Policy Analysis/Policy Studies

To cite:
Wilkins, A. 2017. Rescaling the local: Multi-academy trusts, private monopoly and statecraft in England. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 49 (2), 171-185

For the past six years successive UK governments in England have introduced reforms intended to usher in less aggregated, top-down, bureaucratically overloaded models of service delivery as well as secure conditions for greater school autonomy.  Yet the ‘hollowing out’ of local government has not resulted in less bureaucracy on the ground or less regulation from above, nor has it diminished hierarchy as an organising principle of education governance.  In some cases, monopolies and monopolistic practices dominated by powerful bureaucracies and professional groups persist, albeit realised through the involvement of new actors and organisations from business and philanthropy.  In this paper I adopt a governmentality perspective to explore the political significance of large multi-academy trusts (MATs) – private sponsors contracted by central government to run publicly funded schools – to the generation of new scalar hierarchies and accountability infrastructures that assist in bringing the gaze of government to bear upon the actions of schools that are otherwise less visible under local government management.  On this account, it is argued, MATs are integral to statecraft and the invention and assemblage of particular apparatuses for intervening upon specific organisations, spaces and peoples.

Se la struttura sociale assume un volto sempre più frammentato e quasi disarticolato, il ruolo delle istituzioni rappresentative non può più essere quello di imporre politiche, ma deve divenire, invece, quello di discutere le politiche, in modo che la visione collettiva su di esse possa effettivamente maturare. La democrazia rappresentativa oggi non è solo questione di voti e di elezioni, è anche capacità di interrogare, di consultare, di discutere pubblicamente, di sorvegliare e correggere. La tutela degli interessi durevoli richiede allora al Parlamento, come sede della rappresentanza nazionale, di diventare una struttura di conoscenza capace di individuare le priorità, di imputare le responsabilità, di misurare i risultati prodotti e di creare un senso di continuità volto a pacificare e coordinare le ragioni di oggi con quelle di domani. La valutazione delle politiche pubbliche è lo strumento che può accostare le istituzioni rappresentative a un’efficace tutela degli interessi durevoli: attraverso funzioni valutative l’organizzazione pubblica può cercare di essere un fattore di rigenerazione della società non perché impone decisioni, ma perché innesca un costante processo di autoapprendimento in cui il decisore politico assume il ruolo di immettere la conoscenza nel sistema istituzionale e renderla oggetto di un vero allargamento egualitario.

Enacted February 24, 2014 and effective until August 1, 2014, Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act targeted Ugandans of minority sexual orientations and gender identities—many of whom self-identify as 'kuchu'—by imposing life sentences for homosexual sex and same-sex marriage. The original Anti-Homosexuality Bill introduced in 2009 promised even worse for kuchus: it would have mandated that all Ugandans report known homosexuals and threatened execution for serial offenders and other perpetrators of “aggravated homosexuality.” In the context of Ugandan political conflict, emerging international human rights norms, and global asymmetries of power, Uganda has become an ideological battlefront where competing actors—both US-based and Ugandan—advance their respective visions of a just and righteous global society. These factors mandate that US-based activists and organizations painstakingly consider how (or whether) they can advocate responsibly and effectively for international human rights related to gender identity and sexual orientation. Through interdisciplinary lenses and critical analysis, this paper explores three questions:

• How is Uganda distinct from other sites of antigay legislation?
• How have US-based organizations impacted Ugandan discourse and policy toward kuchus?
• How can US-based rights advocates and activists campaign for kuchus without doing them further harm?

Sample Chapter - Implementation Analysis.  The full book is a groundbreaking interpretation of the field of policy analysis, now used as the core text in university courses in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Michael Mintrom offers a state-of-the art look at what policy analysts do and how they can make the world a better place. The book is an indispensable resource for experienced policy analysts and an ideal core text for upper-level undergraduate and first-year graduate courses in policy analysis.

Contemporary Policy Analysis works from a project orientation, providing a thorough and nontechnical overview of the key concepts and analytical strategies employed by policy analysts. Opening with coverage of what policy analysts do, what governments do, and government policy objectives, the first section of the book then discusses how to manage policy projects, present policy advice, and perform ethical policy analysis. The second section presents a set of core analytical strategies, featuring chapters on the analysis of markets, market failure, government failure, comparative institutional analysis, cost-benefit analysis, implementation analysis, and--unique to this survey--gender analysis and race analysis. Each of these strategy chapters includes a step-by-step guide to performing the analysis, incorporating an example from the policy literature that follows the steps and shows how the strategy can illuminate current policy issues. In addition, the chapters are enhanced by exercises and suggestions for class projects and policy research seminars.

