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In Saskatchewan, school divisions have been largely tasked with creating classroom-based assessment policy as, until very recently, the province lacked a current, Ministry-produced guiding document. Using an inductive and qualitative approach to summative content analysis, informed by a policy analysis framework, this project focused on school division administrative policies (n=26) to ascertain their alignment with contemporary assessment principles. Three principles—standards-based assessment, reliability and validity, and fairness and equity—and seven sub-principles—ongoing/continuous, transparent, (involves) stakeholders, (excludes) extraneous/arbitrary factors, triangulation, differentiation, and inclusion—served as the focus of analysis, with particular attention given to how clearly and consistently principles were addressed.

The purpose of this study is to investigate, by use of relevant robust econometric modelling, physical capital and human capital, and their impact on growth in Indonesia for policy analysis. The Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) by Pesaran and Pesaran (1997) were chosen for supporting the relationship analysis. The important finding for policy analysis is that human capital appears to be a continuing factor shaping Indonesia’s growth, along with physical capital accumulation, with particularly strong effects for human capital arising from tertiary education. Physical capital has shown a strong and significant impact on the growth in the long run and indicates that Indonesia needs long term investment to generate growth. Such investment has distinction which related to sustainable operation such as infrastructure, sophisticated services, and venture capital. Consequently, it requires high skill labour supplied by tertiary education institutions. A further development of tertiary education next to enhancement of investment environment in manufacture and service sector should be set as priority programs in inducing growth.

Educational policies in the Netherlands reveal that the current mainstream participatory approach to citizenship education jeopardises students’ autonomy. Especially in Dutch post-secondary vocational education, citizenship education has been shown to be mainly aimed at socialization: initiating students into tradition, internalising rules, societal norms and values. This article reports on the findings of a research project, which is grounded in the assumption that integrating Bildung, citizenship education and critical thinking is a promising way to grapple with the perceived overemphasis on socialization strategies. We justify the interrelationship of critical thinking, Bildung, citizenship education, and professional training from two perspectives – historical and contemporary. It is only by combining these concepts, we contend, that educational professionals can create teaching materials more geared to developing autonomy, and prepare students in vocational training to navigate the political and societal dilemma’s on the work floor. Furthermore, we also clarify our perspective by offering three educational principles, used in our project to guide the design of teaching materials, that form a context for integrating citizenship, critical thinking, and Bildung in vocational education. A practical illustration is subsequently discussed.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its social and health impact have underscored the need for a new strategic science agenda for public health. To optimize public health impact, high-quality strategic science addresses scientific gaps that inform policy and guide practice. At least 6 scientific gaps emerge from the US experience with COVID-19: health equity science, data science and modernization, communication science, policy analysis and translation, scientific collaboration, and climate science. Addressing these areas within a strategic public health science agenda will accelerate achievement of public health goals. Public health leadership and scientists have an unprecedented opportunity to use strategic science to guide a new era of improved and equitable public health.

OBJECTIVE The U.S. declared the opioid epidemic as a national public health emergency in 2017. Given the strong and bidirectional relationship between trauma and substance misuse, policy responses to this crisis that reflect principles of trauma-informed care are especially salient. This study is the first to use trauma-informed policy analysis to systematically assess the U.S. Congressional response to the opioid epidemic. METHOD We used policy mapping methods to build and analyze a dataset of all opioid-related bills and resolutions proposed in Congress between 2009 and 2017 (N = 188). Following an established trauma-informed policy analysis framework, 2 researchers reviewed these policies and coded their incorporation of trauma-specific language and the principles of safety; choice; trust and transparency; collaboration and peer support; empowerment; and intersectionality. We calculated coding frequencies in these categories and rates of intercoder agreement. RESULTS A minority of policies (10.6%) directly mentioned trauma and 55% of policies incorporated at least 1 trauma-informed principle. Safety was the most commonly coded principle (38.3%), while intersectionality was the least (6.9%). CONCLUSIONS Our analysis found limited attention to trauma in opioid-related federal legislation. Based on these findings and following the example of coalitions such as the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice, advocates can mobilize for better inclusion of trauma-informed principles in opioid policy. Further, this study demonstrates the feasibility of applying the trauma-informed policy analysis framework to code Congressional policies using publicly available data, a replicable methodology with potential application at federal and state levels. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Transport costs are a crucial element of applied spatial models such as spatial macro-economic models or interaction models for e.g. trade, migration or commuting. However, good estimates of these costs are not available at lower levels of spatial aggregation. In applied work, the distance between two regions is often approximated by the distance between the largest city in each region. For costs within regions, researchers often resort to crude ad-hoc approximations relating internal distance to the area of the region assuming a uniform internal distribution. This paper improves on this by considering averages of transport costs calculated between extremely large random samples of centroids which are drawn from a population grid. This allows calculating distances, travel times and transport costs both between and within regions, while taking into account the unequal distribution of population within the regions. The use of a detailed road network and many auxiliary datasets allows performing policy analysis. We assess the impact on transport cost of an increase in fuel prices, and find that it has a relatively high effect on transport costs in Eastern Europe. We evaluate transport infrastructure investment of the European Cohesion Policy program 2014–2020. The largest decreases in transport costs are found in targeted regions in Eastern Europe while the effect is much smaller in targeted regions in Southern Europe, suggesting decreasing returns to further transport infrastructure in these regions. We find significant inter-regional spillovers to regions directly bordering the regions targeted by the policy in Eastern Europe, such as in Germany and Austria, but also Finland and Northern Italy. The positive spillovers to EU regions in Western Europe are quite small.

