The concept of policy enactment in education is intuitive. Practitioners at the end of the line understand policy in complex and unpredictable ways. And yet it is complex and concerns national policymaking processes, performativity mechanisms and professional groups which shape incentives, threats and moral commitments. The theory of policy enactment - knowledge on how teachers do policy - has flourished in the previous decade. However, it remains largely grounded in anglophone contexts, and is built particularly on data collected in London. This seminar discusses education policy enactment in Tokyo as an additional case to develop theory. In particular, career teachers play a wide range of roles alongside bureaucratic mechanisms and with a particular set of relationships with the private sector.

Data is drawn from two years of focused fieldwork with teachers, school administrators, boards of education, Ministry officials, textbook publishers, member-led pedagogical associations and university ‘expertise’ on school practice through one curriculum reform. The short presentation from Sam Bamkin will overview changing national policymaking processes, the various mechanisms for involving career teachers and the shape that New Public Management has taken, before discussing the implication for theories of enactment.

We hope to leave plenty of time for a lively discussion, and invite colleagues in public policy, education studies, Japan Studies, or any other related field, to participate.

About the speaker

Sam Bamkin is Assistant Professor at the University of Tokyo. His research interests include: the relationship between policy, practice and school administration; changes in policymaking processes; Japan's reception of global trends in education; and new species of curriculum.

He is author of Enacting Moral Education in Japan: Between State Policy and School Practice (Routledge, 2024).