This book focuses on how media and communications policy is made and what influences its design. It explores the structures and processes in which policymaking takes place worldwide, the factors that determine its forms, influence its elements, and affect its outcomes. It explores how to analyze policy proposals, evaluate policy, and use policy studies approaches to examine policy and policymaking. International in scope, it lays out the variety of political, social, economic, and institutional influences on policy, the roles of industries and policy advocates in the processes, and issues and factors that complicate effective policymaking and skew policy outcomes.

Institutional policy is an important although little researched and somewhat disparaged governance mechanism that establishes principles, parameters and ‘road maps’ for higher education institutional operations. The Institutional Policy Project was initiated in 2013 to unpack higher education institutional policy from an international, comparative perspective. The research involved surveys and interviews with higher education institution staff in the United States, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand. The research identified consistent policy practitioner responsibilities including policy drafting, benchmarking, and consultation co-ordination. A consistent picture emerges of a pervasive dislocation between policy texts and policy practitioners, policy governance, and policy implementation evaluation and review.

One of the ways to evaluate how archaeology can be relevant to contemporary concerns is through investigating the agencies that provide policies and programs for the benefit of people. This paper examines the policies, programs, and other documents of the Department of Agriculture of the Philippines. It discusses the important concerns of this agency, how far back in time it looks when making its policies, the time horizon being projected forward when policies are created, if this agency considers the sociocultural contexts of its subjects, for whom the policies are meant to be implemented, and how food is discussed in Southeast Asia archaeology. The paper ends with a few recommendations on what archaeologists and the Department of Agriculture can do to have their concerns met on a common ground, with beneficial outcomes for both, and for their subjects in the present and the future.

Resum Aquest article explora l'interès per l'anàlisi de polítiques públiques dels diversos conceptes, instruments i plantejaments analítics que han aparegut, en els darrers anys, en la literatura al voltant de la teoria de l'actor-xarxa (ANT). Resum: This article explores the ways in which recently appeared concepts, tools and analytical approaches from actor-network theory (ANT) invites an alternative account of policy analysis.

This document discusses type of institutional arrangements, organisations and shared leadership necessary to advance integrated river basin management (IRBM) in the Mississippi River Basin. The paper ambitiously proposes a Mississippi River Basin Commission, based on international best practice.

Nuclear power accidents repeatedly reveal that the industry has an incomplete understanding of the complex risks involved in its operation. Through analyzing the investigation of a nuclear power incident in Sweden in 2006, I show how the industry’s learning
practices shape recurrent normalization of risk regulation after such surprises. Learning is shaped through institutionalized measures of sufficiency and particular “risk objects” (e.g.
human factors and safety culture) created through learning from previous events. Subsequent regulatory measures are shaped through improvement scripts associated with these risk objects. These learning practices exclude alternative conceptual perspectives to understand and address safety-critical incidents. Latent risks will therefore produce similar events in the future. The article contributes to the literature on organizational learning, policy making, sensemaking and normalization in complex systems. To improve learning from incidents and regulation in high-hazard industries, social scientists and a wider circle of stakeholders should be included in the regulatory and post-incident
examination processes.

The cybersphere constitutes a global disagreement space. There, the contested, ongoing ties that link states and the internet come into being. A critique of sovereignty and political economy is offered to evaluate contemporary controversies concerning authority, independence, regulation, and access to communications as matters of relationality, materiality, and disagreement. We review China's promotion of cyber sovereignty as a complicating episode that expresses development stresses of the sphere. China wishes to establish guardrails for the practices of multipolar global digital capitalism; yet, it has ushered in an Internet keyed variety of global issues-security, privacy, material well-being, developmental justice, and planetary futures. These complex aims invite and expand the dialectical spaces animating the cybersphere.