This major paper examines the Cuban embargo as an ineffective hard power policy and explores the potential of soft, hard, and smart power as alternative approaches to resolve the failures of the 60-year-old blockade. The paper analyzes the historical context and rationale behind the embargo and assesses its impact on Cuban-American relations, regional stability, and U.S. national interests. The study argues that the embargo has failed to achieve its intended goals and has instead perpetuated a cycle of hostility, isolation, and human rights abuses. By drawing on the theoretical frameworks of soft, hard, and smart power, the paper presents policy recommendations for engaging with Cuba and promoting positive change. These alternatives include diplomatic engagement, economic incentives, cultural diplomacy, and people-to-people exchanges. The study concludes that the current embargo policy is outdated, counterproductive, and inconsistent with modern conceptions of international politics. A smarter approach is needed to address the complex issues and opportunities presented by Cuba and the wider region and to promote U.S. interests and values in a more constructive and effective manner.

For my capstone project, I proposed a new Computer Science (CS) course to be taught at the University of Virginia (UVA), which would teach students how to better manage their digital footprints, in order to protect themselves and their professional images. For my STS research project, I delved into the state of data privacy protection laws and regulations in the United States (US). I examined the opinions of the US people on the topic of data privacy and security, the factors hindering the passage of such protections, and the state of such regulations in the analogous governmental body of the European Union (EU). Both projects were motivated by my passion for data privacy, and my interest in both the ways that large scale data collection has been used to bring harm to consumers and the ways that various groups have tried to levy protection against such exploitative data practices. My STS research examines more structural approaches to this protection, such as what can be done from a national legislative standpoint, and my capstone research examines individual approaches, such as learning techniques for better digital hygiene. Managing one's digital footprint and having a working understanding of the data one generates are two key skills in today's increasingly digitized world. The course I proposed as part of my capstone project, with possible course title Managing Personal Digital Security, would be offered as an elective through the CS Department at UVA. The course could be partially built on the foundations of classes already present at UVA, synthesizing specific parts of the course material from two existing classes – Introduction to Cybersecurity and Privacy in the Internet age – with new material. To determine whether the course is effective, students taking it should be evaluated on their knowledge of digital footprint management practices at the start and end of the course. I expect that the course would be successful, and the evaluations would show an improvement over the course of the semester. Such a course would be beneficial, but would also require revision every few years to stay current with advancements in technology and data science. In my STS research paper, I explored and analyzed the current status of national consumer data privacy protection policies in the US. I examined national poll results and reactions the US public has had to previous famous news stories related to data aggregation to determine that US citizens do value privacy and security in the face of large-scale data collection. I also discussed the current status of national data privacy protection lawns, and how these fall flat of offering robust protection. To discover why the US has been unable to pass data privacy protection laws at the national level, I compared the US to the analogous EU, which does have comprehensive data privacy protection regulations that offer strong protections for its citizens. Through this comparison, I discovered that the main factor changing the ability of data protection legislation to make it through the different governing bodies is the power that corporations with financial interest in continuing exploitative data practices have in each government. I concluded that the lobbyist influence over and campaign financing focus of US politicians – compared to the parliamentary-funded EU politicians – makes them more susceptible to caving to corporate interests at the expense of their constituents, resulting in the dearth of data privacy protection laws in the US due to the lucrative opportunities that exploitative data practices offer to companies. Working on both projects simultaneously was beneficial. Over the course of my STS research, I was able to learn about many new aspects of digital privacy, personal data collection, and large-scale aggregation of consumer data that I had not considered before. Since I was conducting my capstone research project concurrently, I was able to incorporate a lot of the concepts I learned into the curriculum for the course I proposed in my capstone research, since it deals with similar topics. Both projects approached the issue of data privacy from different angles, allowing me to examine the issue from many different perspectives and achieve a more deep and nuanced understanding of the issues surrounding it than I would have gotten from doing these projects in isolation from each other.

Teachers and schools face multiple demands regarding how they should respond to student diversity. Thus, it is crucial to study these different demands in order to understand how they shape inclusive education in practice. Following this line of reasoning, this article presents an analysis of Swedish educational policy documents, which shows that differentiation policies are constructed as answers to different educational problems, and that these problems are framed by different ideals and assumptions about education. Five different policy approaches to differentiation are described and discussed in relation to the ideal of inclusive education. By studying the Swedish case, the article illuminates how different policy approaches can interact over time within the context of an educational system. The policy approaches can thus be understood as ideal types that can be used in analyses of other educational systems. Implications for inclusive education in Swedish schools are addressed in the article by discussing the conditions for schools’ and teachers’ enactments of the conflicting policy demands.

Taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are recommended as part of comprehensive policy action to prevent diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs), but have been adopted by only one quarter of World Health Organization (WHO) Member States. This paper presents a comparative policy analysis of recent SSB taxes (2016–19) in 16 countries. This study aimed to analyse the characteristics and patterns of factors influencing adoption and implementation of SSB taxes and policy learning between countries, to draw lessons for future SSB taxes. The data collection and analysis were informed by an analytical framework that drew on ‘diffusion of innovation’ and theories of policy learning. Qualitative data were collected from policy documents and media, in addition to national statistics. Qualitative data were thematically analysed and a narrative synthesis approach was used for integrated case study analysis. We found adaptation and heterogeneity in the approaches used for SSB taxation with a majority of countries adopting excise taxes, and consistent health framing in media and policy documents. Common public frames supporting the taxes included reducing obesity/NCDs and raising revenue (government actors) and subsequent health system savings (non-government actors). Opposing frames focused on regressivity and incoherence with other economic policy (government actors) and posited that taxes have limited health benefits and negative economic impacts on the food industry (industry). Evident ‘diffusion networks’ included the WHO, predominantly in middle-income countries, and some regional economic bodies. We found indications of policy learning in the form of reference to other countries’ taxes, particularly countries with membership in the same economic bodies and with shared borders. The study suggests that adoption of SSB taxation could be enhanced through strategic engagement by health actors with the policy-making process, consideration of the economic context, use of consistent health frames by cross-sector coalitions, and robust evaluation and reporting of SSB taxation.

