The aim of this investigation was twofold: to explore how policy texts are discursively involved in the formation of subject positions and to help lay bare the part dominant hegemonic discourses play in this process. To this end, a policy document on the Iranian higher education quality supervision, assessment, and assurance system was analyzed using the theoretical lens of poststructuralism and the analytical resources of critical discourse analysis to see how language is implicated in the asymmetrical representation of actors/actions in that domain of social life, and might channel our views of reality in specific ways. The findings revealed that whereas the assessees, i.e., Iranian university teachers, are depicted as faceless entities who are at the receiving end of the quality assurance process, the assessors are foregrounded and come to life through the workings of the policy text. In addition, being a mix of especially legal and technocratic genres, the document discursively legitimizes the closely intertwined processes of higher education quality supervision, assessment, and assurance in ways that seem to leave little room, if any, for the potential assessees to challenge them. Implications for policy and research are finally given.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alexander, F.K. (2000) ‘The changing face of accountability: monitoring and assessing institutional performance in higher education’, The Journal of Higher Education 71(4): 411–431.
Allan, E.J. (2012) Policy discourses, gender, and education: constructing women’s status, New York: Routledge.
Allan, E.J. (2009) ‘Feminist poststructuralism meets policy analysis: an overview’, in E. J. Allan, S. Iverson and R. Ropers-Huilman (eds.) Reconstructing Policy in Higher Education, New York: Routledge, pp. 31–56.
Allan, E.J., Iverson, S. and Ropers-Huilman, R. (2009) Reconstructing policy in higher education: feminist poststructural perspectives, New York: Routledge.
Ary, D., Jacobs, L.C., Sorensen, C. and Razavieh, A. (2010) Introduction to research in education, Belmont: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
Barns, I., Dudley, J., Harris, P. and Petersen, A. (1999) ‘Introduction: themes, context and perspectives’, in A. Petersen, I. Barns, J. Dudley and P. Harris (eds.) Poststructuralism, Citizenship and Social Policy, London: Routledge, pp. 1–23.
Bazargan, A. (2001) ‘From internal evaluation to quality assurance in higher education: The case of medical education in Iran’, Journal of Medical Education 1(1): 23–27.
Chalmers, D. and Johnston, S. (2012) ‘Quality assurance and accreditation in higher education’, in C. Latchem and I. Jung (eds.) Quality Assurance and Accreditation in Distance Education and e-Learning: Models, Policies and Research, New York: Routledge, pp. 1–12.
Debrix, F. (2015) Language, agency, and politics in a constructed world, New York: Routledge.
Fairclough, N. (2013) Critical discourse analysis: the critical study of language, New York: Routledge.
Fairclough, N. (2003) Analysing discourse: textual analysis for social research, New York: Routledge.
Fairclough, N. (1993) ‘Critical discourse analysis and the marketization of public discourse: the universities’, Discourse and Society 4(2): 133–168.
Fowler, R. (2013) Language in the news: discourse and ideology in the press, New York: Routledge.
Gottweis, H. (2003) ‘Theoretical strategies of poststructuralist policy analysis: towards an analytics of government’, in M. Hajer, M. A. Hajer and H. Wagenaar (eds.) Deliberative Policy Analysis: Understanding Governance in the Network Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 247–265.
Hajer, M.A. (1993) ‘Discourse coalitions and the institutionalization of practice: the case of acid rain in Britain’, in M. A. Hajer, R. Hoppe and B. Jennings (eds.) The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning, Durham: Duke University Press, pp. 43–76.
Harman, G. (1998) ‘The management of quality assurance: a review of international practice’, Higher Education Quarterly 52(4): 345–364.
Howarth, D., Griggs, S. (2012) ‘Poststructuralist policy analysis: discourse, hegemony, and critical explanation’, in F. Fischer and H. Gottweis (eds.) The Argumentative Turn Revisited: Public Policy as Communicative Practice, Durham: Duke University Press, pp. 305–342.
Kelly, A.V. (2009) The curriculum: theory and practice, London: Sage Publications.
Kim, J. (2014) ‘The politics of inclusion/exclusion: critical discourse analysis on multicultural education policy documents in South Korea’, Multicultural Education Review 6(2): 1–24.
Meyer, M. (2015) ‘Between theory, method, and politics: positioning of the approaches to CDA’, in R. Wodak and M. Meyer (eds.) Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, London: Sage Publications, pp. 14–31.
Mulderrig, J. (2012) ‘The hegemony of inclusion: a corpus-based critical discourse analysis of deixis in education policy’, Discourse and Society 23(6): 701–728.
Newman, S. (2005) Power and politics in poststructuralist thought: new theories of the political, New York: Routledge.
Olssen, M., Codd, J. and O’Neil, A. (2004) Learning policy: globalization, citizenship & democracy, London: Sage Publications.
Ryan, M. and Johnson, G. (2009) ‘Negotiating multiple identities between school and the outside world: a critical discourse analysis’, Critical Studies in Education 50(3): 247–260.
Rizvi, F. and Lingard, B. (2009) Globalizing education policy, New York: Routledge.
Saarinen, T. (2008) ‘Position of text and discourse analysis in higher education policy research’, Studies in Higher Education 33(6): 719–728.
Santiago, R.A. and Carvalho, T. (2004) ‘Effects of managerialism on the perceptions of higher education in Portugal’, Higher Education Policy 17(4): 427–444.
Taylor, S. (2004) ‘Researching educational policy and change in ‘new times’: using critical discourse analysis’, Journal of Education Policy 19(4): 433–451.
Thomas, S. (2005) ‘The construction of teacher identities in educational policy documents: a critical discourse analysis’, Critical Studies in Education 46(2): 25–44.
Trow, M. (1996) ‘Trust, markets and accountability in higher education: a comparative perspective’, Higher Education Policy 9(4): 309–324.
Van Dijk, T.A. (2008) Discourse and context: a sociocognitive approach, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Van Dijk, T.A. (2014) Discourse and knowledge: a sociocognitive approach, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Van Leeuwen, T. (2007) ‘Legitimation in discourse and communication’, Discourse and communication 1(1): 91–112.
Van Leeuwen, T. (2008) Discourse and practice: new tools for critical discourse analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wagenaar, H. (2014) Meaning in action: interpretation and dialogue in policy analysis, New York: Routledge.
Wodak, R. (2001) ‘The discourse-historical approach’, in R. Wodak and M. Meyer (eds.) Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, London: Sage Publications, pp. 63–94.
Wodak, R. and Chilton, P. (eds.) (2005) A new agenda in (critical) discourse analysis: theory, methodology and interdisciplinarity, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.
Woodside-Jiron, H. (2004) ‘Language, power, and participation: using critical discourse analysis to make sense of public policy’, in R. Rogers (ed.) An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis in Education, New York: Routledge, pp. 203–236.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rasti, A. A Textual Poststructuralist Reading of Quality Assurance Policy in Iran’s Higher Education. High Educ Policy 34, 706–723 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41307-019-00160-2
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41307-019-00160-2