TY - JOUR
T1 - Política de educación y discurso político
T2 - The american federation for children redes
AU - Ellison, B. Scott
AU - Aloe, Ariel M.
AU - Iqtadar, Shehreen
N1 - Funding Information: The confirmation of Betsy DeVos as secretary of education in 2017 raised the profile of one of these new policy-actors: the American Federation for Children (AFC). AFC is a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization associated with the 501(c)(3) non-profit organization the Alliance for School Choice both of which receive funding from the Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation. DeVos was the chairperson of AFC before stepping down to become secretary of education. During her senate confirmation hearing, DeVos indicated that she and her family have contributed approximately $200 million to conservative political causes over the years making the DeVos family significant players in the politics of the Republican Party (Alexander, 2017). In the education policy field, AFC provided over $7.7 million in funding for advocacy organizations, think tanks, and venture philanthropies between 2010-2015 to push for education reforms (Internal Revenue Service, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015). This level of funding makes AFC a relatively minor player in the education policy field when compared to organizations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation or the Walton Family Foundation. However, when considering the role that DeVos plays in Republican party politics in terms of funding, her role as secretary of education and the work of AFC’s sister organization the Alliance for School Choice, it is clear that the AFC is an important actor in the education policy field. This article presents findings from an analysis of the AFC policy network using tools from network ethnography and qualitative content analysis. Specifically, we examined tax forms and carried out extensive web searches to spatialize and map the AFC network, mined text from policy-actors in the AFC network, and analyzed the policy discourse promoted by these network-actors to achieve their political goals. The task for this study was to use AFC as a heuristic device to explore the complexity of the education policy field and to understand how network policy-actors work to achieve their policy goals through advocacy and marketing. Findings from the study indicate that the AFC network demonstrates a hierarchical ordering, this hierarchical ordering is reflective of the elite planning and social engineering associated with neoliberal reforms1, and that the policy-actors in the AFC network employ discursive strategies to frame an elite political project to advance school choice policies as an anti-elite movement oriented toward political empowerment and educational justice. Publisher Copyright: © 2019, Arizona State University. All rights reserved.
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - This article presents findings from an analysis of the American Federation for Children Network (AFC) policy network using tools from network ethnography and qualitative content analysis. Specifically, we examined tax forms and carried out extensive web searches to spatialize and map the AFC network, mined text from policy-actors in the AFC network, and analyzed the policy discourse promoted by these network actors to achieve their political goals. The task for this study was to use AFC as a heuristic device to explore the complexity of the education policy field and to understand how network policy-actors work to achieve their policy goals through advocacy and marketing. Findings from the study indicate that the AFC network demonstrates a hierarchical ordering, this hierarchical ordering is reflective of the elite planning and social engineering associated with neoliberal reforms, and that the policy-actors in the AFC network employ discursive strategies to frame an elite political project to advance school choice policies as an anti-elite movement oriented toward political empowerment and educational justice.
AB - This article presents findings from an analysis of the American Federation for Children Network (AFC) policy network using tools from network ethnography and qualitative content analysis. Specifically, we examined tax forms and carried out extensive web searches to spatialize and map the AFC network, mined text from policy-actors in the AFC network, and analyzed the policy discourse promoted by these network actors to achieve their political goals. The task for this study was to use AFC as a heuristic device to explore the complexity of the education policy field and to understand how network policy-actors work to achieve their policy goals through advocacy and marketing. Findings from the study indicate that the AFC network demonstrates a hierarchical ordering, this hierarchical ordering is reflective of the elite planning and social engineering associated with neoliberal reforms, and that the policy-actors in the AFC network employ discursive strategies to frame an elite political project to advance school choice policies as an anti-elite movement oriented toward political empowerment and educational justice.
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U2 - https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.25.4242
DO - https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.25.4242
M3 - Article
SN - 1068-2341
VL - 27
JO - Education Policy Analysis Archives
JF - Education Policy Analysis Archives
M1 - 48
ER -