This article analyses the governance of VET for adults and its development from a historical-institutionalist perspective. It takes a look at the collective skill formation system of Switzerland, in which the federal government and private companies (or the associations representing them) play integral roles. The article argues that the establishment of VET for adults is a form of policy expansion, in which certain actors – especially from the canton administrations – exert considerable influence in the initial phase, but then get side-lined as the governance structure and institutional framework of formal VET shape the process of expansion, due to numerous feedback mechanisms. These findings are relevant not only for understanding the development of VET for adults, but also for a more general understanding of educational reforms that affect other policy fields., +repphzhbib2022A

The National Social Enterprise Policy of Ireland was launched in 2019 following a slow and episodic process. The aim of the paper is to examine the development and implementation of the National Social Enterprise Policy. In particular the interaction between key sectoral stakeholders in the development of the policy and the primary influences on the process. The results of a substantial qualitative enquiry details the complex set of relationships underpinning the development of social enterprise policy in a multi-level governance framework. It situates the National Social Enterprise Policy in an environment unusually susceptible to sub-sectoral advocacy and highlights the particular characteristics of the Irish case where social enterprise policy is largely removed from broader social economy policy interventions in Ireland and the European Union. The paper highlights the complex and fluid environment in which various stakeholders articulated and advocated for their policy positions. It also details how the relevant policy institutions engaged with and were influenced by stakeholders. It contributes to the understanding of social enterprise policy formulation and how this process can become more inclusive.

Promotion of renewable energy sources is associated with relieving climate change and energy security issues. In this context, solar energy is one of the most suitable renewable energy technologies to be technically viable to support a sustainable and renewable energy industry in Ontario, supported by a feed-in tariff (FIT) policy program. The purpose of this thesis was to develop an integrated assessment of the likely effectiveness and sustainability performance of Ontario's FIT solar PV program using a qualitative analysis through an international comparative policy analysis and a set of criteria evaluation; and a quantitative analysis using an economic evaluation of the solar PV value chain in Ontario to obtain the resulting costs/benefits to the province using the Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LSCA) framework and the cost-benefit approach. Based on the results of the integrated evaluation, renewable energy policy implications will be determined including the effectiveness of regulatory incentives.

Problem setting. Ukraine started recently an important public administration reform as well as an ambitious parliamentary reform. In this regard, one of the main objectives of all State bodies (in particular, Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Apparatus) will be to introduce the new tool of policy analysis in their day-to-day activity.Recent researches and publications analysis. During the last period, many Ukrainian and international scientists analyzed the different aspects of the policy analysis tool, i.e.: V. Bakumenko, M. Bilynska, O. Bosak, M. Gazizov, R. Hertzog, V. Goshovska, B. Gurne, D. Zapysnyy, M. Kanavets, Y. Kalnysh, O. Kilievytch, V. Kniazev, O. Kopylenko, V. Kostytskiy, Y. Lykhach, A. Maliuga, G. Marcou, V. Mironenko, N. Nyjnyj, E. Rakhimkulov, O. Rudenko, V. Tolkovanov, V. Tertychka and others. At the same time, the issue of the practical implementation of this tool in the State bodies’ activity is still underestimated by the scientists and practitioners which will require further researches on this important issue.Highlighting previously unsettled parts of the general problem. Study of policy analysis as a new modern is a complex task. First, the public administration is a new area in the humanitarian cycle of Ukrainian science developed in the context of the dramatic changes that have been taken place in post-totalitarian society. Secondly, most of Ukrainian scientists, politicians, civil servants are not aware of this important tool for decision-making process. Therefore, the main objective of this scientific article is to promote public awareness about policy analysis and to facilitate its implementation of the State bodies’ activity.Paper main body. The article provides a deep analysis of the issues related to the development and further implementation of the policy analysis tool in the activity of the State bodies.It is justified that introduction of this tool becomes extremely important in the framework of the public administration modernization process and the implementation of the parliamentary reform.It is highlighted the reasons of the promoting policy analysis tool as well as the experiences of other countries (in particular, EU countries) regarding its introducing in the public authorities’ activity.It is underlined that the policy analysis is a well-known in Europe and in the world tool. It is recommended by the international and European organizations for the implementation in all public institutions in order to increase their effectiveness and to improve the decision-making process.The particular attention is paid to the analysis of the different scientific schools from the different countries that realize the researches of the different issues related to the policy analysis tool and its implementation in the State bodies’ activity.It is stressed that there are three main stages of the public policy analysis realization, i.e. perspective, retrospective, integrated. At the same time, it is defined eight steps for the public policy analysis implementation, i.e.: formulating the problem, collection of the information, preparation of the alternative decisions, definition of the criteria for problems’ solution, evaluation of the consequences regarding the implementation of the alternative decisions, comparison of the alternative decisions, selecting a decision, ensuring the necessary support for further implementation of an adopted decision.It is also underlined the utility of public policy analysis not only as a theoretical subject, but also as a useful tool for the practical work of the public authorities. There are following important features: definition of the concrete actions for the public policy implementation, justification of the public bodies’ decisions, increasing the effectiveness in the activity of the public bodies, collection and dissemination of the best practices in the decision making process etc.Conclusions of the research and prospects for further studies. On the basis of the conducted research, it is presented the practical recommendations regarding further implementation of the public policy analysis tool in the activity of the executive and legislative power bodies as well as the realization of the main goals of the parliamentary reform and the public administration reform.

Colombia's health sector reform has been recognized for its universal health (UHC) coverage scheme. However, this reform evolved without palliative care (PC), thereby omitting a core element of UHC. In this paper, we analyze the Colombian health system reform and health policies in relation to PC. We present the history, innovations, successes, and shortcomings of the reform and summarize the lessons learned to strengthen efforts leading to PC integration. Our analysis is based on the WHO public health framework for PC (policy, access to medicines, education, service provision). For several years and especially during the last decade, the government enacted laws and regulations to improve access to essential medicines and to integrate PC. Relative to other countries in Latin America, Colombia was the first to launch a PC service and to accredit palliative medicine as a specialty, the second to establish a national PC association and one of the few countries with a specific PC law. However, data shows that there are still too few services to meet the PC needs of approximately 250,000 adult patients annually. Our analysis shows that the country's failure to integrate PC most likely is a result of limited health worker education. Advocacy efforts should include deans of schools and provosts, in addition to policy makers and regulators. Other possible factors affecting uptake and implementation of existing national policies are civil unrest and limited collaboration between government offices. Additional research is needed to evaluate the impact of these and other related factors on PC integration in Colombia.