การวิเคราะห์นโยบายเป็นกระบวนการสำคัญในการประเมินผลและทบทวนความเหมาะสมของนโยบายต่างๆ ที่มีผลกระทบต่อสังคมและเศรษฐกิจ บทความนี้นำเสนอ 6 ขั้นตอนง่ายๆ สำหรับการวิเคราะห์นโยบาย ซึ่งประกอบด้วย: (1) การระบุปัญหา – การทำความเข้าใจและกำหนดปัญหาที่นโยบายต้องการแก้ไข, (2) การระบุเป้าหมาย – การกำหนดเป้าหมายของนโยบายที่ชัดเจนและสามารถวัดผลได้, (3) การรวบรวมข้อมูล – การเก็บรวบรวมข้อมูลที่เกี่ยวข้องเพื่อช่วยในการตัดสินใจ, (4) การวิเคราะห์ทางเลือก – การพิจารณาตัวเลือกต่างๆ ที่เป็นไปได้ในการแก้ปัญหาดังกล่าว, (5) การประเมินผลกระทบ – การประเมินผลกระทบที่อาจเกิดขึ้นจากการดำเนินนโยบาย, และ (6) การทำข้อเสนอแนะ – การเสนอแนะแนวทางในการปรับปรุงหรือการดำเนินนโยบายในอนาคต เพื่อให้การวิเคราะห์นโยบายมีประสิทธิภาพและสามารถนำไปสู่การตัดสินใจที่ดียิ่งขึ้น

Abstract

Policy analysis is an important process for assessing and reviewing the effectiveness of policies that impact society and the economy. This paper presents 6 simple steps for policy analysis, which include: (1) Identifying the problem – Understanding and defining the issue that the policy aims to address, (2) Setting objectives – Establishing clear and measurable goals for the policy, (3) Gathering data – Collecting relevant data to inform decision-making, (4) Analyzing alternatives – Considering various possible options to solve the problem, (5) Assessing impacts – Evaluating the potential effects of policy implementation, and (6) Making recommendations – Proposing ways to improve or adjust the policy in the future. These steps ensure that policy analysis is effective and can lead to better decision-making outcomes.

The article focuses on online content regulation in France and Germany. We examine institutional characteristics and actor constellations that led to different policy choices and situate these in the broader discussion on Internet content regulation. While in the early 1990s courts were settling disputes regarding problematic content by applying existing regulation to the digital realm, both countries have since chosen separate regulatory paths. France opted for legislative control, while Germany developed a system of "regulated self-regulation," in which private actors self-regulate with limited state supervision. Both cases provide insights into the possibilities and limits of state intervention on the Internet.

Throughout the years, various presidential administrations have responded to the needs of American citizens in distress after the devastation caused by natural and technological disasters. This paper traces the history of natural disaster policy as it has developed, mostly in reaction to natural disasters or public outcry from a failure of government officials to address local, regional or national distress, in a series of three historical stages. Understanding the phases and principles guiding each stage in the evolution of disaster management is important so that policies are not reestablished that create similar situations as those that have occurred in the past. Specifically, attention is devoted to the historical development of current policy and federal responses during times of disaster, and current policy's implications on future disaster policy.

The expansion of renewables is still dependent on appropriate policy support. Yet, in the wake of the economic crisis, even pioneer European countries have begun to dismantle the set of measures implemented in the past decades. Policy dismantling in the area of renewable energy is a recent phenomenon that has attracted little attention in comparison to the study of the diffusion of support schemes. By focusing on the dismantling of renewable energy policy in Italy, this contribution aims to help fill this gap and to highlight an important aspect of the current politics of energy transition. It shows how policy dismantling is affected by the interactions between the political economy of the renewable energy sector, policy design, institutional constraints and external events. It also demonstrates the role of self-undermining mechanisms and framing effects in the dismantling of renewable energy policy.

Social policy is not just about “fixing things” but serves to create conditions under which people can flourish, to improve welfare of people and society.  Policies are driven by a mixture of political and ethical ideas on how people should relate to each other, and for creating good things and removing bad things (Bessant, Watts, Dalton & Smyth, 2006).  The extent to how effective a policy is relies on continual attention from a number of government and non-government networks and their ability to develop good policy.
Employment policies are continually high on the agenda for policy makers, with many controversial ideas and debates for what is best for employees and employers, while trying to reach a balance.  Current action by Australian Council of Trade Unions [ACTU] is taking place in the form of a four million dollar per year fund grassroots campaign to address the issues of insecure employment what has been labelled as casualisation of the Australian workforce (Sydney Morning Herald, 2012).
This paper discusses the employment policy, in particular the issues around casual employment.  There is an overview of the casual work policy and a critical analysis and evaluation of its effectiveness and the government’s responses to it.

