School self-evaluation is a low-stakes policy recently mandated in Ireland and while schools are becoming more consistent in engaging in this internal mode of evaluation, their engagement has not been uniform. Subscribing to the view that policies are not implemented but enacted, this paper discusses how school self-evaluation gets performed in Irish schools in various ways by various people. As previous studies on school self-evaluation in Ireland have largely focused on its implementation and on the capacity of school staff to engage in the process, this study makes a new and valuable contribution to the literature by providing new ways of thinking about, understanding, and explaining how school self-evaluation takes place in Ireland. We subscribe to the view that the staff members in schools are heterogeneous and diverse beings who view and respond to, interpret and translate (or not), policy in various ways.

Interpretation and translation: the work of policy actors

Enacting policy involves interpreting and translating policy i.e. turning general policy ideas into contextualised practices (Braun et al. 2010, 2011; Ball et al. 2012). Interpretation is an initial reading of policy, considering what the policy means and if it requires anything to be done; usually it is set over and against what else is in play and what consequences there might be from responding or not responding (Ball et al. 2011a, 2012). Interpretations are meaning-making processes (Maguire et al. 2013) and are instantiated and elaborated in management meetings, staff briefings, and by making someone responsible for a policy, positioning it as a priority, assigning it a value, and selling it to staff (Ball et al. 2011a, 2012). Translation, then, is the literal enactment of policy, using tactics, talk, meetings, plans, events and so on (Ball et al. 2011a, 2012). While interpretation is about strategy and translation is about tactics, they interwove and overlap in that they both involve producing institutional texts, doing professional development, changing structures, roles, and relationships, and very importantly, the identification and allocation of posts of responsibility and the allocation of resources (Ball et al. 2011a, 2012). Sometimes, assigning a staff member responsibility over a policy is the enactment of policy and its embodiment (Ball et al. 2011a, 2012). It is not only teachers involved in interpreting and translating policy, however, while not all teachers actively partake (Maguire et al. 2015). Thus, enactment is intricate, incomplete, and intersubjective in that multiple subjectivities and positions shape how policies are understood, and differences inevitably occur in enactments over time and in different settings (Maguire et al. 2015).

According to Ball et al. (2011b, 2012), with the exception of school leaders who receive particular attention, the policy interpretation genre often tends to consider all policy actors to be equal and working on and with policy in similar ways but actors in schools are actually positioned differently and take up different positions in relation to policy, including positions of indifference or avoidance. Ball et al. (2011b, 2012) have outlined various kinds of policy actors, or policy positions, involved in making sense of and constructing responses to policy through the processes of interpretation and translation.  Using this typology this paper discusses the various policy actors involved in school self-evaluation in Irish schools, as found in our interview data.

This research is part of a broader Erasmus+ funded project on the role of students and parents in school self-evaluation in four partner countries. The data presented here were gathered through semi-structured interviews with senior leaders, teachers in middle-management roles, and classroom teachers in five post-primary schools in Ireland. This research aimed to involve the three main post-primary school models in Ireland: voluntary secondary schools, Education and Training Board schools, and community/comprehensive schools. Participants were interviewed about their views on school self-evaluation, their experiences of school self-evaluation, and how and where students and parents fit into the process, and with their permission an audio recording was made of each interview and transcribed afterwards. Throughout the data collection, and particularly during data analysis, it became evident that school self-evaluation was not simply taking place in a coherent manner but being shaped through the policy work of many different actors, and it was here that our attention turned to policy enactment and the work of policy actors. Guided by the literature on policy enactment, moments and mentions of enactment in our transcripts were arranged and categorised in line with the scholarship.

This paper shows that schools have collections of different staff members who engage in and with school self-evaluation in different ways. These actors are positioned differently and take up different positions in relation to policy and it is the combination of all of these positions that make school self-evaluation happen (Ball et al. 2011b, 2012). These policy actors do not simply implement school self-evaluation but enact it according to the meanings and commitments they hold, as well as their position in the hierarchy and their relative power (Maguire et al. 2010). It is too much to expect schools and teachers to simply perform a policy as it was expected to be performed when designed by policymakers. Policies cannot be performed in a rigidly uniform manner as schools and the policy actors within them are heterogeneous entities with diverse traits and characteristics that interpret, translate, and enact policies in various ways. With the current cycle of obligatory school self-evaluation in Ireland now due to conclude at the end of the 2020/21 school year, it is imperative that policymakers consider how the staff members in schools should, can, and are likely to engage with school self-evaluation before the next iteration is rolled out for September 2021.

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