As the world trade conflict intensifies in the photovoltaic (PV) industry recently, it would be important and timely to investigate the impact of the countervailing measure on the global PV supply chains and the non-conventional trade policy to mitigate the worsening trade effect. A simplified dual international competing PV supply chain system is developed to formulate supply chain game-theoretical models for the investigation. It is found that export subsidy (ES) scenario creates the highest total demands, supply chain profits and social welfare but at the cost of the importing country before it escalates to the most serious countervailing (CD) scenario. The key findings echo the classical trade conflict studies that any unfair trade policy will benefit only the country exercising the policy and will eventually lead to escalation of the trade conflict and bring economic damages to the trading stakeholders. A theoretical policy analysis is conducted to explore the impact on the supply chain when the export subsidizing country shares its economic gains with the importing country who might be planning to levy the countervailing duty on the imported solar product. The finding shows the gain sharing policy is possible to offset the economic loss and hostility of the importing country but still create more economic gains for the export subsidizing country. The gain sharing concept, though still in its theoretical phase, provides a more sustainable policy than the conventional retaliation approach which hinders the global solar supply chain growth, and prolongs the current head-on trade conflict between largest world economies.

We study the relationship between dowries – wealth transfers from the bride’s family to the groom or his family at the time of marriage – and individual-level poverty in rural India. Based on the estimates of a collective household model, we show that the share of household consumption expenditure allocated to a woman is strongly associated with the dowry she paid at the time of her marriage. We compute poverty rates separately for women and men and find that women’s poverty relative to men decreases with dowry. Moreover, women who paid dowries are less likely to be poor relative to women who did not, even when their households’ consumption expenditures are the same. Our counterfactual policy analysis indicates that abolishing or reducing dowries (through anti-dowry laws or taxes, for example) may have the unintended effect of aggravating intra-household inequality and increasing women’s risk of living in poverty after marriage.

Introduction: The emergence of biological threats that can potentially affect millions emphasizes the need to develop a policy framework in the Philippines that can mount an adequate and well-coord...

Concern about harsh and inequitable discipline over the past two decades has galvanized a host of discipline reforms. These reforms have gained renewed attention in recent months as both the COVID-19 pandemic and mass uprisings against anti-Black violence have both bolstered calls to reimagine schools as caring spaces. This moment raises urgent questions about how researchers and policymakers should understand care in practice. In this review essay, I draw together recent research on discipline reform, as well as care feminism and key insights from critical policy analysis, to develop a conceptual framework for centering “care” in the current reform context. Using this critical-feminist care framework, I highlight the relations, experiences, systems, and ideologies that shape care in practice. I conclude with implications for researchers and policymakers.

In the wake of Covid-19, a flurry of surveys in education were conducted. These revealed alarming statistics about most learners losing half of the academic year, parents’ angst about sending children to school, and a small fraction of higher education institutions being able to leverage affordances of technology for effective online teaching and learning. As our right to breathe, eat and learn became suffocated, we were urged to re-imagine possibilities for resurrection, for mitigating current and future education “losses”. Deafened by the varied cacophony from teacher and student unions, school governing body representatives, scientists and education experts, the government with its departments of education decided to close education institutions and this coincided with the hard lockdown. Against this background, we use the lens of critical policy analysis (CPA), to explore the decision-making of education departments. In this qualitative study, a critical lens was used to reveal the magnification of the fault lines of educational iniquity and inequity as departments of education made decisions to close and reopen institutions. Multiple data generation methods included a key informant interview with a senior official from the Department of Education, a survey among school personnel, and document analysis. The findings revealed a tension between expectations of producers of policy and recipients of policy, within unequal school settings. A repositioning, by peering through the lens of the dispossessed to inform future policy, is recommended.

With their central position in society as facilitators of information, schools and teachers play a key role in the articulation and embedding of government-driven policy targeted at school-age children; under the British government, this key role extends beyond the borders, to British Schools Overseas. In the last decade, this has been especially prevalent in the dissemination of anti-terrorism rhetoric and policy, created to prevent the radicalisation of students; most recently, this has involved the inclusion of ‘fundamental British values’ (FBV) in policy and curriculum. Using the work of Basil Bernstein and, in particular, the model of transmission context which sits within his theories on pedagogic discourse, this paper analyses the discourse embedded in multiple FBV policies. Through a focus on classification and framing of the discourses embedded in the policies, this paper highlights the transmission of power in these policies, with a focus on language used to convey this power; and conveys an understanding of the positioning, role and ‘responsibilisation’ of British schools, located outside of the United Kingdom, as central to FBV education as well as the solution to terrorism in Britain.

PurposeThis paper aims to encapsulate the gendered support and hindering factors along with the role of the state experienced by Delhi-based women entrepreneurs in setting up/operating their enterprises amidst the challenges posed by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.Design/methodology/approachThe study used mixed methods to explore the challenges faced and recovery mechanisms adopted by women entrepreneurs with special reference to the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 50 Delhi-based young women entrepreneurs (42 actual entrepreneurs + 8 prospective/struggling entrepreneurs) selected using snowball/purposive sampling were studied through both a semi-structured questionnaire and personal interviews. National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC) and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) were consulted for the government’s policy documents and data. The SPSS package was used for quantitative data analysis.FindingsLow-budget/very small-scale women entrepreneurs face common as well as gender-based challenges in the context of the market, finance, social capital, family support and awareness in addition to accessing the state’s resources/policies in both their startups and crisis situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Although gender sensitization, entrepreneurial family background, and equal access to technology and the Internet has enabled women entrepreneurs to initiate, adapt, and scale their enterprises, male domination within the family, society, market, and state apparatuses is omnipresent and has served as a bottleneck for women-owned startups while hindering the recovery of their enterprises amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.Research limitations/implicationsThe study was limited to exploring the challenges and prospects of Delhi-based women entrepreneurs at the beginning of their enterprises and amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, the study had access to data and facts announced by the Indian government. No data were available on the implementation of policies and programs, and therefore specific policy analysis was not attempted. However, the reachability and accessibility of government resources and policies were employed.Practical implicationsThe study highlights the complexity of patriarchy, which hampers women entrepreneurs in all family, society, market and state domains. Therefore, policy enactment and implementation and further research on women entrepreneurship are suggested to focus more deeply on the gender dimension.Originality/valueThe data used in this work comprised inputs from government sources as well as insights from fieldwork that have not been used by any other publication.

