ABSTRACT

Inspired by the ‘material turn’ in the social sciences, education scholars have engaged in discussions on various materialist modes of policy analysis for a long time now. This paper continues these discussions by experimenting with an agential realist re-reading of the instrumentation approach originally proposed by Lascoumes & Le Gales. Through an affirmative-diffractive methodology, the paper suggests that policy instruments can be conceptualized as socio-technical, entangled, and performative instruments that produce distinctive discursive-material effects by virtue of their particular capacities. This conceptualization continues key features of the original instrumentation approach, while contributing a concept of instrument capacities and amplifying the importance of the material and ontological character of the performative effects of policy instruments and their entanglement with policy content and wider sets of policies. By including the empirical case of higher education accreditation in the re-reading, the article offers an approach capable of analyzing how policy instruments contribute to the crafting of the ontological constitution of the university in alignment with the standards and practices produced by the accreditation instrument. The article suggests that the realities currently being invoked by instruments such as accreditation seem to reconfigure – and diminish – the very raison d’être of the university.

摘要

受社会科学“物质转向”的启发，教育学者长期以来一直在讨论各种唯物主义政策分析模式。本文通过尝试对 Lascoumes & Le Gales 最初提出的仪器方法进行代理现实主义重新阅读来继续这些讨论。通过肯定-衍射方法，该论文表明政策工具可以被概念化为社会技术的、纠缠的和执行的工具，它们凭借其特定的能力产生独特的话语材料效果。这种概念化延续了原始仪器方法的关键特征，同时贡献了工具能力的概念，并放大了政策工具执行效果的物质和本体特征的重要性，以及它们与政策内容和更广泛的政策的纠缠。通过在重读中纳入高等教育认证的经验案例，本文提供了一种方法，能够分析政策工具如何根据认证工具产生的标准和实践对大学本体构成的制定做出贡献。这篇文章表明，目前被认证等工具所引用的现实似乎正在重新配置——并削弱——大学的存在理由。通过在重读中纳入高等教育认证的经验案例，本文提供了一种方法，能够分析政策工具如何根据认证工具产生的标准和实践对大学本体构成的制定做出贡献。这篇文章表明，目前被认证等工具所引用的现实似乎正在重新配置——并削弱——大学的存在理由。通过在重读中纳入高等教育认证的经验案例，本文提供了一种方法，能够分析政策工具如何根据认证工具产生的标准和实践对大学本体构成的制定做出贡献。这篇文章表明，目前被认证等工具所引用的现实似乎正在重新配置——并削弱——大学的存在理由。