Contributions to Policy Analysis Sample Clauses

Contributions to Policy Analysis. By achieving the objectives of this thesis I hope to contribute to the body of literature seeking to offer ways of understanding ‘how we are governed’ (Xxxxxxxx 1991: 79, see also Xxxxxxxx 2007, Xxxxxx 2009). I wish to contribute, more specifically, to the literature that examines how we are governed by applying Xxxxxxxx’x analytics of problematisations to analyse government policies and documents (e.g., Xxxxxx and Xxxxxxx 2009; Xxxxxxxxxxxxx 2012; Ball 2013; Repo 2015). My main focus revolves around deploying and developing this specific approach to policy analysis, as a useful tool to explore how we are governed. My objective is to apply Xxxxxxxx’x analytics in the area of youth sexual health promotion. My choice of this field of public policy is not random. My goal is to challenge the idea of policy-making as a primarily technical, problem-solving exercise (Xxxxxx 2012). Sexual health promotion is a highly debated field of policy in itself (Xxxxxxxx et al. 2012). But when ‘youth’ is added to the mix, policies become a sensitive and fiercely contested arena (Xxxxxx and Xxxxxx 2006). As such, the challenges in this field of policy extend far beyond matters of allocating funding and solving technical issues. Youth sexual health reveals the complex interaction of religious, cultural, socio-economic and political agendas involved in the processes that formulate public policy. Nowhere is this more evident than in the field of sexual education (Irvine 2000; Xxxxxx 2011). In relation to research, youth sexual health policies often ignore or manipulate evidence, despite the increasing pressure on governments to use ‘evidence’ to support their claims (Xxxxxx and Xxxxxx 2006; Xxxxxxxx 2008). However, it would be wrong to think of the difficulties of negotiating policy goals as the result of clearly formulated and opposing political agendas (e.g., conservative vs. progressive agendas). In reality, the relation between sexual health policy and research is highly complex (Xxxxxx and Xxxxxx 2006). In this sense, youth sexual health shares some characteristics with health promotion in general in that it reveals a distance between what we know and what we do (between research evidence and actual policy). This distance is sometimes described as the ‘gap’ in health promotion (Xxxxxx 2008). Some argue that the discrepancy between what we know and what we do is a reflection of the ‘politics of knowledge’, which makes it particularly difficult for research that demands radic...