This study examined the extent to which stakeholders are involved and evidence considered in urban development policies and strategies in Nigeria. With a high urban population growth rate in Nigerian cities, sustainable urban development is critical and should be hinged on viable policies that are evidence-based and consider stakeholders’ inputs and interests. A document review of policies, strategies, and plans that are relevant to urban development in Nigeria was conducted. A total of 25 documents were reviewed consisting of 11 policies, 7 plans and 6 strategies/programs/initiatives/road maps, and 1 legal act. A scoping literature review was also done to navigate assessment of the policy documents. Narrative synthesis of findings was conducted. Various stakeholders at the federal and state levels were listed in the policy and strategy documents as being involved in urban development in Nigeria, including government agencies, development partners, civil society organizations, and community groups. The lack of clarity in stakeholders’ roles in policy development was noted. Various forms of evidence were stated to have been used in policy development including examining policy antecedents, statistical data from diverse sources, country-wide experiences, and expert advice. Stakeholders’ roles in urban development in Nigeria vary across policies, and their involvement in the policy development process is not often explicit. There is a need for harmonized inclusion. Although various forms of evidence were alluded to in some Nigerian urban policies, the sources and manner of utility were somewhat unclear.

This essay offers a framework for broader community involvement as a means of increasing the relevance and usefulness of evidence developed. This essay begins by defining key concepts related to democratizing the development of evidence. The sections that follow outline a logic model that calls for a bidirectional, iterative set of core activities to draw on insights from practitioners, community stakeholders, and researchers to generate a learning agenda, analysis plans, and findings that can be used to develop or refine policies and practices. The essay concludes with implications for advocates of democratizing the development of evidence and for researchers.

PurposeThis paper aims to illuminate the diverging approaches to marijuana-related drug enforcement at the federal and state levels in the USA, which have facilitated a boom in the US medical cannabis industry (i.e. the “Green Rush”). It further sheds light on how the USA’ aggressive extraterritorial approach to anti-money laundering (AML) enforcement might simultaneously suppress the banking of cannabis-related businesses in Jamaica due to the lingering fear of de-risking.Design/methodology/approachAn international and comparative legal and policy analysis was conducted of the nexus among shifting drug enforcement policies, AML laws and the banking of cannabis-related businesses.FindingsThis study found that the constitutional relationship between the US federal government and states has created a de facto comparative advantage for the US medical cannabis-related businesses that benefit from limited access to financial services. This was found to pose far-reaching implications for the banking and development of the Jamaican cannabis sector due to the dependence of the country’s financial institutions on correspondent banking relationships with the US banks that are regulated by federal AML statutes.Originality/valueTo the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first of its kind to examine the extraterritorial regulatory risks to the banking of cannabis-related businesses in Jamaica.

This policy paper bridges interdisciplinary research to analyze the effects of drug policy in Azerbaijan on the provision of social care and treatment for young people who use illicit drugs. Drawing on Carol Bacchi’s critical policy analysis method – ‘what’s the problem represented to be’ – the paper focuses on what the state’s drug policy enables and/or impedes in the implementation of better protection and care for young people aged between 14 and 17. To do this, two texts are selected for the analysis to explore representations and social construction of youth through various problematizations in policy legislations. The analysis suggests that drug policy in Azerbaijan is formulated to further cultural and political purposes to maintain a community-based immunity to drugs, rather than psycho-social and medical interventions or individual engagement with young people’s wellbeing.

The network retail industry has been in a highly centralized pattern. According to the relevant concepts in the traditional industrial organization theory, this highly concentrated market needs regulation. Behind the rapid development of industry is the hidden worry that is constantly exposed. In 2011, Taobao announced a substantial increase in annual fees and software service fees, which caused conflicts with small and medium sellers. In the price war in Jingdong, it may have been sold at a price lower than the cost. The traditional industrial organization theory usually thinks that the monopoly market structure is not good. Because of its pricing model based on its own marginal cost and marginal income, it will cause welfare losses to consumers, resulting in low market efficiency and unnecessary losses. This paper first expounds the basic connotation and judgment criteria of monopoly, analyzes the monopoly and characteristics of online retail industry in the "Internet +" era, and finally puts forward some governance strategies for the monopoly problems existing in the current online retail industry.

A growing body of research and popular reporting shows racial differences in school modality choices during the COVID-19 crisis, with White students more likely to attend school in person in the fall of 2020 and spring of 2021. This in-person learning gap raises serious equity concerns. We use unique panel survey data to explore possible explanations. We find that a combination of factors may explain these differences. School districts’ offerings, political partisanship, perceived risk from the pandemic, and local COVID-19 outbreaks are all meaningfully associated with and plausibly explain the in-person learning racial gap. Our results illustrate how not only policy decisions but also political leanings and individuals’ beliefs could contribute to inequality in access to learning and illustrate the need for a better understanding of the factors behind observed racial inequalities in education.

