Recently, there has been an attempt by Bob Lingard to introduce a temporal dimension into policy sociology. Lingard challenges top-down policy analyses, arguing for an appreciation of multiple temporalities and effects between global and local, much as Simon Marginson does with his use of the concept of glonacal. This builds on an earlier piece written with Greg Thomson that sought to reclaim temporality in the sociology of education in the context where the spatial had become a dominant theoretical perspective. This presentation responds positively to the interventions made by Bob Lingard and responds to this challenge by offering a different conceptualisation of temporarily, that of Reinhart Koselleck’s notion of multiple temporalities.

The presentation begins by summarising Lingard’s argument specifically that policy sociology is seen as working with the implicit future oriented character of the field of the sociology of education, particularly in its more redemptive forms where concerns for  social justice direct attention to some future correction of past inequalities; as well as a certain fetishization of the present where the past is referred to in order to account for change and continuity in policy options for instance, but where the present is the privileged moment of enactment. Lingard claims that policy sociology, in its original articulation, was historically informed but that temporality had become largely absent from policy sociological work.

Next the presentation discusses some absences in Lingard’s argument, specifically the lack of engagement with discussions in historical scholarship relating to multiple temporalities. This question is particularly pertinent since Lingard and Thomson’s 2017 paper was an introduction to a special issue of the British Journal of Sociology of Education focusing on time/temporality. Within that special issue Julie McLeod (2017) dealt with the collision of temporalities and debates within historical scholarship, specifically the contribution of Koselleck, whereas the other papers all adopt sociological or social theoretical discussions of time/temporality. McLeod ends their contribution by calling for greater engagement by the sociology of education, and by implication policy sociology, with historical approaches and historical scholarship.

The last part of the presentation outlines Koselleck’s theory of multiple temporalities and proposes how both Koselleck’s conceptualisation and a specifically historical approach to policy sociology may be useful. It suggests that Koselleck’s conception of conceptual history has affinities with the tradition of policy sociology and therefore a relevant theoretical approach to foregrounding temporality. It introduces Koselleck’s ideas of the synchronicity of the non-synchronous - the interweaving of diachronic and synchronic elements in any given historical (policy) process; and layered time – processes which move at different speeds, have different durations and different rhythms, therefore critiquing modernist understandings of time. The policy sociology concept of policy trajectories is re-articulated by showing how this concept can work with the synchronicity of the non-synchronous and layered time.

The presentation is based on a close reading of three sets of texts, 1. The original articles by Lingard and Thomson (2017) and Lingard (2021) which introduce the discussion of temporality in policy sociology/sociology of education. This set also includes three other texts that are especially referred to by Lingard in the 2021 paper, namely Julie McLeod’s 2017 article in the special issue of the British Journal of Sociology of Education focusing on time/temporality, Webb et al’s 2010 article, and Sarah Sharma’s book In the meantime: temporality and cultural politics. These additional texts are reviewed because they appear particularly important for Lingard’s formulation of temporality. McLeod’s article is important because it directly discusses Koselleck’s theory of multiple temporalities. Webb et al’s article is important because Lingard uses their typography of temporality, and Sharma’s sociological concept of lived time and that of chronologies of power frames Lingard’s own sociological and social theoretical articulation of temporality. 2. Policy sociology texts specifically referred to by Lingard such as Jenny Ozga’s (2000) Policy research in educational settings: Contested terrain, Stephen Ball’s (1994) Education reform: a critical and post-structural approach, and Fazal Rizvi and Bob Lingard’s (2010) Globalizing education policy. These are read in order to draw out the implicit or explicit conceptions of time/temporality and to identify the extent to which historical or sociological conceptions are dealt with. 3. Koselleck’s own articulation of a theory of times as well as scholarly discussions of this. Of particular importance is the work of Helge Jordheim who has not just discussed Koselleck but has operationalised his approach in relation to policy relevant issues such as European integration in ‘Europe at Different Speeds: Asynchronicities and Multiple Times in European Conceptual History’.

The main argument presented is that policy sociology can be strengthened by an explicit engagement with the historical. Indeed, it argues that policy sociology has always worked with an implicit historical perspective. Kozelek’s multiple temporalities offers an important methodological and analytical strategy for approaching the policy sociology question, ‘why this particular policy and why now?’ that is different to sociological or social theoretical approaches discussed by Lingard and others. Therefore, advanced is the idea of a historical policy sociology that can bring into view the historical antecedents of dominant structures and practices of education as well as contemporary policy options. That is, current policy options are not only related to economic structures such as capitalism, and political dynamics such as the Cold War and decolonization, but historically longer structures of imperial and colonial projects. This can involve not just understanding the path-dependent qualities of policy formation but also their contingency and how policy formation, enactment, and effect are entangled historically and transnationally, alerting the researcher not only to what education policies are but also why they occur at particular moments, in particular forms, and particular places.

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