Il contributo intende analizzare l’impatto che l’introduzione di procedure tecniche e di standard di verifica (ex ante, in itinere ed ex post) possono aver avuto sulla tutela di quello che a pieno titolo va considerato un diritto sociale: vale a dire il diritto a vivere in un ambiente salubre, concetto generale (e generico) che insiste su numerosi diritti costituzionalmente garantiti.
In tutti i numerosi campi regolativi che coinvolgono tale diritto, dall’urbanistica alla pianificazione economica territoriale, alla localizzazione di infrastrutture e industrie socialmente impattanti, sono infatti all’opera diversi strumenti tecnici di valutazione. Il riferimento è in particolare, da un lato, alle forme di pianificazione strategica più direttamente tecnocratiche e che si basano sull’analisi SWOT, e, dall’altro, ai variegati strumenti pubblici (VIA/VAS; Autorizzazione Integrata Ambientale) e privati (valutazione della Corporate Social Responsibility) all’opera nell’ambito della localizzazione o controllo di infrastrutture ed impianti industriali.
In particolare, riferendosi a casi concreti quali quelli della linea ad alta velocità Torino-Lione e dell’ILVA di Taranto, e richiamando i modelli di Lascoumes e Le Galès (2009), Borraz (2009) e Innes e Booher (2003), si intende mostrare come in realtà l’applicazione di norme tecniche, più che configurarsi quale strumento neutrale ed oggettivo che fa venire meno ogni forma di discrezionalità, si traduca più spesso in una nuova e maggiore fonte di discrezionalità per il decisore pubblico a fronte di una sua minore responsabilità. Discrezionalità da intendersi non in senso classico quale luogo dell’autonomia decisionale concreta, ma quale possibilità di negoziazione fra interessi pubblici e privati sulla definizione degli standard, la scelta dello standard da utilizzare, la dipendenza da chi raccoglie e fornisce i dati. In questo senso il riferimento a norme tecniche certe, più che una tutela su materie socialmente sensibili quali quelle ambientali e sanitarie, pare rappresentare un mezzo per porre la discrezionalità al riparo del controllo pubblico, dietro standard apparentemente oggettivi. Nel caso degli interventi infrastrutturali, viceversa, si riscontra ad esempio, sovente, un uso ambiguo delle procedure e un certo grado di opportunistica incertezza sulla norma tecnica di riferimento (nello specifico gli strumenti previsti dalla normativa ordinaria, o da quella straordinaria della Legge Obiettivo), con impatti dubbi sulla tutela dei diritti sociali relativi alla salute pubblica locale.

There has been a continuous attack on education, particularly alternative, progressive, democratic and liberatory forms of education that seek social justice and an equality of opportunity for all to develop.  In the UK this has led to an attack on educators as 'the enemies of promise' by the Secretary of State for Education.  However, what is being proposed by policy makers are the old 'know your station in life' strategies of managing inequality.  These have always resulted in a violation of the intelligence of people.

Using objective measures of investor protections in 170 countries, I establish that the level of investor protection matters for cross-country differences in GDP growth: countries with stronger protections tend to grow faster than those with poor investor protections.

Ireland's Early Childhood Education and Care Sector is now a full and vibrant one. A dynamic policy context underpins practice within a framework of quality service provision and an evolving and developing professional workforce. This situation has come about through a wide range of policy initiatives to develop the sector. This is particularly the case in relation to the last decade.

The issue of prostitution has engendered much division amongst feminists, frequently resulting in polemical stances in a polarised debate. A similar pattern has more latterly emerged with respect to sex trafficking. An added difficulty is that statistical evidence regarding these issues is scarce and unreliable. Through a new discursive lens of policy analysis developed by Carol Bacchi (the WPR approach) this paper considers and examines the ‘demand side’ of prostitution, with particular reference to its relationship with sex trafficking. Two policy and legislative approaches are compared, the Swedish model where the client is criminalized and the Victorian model where the sex industry is legalised and regulated.

This book addresses a significant gap in the literature and provides a comprehensive overview of the sociology of forensic science. Drawing on a wealth of international
research and case studies, this book explores the intersection of science, technology, law and society and examines the production of forensic knowledge.
This book explores a range of key topics such as:
• the integration of science into police work and criminal investigation;
• the relationship between law and science;
• ethical and social issues raised by new forensic technology including DNA analysis;
• media portrayals of forensic science;
•forensic policy and the international agenda for forensic science.

