization of institutional changes

Evolutionary or incremental changes: It has been signified within the perspective that "Institutions are sticky and prone to inertia and, as a result, change quite gradually." Hence, changes undertaken by institutions have commonly been characterized as evolutionary changes. By evolutionary changes, it refers to "continuous change that proceeds in small, incremental steps along a single path in certain direction." (Campbell, 2004, p. 33)

Conceptual Apparatuses in the Studies of Institutional Changes

Identifying types of institutional changes Categorization of institutional changes…

Revolutionary changes or punctuated equilibrium: Despite the institutional inertia and resistance to change, "some scholars recognize, nonetheless, that relatively rapid and profound institutional change does occur sometimes. They often describe this discontinuous pattern of change as punctuated equilibrium." (Campbell, 2004, p. 34)


Identifying types of institutional changes Categorization of institutional changes…

Punctuated evolution: Some scholars further specify that "The periods of equilibrium occurring between punctuations are better characterized as evolutionary rather than static." Hence, they prefer to characterize change in institutions as punctuated evolution. That is, there are evolutionary changes in terms of self reflection and social learning within periods of equilibrium and equilibrium may be "punctuated occasionally by crises that involve open struggle over the very core of the institutional status quo and the eventually result in truly fundamental institutional transformation." (p. 34)


Identifying types of institutional changes Identifying the dimensions of changes

Scott’s conception of three pillars• Changes in regulative dimension of pillars• Changes in normative dimension of institutions• Changes in cognitive dimension of institutions

Levels of abstraction• World systemic level• Societal level• Discursive level• Organizational level• Interactive level• Individual cognitive level


Identifying types of institutional changes Identifying the time frame: Time frame refers to the

duration of time within which institutional changes are set against for investigation.


Explaining institutional changes: John Campbell (2004) has stipulated the causal mechanism accounting for institutional changes as follows Negative feedbacks and critical junctures on dependence path:

As indicated above the maintaining and sustaining of institutional patterns depends on the continuous feedbacks from the prevailing "dependence path" of the institution. (Pierson, 2004) However, as negative feedbacks from the dependence path appear and subsequently accumulated to a critical point. It may then trigger fundamental changes in institution. (Campbell, 2004, p.65-68)


Explaining institutional changes: Bricolage: It refers to innovations in combining existing

repertoire of institutional principles and practices so as to solve crises or dilemma confronting an institution. (Campbell, 2004, p. 69) According to March and Olsen's conception, bricolage can be categorized into Substantive bricolage: It refers to innovative combination of well-

established technical principles or practices within an institution in order to bring about adjustment or fundamental change.

Symbolic bricolage: It refers to innovative combination of normative and cognitive principles and practices so as to reconcile normative or cognitive conflicts invoked by changes.


Explaining institutional changes: The role of institutional entrepreneurs or bricoleurs: The

conception of institutional entrepreneurs or bricoleurs can specify the agent of change in the causal explanation of institutional changes. The performance entrepreneurs depend basically on two factors, namely their connectivity within the institution and the availability of repertoires to be combined. As Campbell indicates "entrepreneurs with more diverse social, organizational, and institutional connections tends to have more expansive repertoires with which to work. In turn, the broader their repertoire, the more likely they are to create a bricolage that is very creative and revolutionary rather than one that is less creative and evolutionary, (Campbell, 2004, p.75)


Explaining institutional changes: Diffusion, translation and enactment:

Changes in punctuated equilibrium may not be invoked by bricoleurs from within an institution. It may be triggered by input from other institutions. In other words, institutional innovation or changes may diffuse and circulated among institutions. Hence, institutional changes can be copies and learnt.

However, input of changes or innovations from outside will not be copied automatically and totally by a given institution. They must be translated and innovatively combined with existing principles and practice.

Finally, in order for any principles and practice input from without to substantiate within a given institution, they must be internalized cognitively or normatively by members of the institution to become part of their daily routines and practice. In other words, changes have to be enacted by members on daily basis.


