(Re)Framing Policy Analysis

In recent years, there has been a flurry of media and public policy attention paid to adolescent literacy. The attention has taken shape in the form of federal policies, research, recommendations from private entities, and position statements from professional organizations. The work pressing upon educators now is to engage substantively with these various incarnations and positions on adolescent literacy; to understand where and how issues about adolescent literacy surface, and how policies deal with these issues. First in this task is deciding what counts as policy and what we should read and interpret analytically. Through analyses of how issues are framed, we can better understand the social contexts of our work--what is possible and not possible discursively. And this puts us in a more agentive position for engaging in and transforming dialogues about adolescents, adults, and literacy.