This article examines the increasing relevance of Islam and religion in the institutional arrangement of the EU post-Maastricht and the future policy implications for the complex political system of the EU. By adopting a combination of qualitative methodologies that are theoretically rooted in historical institutionalism and in a systemic view of the EU, the paper studies the emergence of Islam and religion as policy issues in two institutional settings, the European Commission and the European Parliament, during the 1990s and up to the first decade of the twenty-first century. The analysis shows a growing attention to faith communities on the part of the Commission, in the post-Maastricht context, culminating in the elaboration of semi-official avenues for encounter and dialogue with religious groups. It also indicates how, in turn, these semi-official practices and the ideas behind them have gradually imposed themselves upon multiple levels of the EU political system, thus opening up an institutional space in the EU for consultations with and 'informal policies' towards faith communities, both within and outside the EU borders.

Anti-homeless ordinances include laws that target behaviors typically associated with homelessness, such as panhandling or sleeping on sidewalks. The goal of this study is to better understand the prevalence of anti-homeless ordinances in American cities and the policy context surrounding these ordinances. A sample of nine U.S. cities was selected for analysis, ensuring variation across population size and geographic location. Analysis began with a scan of each city’s municipal code to see if anti-homeless ordinances were present. This was followed by qualitative interviews with one homeless advocate and one member of local government in each city (n=14). Eight out of nine sample cities had at least one anti-homeless ordinance in their municipal code. Interviews revealed that the homeless in these cities have been socially constructed as alcohol or substance users, freeloaders, and criminals. This negative social construction is reflected in anti-homeless ordinances that allocate burdens to this group.

Governance is clearly a notion whose time has come. It appears to move easily across philosophical and disciplinary boundaries, diverse fields of practical application, the manifold scales of social life, and different political camps and tendencies. This terminological mobility enables it to organize significant narratives about contemporary social transformation. Yet it is also clear that governance is a polyvalent and polycontextual notion. Its meaning varies by context and it is being deployed for quite contrary, if not plain contradictory, purposes. And, by virtue of these terminological uncertainties, it is doubtful whether governance sans phrase can really provide a compelling theoretical entrypoint for analysing contemporary social transformation or a compelling practical entrypoint for coping with complexity. It is this paradox that I wish to pursue and resolve in the following reflections on governance, with the ultimate intention of providing a clear account of the nature and limitations of governance and metagovernance in a complex world. I will illustrate my more general arguments as appropriate from the case of ‘good governance’, which provides an interesting example of the constitutionalization and ethicalization of governance discourse and practices.

This article presents a theory of administrative work as practice. Building on a rich narrative of a mid-level administrator in the Dutch Immigration Office, four core elements of administrative practice are identified: contextuality, acting, knowing, and interacting. Taking cues from practice theory and ethnomethodology, the author argues that the visible aspects of administrative work (decisions, reports, negotiations, standard operating procedures, and-on a higher level of institutional abstraction-structures, legal rules, lines of authority and accountability) are effectuations, enactments, of the hidden, taken-for-granted routines, the almost unthinking actions, tacit knowledge, fleeting interactions, practical judgments, self-evident understandings and background knowledge, shared meanings, and personal feelings that constitute the core of administrative work. Taken together, contextuality, acting, knowing, and interacting make up a unified account of practical judgment in an administrative environment that is characterized by complexity, indeterminacy, and the necessity to act on the situation at hand.

This Impact Report identifies and summarises the diverse impacts, resulting from the £500m of UK funding of Science and Technology in 2013, using numerous quantitative metrics and short case study extracts.  It shows how the varied impacts of a national science and technology organization and its many funded programmes can be annually identified, captured, tracked, and summarised in a public document.

The report was produced for, and by, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) -  the UK Research Council responsible for funding: (1) all UK astronomy, particle and nuclear physics research, (2) related UK science and technology facilities (e.g. as Harwell and Daresbury), (3) the UK contribution to international science (e.g. CERN, international telescopes and space missions), (4) innovation and business spin-off programmes, and (5) UK public engagement activities.

The Report was co-researched and co-authored by the STFC Impact Team, including myself while Impact Evaluation Manager in 2013, with Dr. Claire Dougan-McCallie (lead author/Head of Impact) and Jenny Beard, with additional input from senior managers, and many data and case study contributions from other key managers across STFC.

Varied key impacts are identified and reported including:

• Research amongst the best (by citation impact) in astronomy, nuclear and particle physics.
• Supported research of 226 Principal Investigators in 70 universities, led to 1,100 peer-reviewed papers in 2012.
• Facilities (the Diamond Light Source, ISIS and CLF) were used in 2012/13 by over 4,200 unique users , in over 2,400 experiments, producing over 1,000 papers in peer-reviewed journals.