PurposeChinese housing market has been growing fast during the past decade, and price-related forecasting has turned to be an important issue to various market participants, including the people, investors and policy makers. Here, the authors approach this issue by researching neural networks for rent index forecasting from 10 major cities for March 2012 to May 2020. The authors aim at building simple and accurate neural networks to contribute to pure technical forecasting of the Chinese rental housing market.Design/methodology/approachTo facilitate the analysis, the authors examine different model settings over the algorithm, delay, hidden neuron and data spitting ratio.FindingsThe authors reach a rather simple neural network with six delays and two hidden neurons, which leads to stable performance of 1.4% average relative root mean square error across the ten cities for the training, validation and testing phases.Originality/valueThe results might be used on a standalone basis or combined with fundamental forecasting to form perspectives of rent price trends and conduct policy analysis.

Purpose: The primary purpose of this policy analysis is to examine how states changed their principal performance evaluation systems since the passage of Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015. In particular, we focus on whether states have capitalized on the flexible policy landscape to make space for meaningful family and community engagement (FCE) in assessing principals’ effectiveness. Research Methods: This study uses document analysis to review the structure of principal evaluation systems in all 50 states and selects 17 revised systems for a deeper review of their approach to leadership for partnering with families and communities. Findings: A plurality of states have not substantively revised their evaluation systems. Several of the revised systems narrowly focused on instructional leadership and student achievement measures and were thus unsupportive of meaningful FCE and federal policy aims for schools to work in partnership with family and community stakeholders. The principal evaluation systems most supportive of authentic family and community engagement allowed for flexible goal setting and explicitly encouraged the use of stakeholder feedback as evidence of principals’ effectiveness. Implications for Research and Policy: The authors discuss the implications of the results in terms of 1.) expanding definitions of educational leadership to include tenets of authentic FCE, 2.) creating coherent yet compendious systems for school improvement, and 3.) planning for and implementing a developmental approach to the evaluation of school leaders.

PurposeThe COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the fragility of government institutions and prompted a broad range of policy measures from governments around the world. Policy responses to the pandemic have varied considerably, both in nature and in success. This paper highlights the policy capacities of the UAE in different areas that have contributed to managing the COVID-19 crisis. Specifically, the paper examines the functional capacity, analytical capacity, fiscal capacity, well-timed information-sharing capacity and political capacity of the UAE in addressing the pandemic.Design/methodology/approachThe study on which this paper was based adopted a mixed-method approach to analyze policy capacities. The trajectory and timeframe of COVID-19 from February 2020 to February 2021 were observed intensively and included in the policy capacity analysis. The secondary dataset was collected from several sources and assessed using rapid content analysis to highlight the formal and institutional policy measures implemented during the crisis. To complement the policy analysis and understand the key role of policymakers, semi-structured interviews were conducted with local officials working in various line departments that formulate and implement policy strategies for the UAE government.FindingsThe findings of the study showed that although COVID-19 has severely impacted the UAE, the nation has effectively controlled the spread of the virus and reduced its mortality rate. The UAE government has taken swift policy actions concerning coercive control and mitigation based on a centralized decision-making style, the strengthening of administrative capacity by collaboration, coordination with different departments, successful communication with residents, the allocation of adequate financial resources and a high level of trust in the government by citizens.Originality/valueThis work contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the policy capacity approach to managing the crisis. The UAE case can be used by policymakers as comparative studies of policy designs, tools and capabilities that can be implemented to manage future pandemics and other crises.

Formal policy analysis can aid resource management where groundwater is used intensively. Approaches for developing equitable and effective pumping allocations for drought are evaluated in the context of the 2012–2016 drought in Tulare County, California, USA. Potential economic impacts of policy alternatives on two user groups with conflicting interests are considered. Tradeoffs between losses of agricultural profit and response costs for domestic wells that run dry are estimated for various maximum groundwater depth policies. A welfare maximizing approach for identifying policies that limit depth to groundwater is evaluated and found to be ineffective because agricultural opportunity costs are much larger than domestic well costs. Adding a fee for additional drought groundwater pumping is proposed as a more impactful and balanced management policy approach. For the case study presented, a fee range of $300 to $600/acre-foot ($300–$600/1,233 m3) yielded an effective groundwater management policy for reducing domestic well impacts from drought and balancing agricultural impacts of drought with the need to replenish additional drought pumping in wetter years. Recent management policies enacted in the study area agree with this finding. These results may provide a useful perspective for analytically examining and developing groundwater management policies near the study area and elsewhere.

The guidance of career counseling can lead, provide insight and knowledge about the world of work and current issues in facing competition in the world of work. The magnitude of the impact caused by the counseling career counseling program, making the educational policy stakeholders at a university institution consider the implementation of guidance services to prospective graduates who will compete in the world of work. This type of research is descriptive qualitative and aims to describe the results of the analysis of educational policies that have been taken by several universities regarding career counseling guidance services. The sample universities taken in the research activity were : IAIN Batusangkar, STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat, Universitas Muhammadiyah Tapanuli Selatan, Institut Pendidikan Tapanuli Selatan, UIN Imam Bonjol Padang, Universitas Negeri Padang, dan Universitas Putra Indonesia YPTK Padang. The instrument for collecting research data is in the form of a questionnaire which is distributed to the leaders and officials of study programs, departments, faculties, and universities/colleges. The results of this study include: report on career counseling guidance policy at the host institution, obstacles faced by the organizer, service impact for graduates, and evaluation of career counseling guidance policy. Based on the analysis that has been done, the counseling guidance program is feasible to be applied by every university in order to create a successful alumni career in the future. Therefore, the leadership and all levels of higher education can work together to create a policy for career counseling guidance services at the university level.

A significant portion of books on Amazon are self-published using Kindle Direct Publishing. Self-publishers are given an opportunity to share their work with the world with a few clicks of their mouse. However, traditional publishing infrastructures are not as welcoming to the self-publisher. This paper undertakes to perform a policy analysis of government funding frameworks available to workers of the Canadian publishing industry. Through performing a discourse analysis, the study finds that the self-publisher is ineligible to apply for funds and grants from the government both on the provincial and the federal levels. The self-publishing business model is not recognized as a legitimate one and is often equated with vanity publishing, which comes with a stigma. Furthermore, traditional publishing industry workers act as gatekeepers who also exclude the self-publisher from the conversation around the changing landscape of the Canadian publishing industry. Even though the self-publisher should be recognized as a legitimate worker of the cultural industries, they are not acknowledged as such both by government officials who distribute grants and traditional publishers. This study adds to the limited scope of research conducted on self-publishing in order to break the boundaries that self-publishers encounter. The study concludes with recommendations to assess the process of the distribution of government funds and grants in order to incorporate the changing practices of the cultural industries and incorporate new business models such as self-publishing.