Explaining institutional changes: Normative and cognitive ideas about institutional changes

In accounting for institutional changes, new institutionalists play particular attentions to how agents accept (interpret, identify, internalize, enact, etc.) new ideas and in turn make changes in their practices, i.e. agencies.

Typology of ideas about institutional change: Campbell has constructed a framework to classify ideas into paradigms, public sentiments, programs and frames.

Conceptual Tools in the Perspective New Institutionalism

Explaining institutional changes: Normative and cognitive ideas about institutional changes

Typology of actors and their ideational roles: According to the classification of ideas, Campbell has further differentiated actors within an institution into five ideational roles

Conceptual Tools in the Perspective New Institutionalism

Policy changes at the level institutional environment: Policy changes can be conceived as changes in the institutional environments of modern societies. The transformation of monarchical state to formal-rational

bureaucratic state in the 18th to 19th centuries have brought fundamental changes to the institutional environment to the educational sector, i.e. organizational field of schooling. As a result, education policy assumed the role of part of the apparatus of modern-state formation. It in turn triggered global education reform which changed schooling into state-controlled, bureaucratic organized, specialized and standardized, universal and compulsory schooling systems. (Boli and Ranirz, 1986; Boli and Meyer, 1985; Meyer and Ramirez, 2000; Ramirz and Boli 1982 & 1987)

Education Policy Changes as Education Institutional Changes

Policy changes at the level institutional environment: Policy changes can be conceived as changes in the institutional environments of modern societies. The recent education reform undertaken by governments in

most of the developed countries in the last two decades, can be account for as the another waves of changes in the technological and institutional environments of the rise of network society and information age and subsequent transformations of Keynesian Welfare National State (KWNS) to Schumpterian Worlfare Postnation Regime (SWPR) (Campbell and Pederson, 2001; Rowan, 2006; Harvey, 2005)


Policy changes at the level of societal sector and organizational field: In response to the changes in institutional environments, different organizational fields, such as those of basic education and/or higher education, have to undertake correspondent changes in their regulative, normative and cognitive elements/pillars. The institutionalization of modern education system taken

place since the 18th century in the forms of (i) standardization of examination and certification system; (ii) formalization of curriculum and instructional practices, and (iii) legal-rationalization of school management can all be construed as responses to the institutionalization of the rational imperatives of institutional environments of modern state as well as industrial-capital economy.


Policy changes at the level of societal sector and organizational field: Recent education reforms in the forms of (i) modularization

and flexiblization of curriculum and instructional practice, (ii) deregualtion, devolution, performance-based evaluation of school management, (iii) privatization and liberalization of school place supply can all be understood in the institutional contexts of competition state and global-informational economy.


Policy changes at the level of organization: In responses to the changes in institutional environments, societal sectors, and organization fields, individual organizations have to re-institutionalization their regulative, normative and cognitive elements. As a result, isomorphism among organizations, such as schools, began to take shape. The school organizations, which take the forms of centralized,

bureaucratized, standardized and publicly funded, can be understood as the result of isomorphic changes in the societal sector or organizational field of education.


Policy changes at the level of organization: The school re-structuring reforms, which take the directions of

decentralization, de-bureaucratization, and privatization, can also be account for as responses to the isomorphic pressures from the organizational field of education in the network society.


Policy changes at the level of human interaction level: The fundamental effects of any policy and institutional changes have to be institutionalized into patterns of human interactions. They will affect the “reciprocal typifications and interpretations of habitualized actions” among members of a given organization and institution. Since the 19th century, the “reciprocal typification and

interpretation of habitualized interactions” between role occupants of teachers and students, teachers and school management staffs, teachers and government official have been institutionalized according to the centralized and bureaucratized organizational structure in industrial society.


Policy changes at the level of human interaction level: In response to the rise of the network society and network

organization in the new millennium, the interaction patterns including its respective cognitive, normative and regulative bases, have to undertake correspondent changes, which can be characterized as compatible, flexible, dispensable, deleteable and even virtual.


END

11Meso Context of Policy Studies:

The Institution

topic 7 the meso context of policy studies: the institution pedu 6209 policy studies in education

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