• Technology from CERN benefited the UK economy by over £100 billion every year.
• Funding the development of the UK’s space, internet and computer animation industries, returned over £500 billion to the UK economy per annum.
• Funded Innovation Campuses hosted over 230 enterprises and supported over 5,000 jobs.
• UK industry won £43 million in contracts from the international subscriptions funded, and had accumulated a total of £150 million since 2005.

• Funded research inspired future generations to study STEM subjects, attracting 90% of UK undergraduates to study physics, funded 782 PhD students  and 16,800 student training days.
• Between 2009 to 2012 public engagement programmes engaged people on 58 million occasions, with 2 million people engaged in face-to-face activities in 2013 alone.

Food Security is crucial to achieving the Zero Hunger, one of the crucial
goals of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). In the post-independent
India, Public Distribution System (PDS) is an important policy intervention for providing the food security to the hunger and poor. There are certain challenges in the implementation of the PDS like corruption, leakages, ghost cards, market diversion of ration and other supply chain management issues.
The paper attempts to understand the role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools in reducing the corruption and ‘leakages’ in food security policy of India, concerning PDS programme for reducing the hunger. In the federal system of India, states play a crucial role in the implementation of the PDS programme and the states are advised to leverage the ICT tools in the National Food Security Act (NFSA). There are differences in the food policy implementation of various states by improving their information technology governance structure. Hence, a comparative study of two states–Chhattisgarh &Telangana Electronic Public Distribution System projects – will give valuable inputs for improving the policy and hence in reducing the hunger. The paper is based on the field level
experiences of beneficiaries and interviews with the technocrats in both
the states along with analysing the various policy documents of two states.Food Security is crucial in achieving the Zero Hunger, one of the crucial
goals of Sustainable Development Ggoals (SDG). In the post-independent
India, Public Distribution System (PDS) is an important policy intervention
for providing the food security to the hunger and poor. There are certain
challenges in the implementation of the PDS like corruption, leakages, ghost
cards, market diversion of ration and other supply chain management issues.
The paper attempts to understand the role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools in reducing the corruption and ‘leakages’ in food security policy of India, concerning PDS programme for reducing the hunger. In the federal system of India, states play a crucial role in the implementation of the PDS programme and the states are advised to leverage the ICT tools in the National Food Security Act (NFSA). There are differences in the food policy implementation of various states by improving their information technology governance structure. Hence, a comparative study of two states–Chhattisgarh &Telangana Electronic Public Distribution System projects – will give valuable inputs for improving the policy and hence in reducing the hunger. The paper is based on the field level experiences of beneficiaries and interviews with the technocrats in both the states along with analysing the various policy documents of two states.

PhD dissertation of Erik Paredis. It researches if and how transition management influences regular policy. The empirical analysis is built on an analysis of two Flemish transition processes, in sustainable housing and building, and in sustainable materials management.

Embedded System and Project Design students who underwent project-based learning approach. Embedded System is a new elective course to computer engineering curricular offerings of Jose Rizal University, Philippines. The project-based learning has been employed due to "emergence of computing technology has posed challenges in the landscape of computer engineering education" and to promote responsive and collaborative learning. Project-based learning is applied as inductive instructional approach and is perceived to be a student centered approach to learning. Project-based learning offers promise as an instructional method that affords authentic learning tasks grounded in the personal interests of learners. In today's generation of learners', Problem Based Learning is a well-known alternative approach to traditional disciplinary-based professional educational programmes in higher education" which will give regards to the implementation of Outcome-based Education. Students has been sub-divided into small groups with a given driving questions and project to be developed as an outcome.

This paper aims to review the 'politics of the intimate' in the Turkish context. By looking at regulations and policy debates in the areas of sexuality, reproduction and family and partnership in the 2000s, it critically analyzes the scope and content of state policies, as well as the policy debates in these areas, from a gender and gender equality perspective. This analysis further emphasizes the interaction between neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism, two political rationalities that have come to play important roles in the shaping or regulation of public and private domains, and the relations within these domains, in the last decade in Turkey. This paper will suggest that given the intermesh of neoliberal and neoconservative rationalities, the notion of gender equality loses its significance, leaving disadvantaged groups open to the detrimental effects of dominant power relations.