According to the Statistics Canada report from 2019, when it comes to the amount of time spent online, Canada beats out every other country in the world. This has likely been amplified due to the stay-at-home order caused by the COVID-19 crisis, hence why the new Bill C-11 will strengthen the current policies defending Canadians from corporate digital overstep. Alexa, Please: Babysit My Child will explore, analyze, and evaluate Amazon's neuro-capitalistic technologies, specifically pertaining to the technologies made for child-use. Neuro-capitalism is dangerous as it speaks to controlling the mind through the current hyper-technological society. Jurisdictional complexity surrounding A.I. and cybersecurity can be mitigated by government-funded education. Therefore, my research explores the question: From a neuro-capitalistic & digital-colonial standpoint, to what extent are Amazon's child-targeted technologies' (such as Kindle 4 Kids) consistent with the privacy policies of the new, proposed Bill C-11? This policy analysis will consist of three sections—first, an analysis of Amazon's Kindle 4 Kids Terms and Conditions (Site 1). Second, an evaluation of Bill C-11’s ability to protect children from the pernicious aspects of neuro-capitalism (Site 2). Lastly, a compare and contrast section of the two entities, ending with a discussion of the findings. Particularly during the COVID-19 crisis, we must be sure that the Government of Canada is doing everything in their power to aid the youth of the country that spends the most time online and the most time with their babysitter: Alexa.

With the goal of informing federal and state policy makers in a time of budget constraints, we used a systematic review methodology to identify and summarize findings from studies that examined the effects of losing grant aid due to policy changes and students’ failure to meet renewal requirements. Studies reviewed in this policy brief show negative effects on student outcomes when grant aid is reduced or eliminated. While results vary, this general conclusion applies when grant aid is reduced or eliminated from programs that differ in scope (federal and state), eligibility requirements (merit and need), and award amounts. This brief illuminates the importance of maintaining grant aid funding for college student enrollment, persistence, achievement, and completion. Especially in context of other pandemic-related stressors, reducing need-based grant aid will likely exacerbate declines in college enrollment, progression through college, and degree completion for vulnerable students.

This study explores new pedagogical trends in China’s teacher education from a holistic policy analysis perspective. The emerging idea of ‘new normal/teacher education’ is explored in this study. A...

By recognizing that foreign direct investments (FDI) are not only vital for advancing firms’ international competitiveness but also they have substantial impact on the national economy, the Chinese government started to encourage capital outflows. However, under the guidance of the “Opening up” policy, China's capital inflows remained far greater than capital outflows. Therefore, the Chinese government has issued a number of policies aimed at driving domestic enterprises to engage in outward foreign direct investment. The most prominent in this series of policies is the “Go globally” strategy and the “The Belt and Road” initiative. In this study, we critically analyze the two policies aiming to understand how China actually promotes the outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) of their domestic enterprises. Using policy analysis technique, we analyze the OFDI–related advantages that can be achieved to domestic enterprises under the influence of government policies. Furthermore, we investigated the impact of government policies on corporate foreign direct investment spinning from the Chinese economy. Our analysis shows that the Chinese government policies can promote OFDI for enterprise, where government support and encouragement schemes can stimulate local enterprises to expand globally. Importantly, the Chinese government use diplomacy to enable these local enterprises to understand the investment policies and institutional environment of host countries in advance, which in turn, drives the risk-taking potential of these enterprises. However, the Chinese government policies also have negative impacts on enterprises’ OFDI.

We analyze the rollout of a Statewide Dual-Credit (SDC) program intended to expand access to college-level courses during high school. We find that SDC increased early postsecondary course-taking among students in the middle of the achievement distribution, especially through courses in vocational subjects, without decreasing participation in Advanced Placement (AP). However, SDC was mostly offered by schools already providing courses in similar subject areas and was less frequently offered in small relative to large schools, thus doing little to ameliorate placed-based gaps in course-taking opportunities. Furthermore, a majority of students failed the end-of-course exams necessary to secure college credit, and those who passed closely resemble students who pass AP exams. Low SDC exam pass rates predict school-level discontinuation of SDC courses over and above a range of other factors that reflect student demand and staffing capacity.

Objective This study examines whether greater private-sector participation in aged care can lead to better outcomes by comparing quality of care and prices of residential aged care facilities across three ownership types: government-owned, private not-for-profit and for- profit facilities. Australia, like many other countries, has been implementing market-oriented reforms aiming to promote greater consumer choice and increase the role of markets and private-sector participation in aged care. Methods Using retrospective facility-level data, the study relates several measures of quality of care and a measure of price to ownership types while controlling for facility characteristics. The data covered six financial years (2013/14–2018/19) and contained 2,900 residential aged-care facilities, capturing almost all facilities in Australia. About 55% were private not-for-profit, 30% private for-profit and 15% government-owned. Results Government-owned facilities provide higher quality of care in most quality measures and charge the lowest average price than private for-profit and not-for-profit facilities. Discussion Reforms promoting private-sector participation in aged care are unlikely to result in effective competition to drive quality up or prices down unless sources of market failure are addressed. In Australia, the lack of public reporting of quality and the complex pricing structure are key issues that prevent market forces and consumer choice from working as intended.

