ABSTRACT
Do policymakers pay more attention to the outcomes-focused analyses reporting numbers of girls-in-math per dollar spent for special programs or to the story of the 14year-old skipping class, embarrassed and confused about her algebra teacher’s exuberant compliments on her figure? What goes on in shaping training, certification, selection and promotion of educational administrators that ensures white male dominance and leaders oriented toward bureaucratic maintenance? These are feminist and critical policy questions, often neglected. This chapter dismantles policy analysis in order to open, widen and reframe policy questions and methods.2 It introduces the perspectives and literatures that underpin feminist critical policy analysis, perspectives illustrated in the ensuing chapters, focusing on policy agendas and arenas for elementary and secondary schooling.3