Policy-based access control systems are crucial for secure information sharing in collaborative applications. However, policy management needs to be flexible in order to adapt to different environments and be able to support policy evolution. However, when dealing with large sets of evolving policies, it is critical that policies meet certain policy quality requirements. Policy sets must be complete, free of inconsistencies, and relevant. In this paper, we propose a framework to analyze policies to determine whether they meet such requirements. Our framework uses provenance techniques to collect comprehensive data about actions which were either triggered due to a network context or a user (i.e., a human or a device) action. The framework includes two approaches for policy analysis: structure-based and classification-based. For the structure-based approach, we designed tree structures to organize and assess the policy set efficiently. For the classification-based approach, we employed the classification techniques to learn the characteristics of policies and predict their quality. In addition, the framework includes the policy evolution module which mainly consists of recommendation and re-evaluation services for policy changes which both aim at fulfilling the policy quality requirements. The analysis framework has been implemented and experimental results from the prototype are reported.

Although there has been an increased focus on the importance of the Canada federal government’s use of policy to achieve reconciliation, studies show that they failed to produce meaningful change for the Indigenous population. This exploratory paper aims to analyze the Canadian governments use of policy and its framework to evaluate its efficacy and uncover what factors have potentially caused past policies to fail. A detailed examination on past and current statistics on key indicators for the Indigenous population is used to define the problem. A detailed policy analysis is then utilized to evaluate the efficacy of the policy, identify potential flaws within the framework, and provide potential solutions. The results from the policy analysis argue that the main variables that currently function as an obstacle to achieving reconciliation are a lack of political will, the absence of Indigenous methodologies, and a lack of transparency. It is suggested that to improve the outcomes of these policies and achieve reconciliation; the Canadian government must prioritize the Indigenous population and work to integrate their methodologies within the Western Framework and develop transparent plans.

Aim: Political decisions usually emerge from the competing interests of politicians, voters, and special interest groups. We investigated the applicability of an advanced methodological concept to determine whether certain institutional positions in a cooperating network have influence on the decision-making procedures. To that end, we made use of the institutional network of relevant health care and health governance institutions, concentrated in Belgrade, Serbia. Methods: We used a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) based on a combination of measures for centrality in order to evaluate the positions of 25 players in Belgrade‟s institutional network. Their directed links were determined by a simulated position approach employing the authors‟ long-term involvement. Software packages used consisted of Visone 2.9, UCINET 6, and KeyPlayer 1.44. Results: In our analysis, the network density score in Belgrade was 71%. The PCA revealed two dimensions: control and attractiveness. The Ministry of Health exerted the highest level of control but displayed a low attractiveness in terms of receiving links from important players. The National Health Insurance Fund had less control capacity but a high attractiveness. The National Institute of Public Health‟s position was characterized by a low control capacity and high attractiveness, whereas the National Drug Agency, the National Health Council, and Non-Governmental Organisations were no prominent players. Conclusions: The advanced methodologies used here to analyse the health care policy network in Belgrade provided consistent results indicating that the intended decentralization of the health care network in Belgrade may be incomplete, still with low participation of civil society representatives. With the present study we set the stage for a broad-range survey based data collection applying the methodology piloted in Belgrade., South Eastern European Journal of Public Health (SEEJPH), Volume IV, 2015

Background There is growing interest in the use of routine outcome measures (ROM) in mental health services worldwide. Australia has been at the forefront of introducing ROM in public mental health services, with the aim of improving services and consumer outcomes. Methods An in-depth policy and document analysis was conducted using Carol Bacchi’s ‘What is the problem represented to be?’ approach to critically analyse the use of ROM. This approach was used to identify and analyse the problem representations relating to the need for, and the choice of, outcome measures in Australian public mental health services, and the potential consequences of policy and practice. Data included in the analysis were seven policy documents, four reports on the introduction of outcome measures in Australia, the Australian Mental Health Outcomes and Classifications Network website, and the content of the outcome measures themselves. Results Two dominant representations of the ‘problem’ were identified: 1) the ‘problem’ of mental health service quality and accountability, relating to the need for mental health outcome measures; and 2) the ‘problem’ of addressing deficits in biopsychosocial functioning of mental health consumers, which relates to the choice of outcome measures. Framing the ‘problem’ of mental health outcomes in these ways locates the problem within individual health providers, services, and consumers, ignoring the broader socioeconomic conditions underpinning mental health and effective service provision. Conclusions This critical analysis of the introduction and use of ROM in public mental health services in Australia highlights the need to consider the role of the social determinants of mental health, mental health service funding, and recovery-oriented care in ensuring services are meeting consumer needs and expectations. Broader governmental engagement is central to genuine change and opportunities.

Knowledge Utilisation Analysis uses documents as its unit of analysis and can be applied to produce systematic evidence on the extent to which knowledge-based conclusions are reflected in political decisions. The project folder offers practical guidelines for conducting Knowledge Utilisation Analysis and data from a study of knowledge utilisation in active labour market and primary education policies in Denmark from 2015-2021.

Policy can be used and experienced as a tool for social inclusion or exclusion; it can empower or disenfranchise. Women’s reproductive decision‐making and health is impacted by policy, and women’s experiences of diverse and intersecting marginalised social locations can influence their experiences of policy. This research aimed to explore how intersectionality is considered within Victorian state government policies that influence and impact women’s reproductive decision-making. A systematic search of Victorian (Australia) government policy instruments was undertaken, identifying twenty policy instruments. Policies were analysed using an intersectional policy analysis framework using a two‐stage process involving deductive coding into the domains of the framework, followed by inductive thematic analysis within and across domains. Findings reveal inconsistencies within and across policies in how they consider intersecting social relations of power in the representation of problems, women’s positionings, policy impacts, and policy solutions. These gaps could exclude and marginalise individuals and groups and contribute to systemic inequities in women’s reproductive decision-making and the outcomes of those decisions, particularly among already marginalised groups. The lack of women’s voices in policy further excludes and marginalises those impacted by the policy and limits the representation of all women in policy. Policy development needs to meaningfully involve women with diverse and intersecting marginalised social locations, and critical reflexivity of all stakeholders, to ensure policies can better account for the experiences of, and impacts upon, women who are marginalised and effect change to promote social inclusion and equity in women’s reproductive decision‐making.