Bringing together twenty years of research and writing, this book provides an overview of Stephen Balla (TM)s career and shows not only the development of his most important ideas but also the long-lasting contributions he has made to the field of educational policy analysis. This volume contains sixteen key essays divided into three sections:

• perspectives on policy research
• policy technologies and policy analysis
• social class and education policy.

Each chapter presents innovative ways of thinking about public policy, asking probing questions about what policy is, how policy is influenced and what effects intentional and unintentional policies have. As a body of work, this collection raises issues of ethics and social justice which are often neglected in the mass of policies that now affect every aspect of our education systems.

Part 1: Perspectives on Policy Research 1. Policy Sociology and Critical Social Research: A Personal Review of Recent Education Policy and Policy Research 2. Discipline and Chaos: The New Right and Discourses of Derision 3. What is Policy? Texts, Trajectories and Toolboxes 4. Educational Studies, Policy Entrepreneurship and Social Theory 5. Big Policies/Small World: An Introduction to International Perspectives on Education Policy Part 2: Policy Technologies and Policy Analysis 6. Ethics, Self Interest and the Market Form in Education 7. Good School/Bad School: Paradox and Fabrication 8. Educational Reform, Market Concepts and Ethical Re-tooling 9. Standards in Education: Privatisation, Profit and Values 10. The Teacher's Soul and the Terrors of Performativity Part 3: Social Class and Education Policy 11. Circuits of Schooling: A Sociological Exploration of Parental Choice of School in Social Class Contexts 12. Space, Work and the 'New Urban Economies' 13. Social Justice in the Head: Are we all Libertarians Now 14. 'Ethnic Choosing': Minority Ethnic Students and Higher Education Choice 15. 'I Heard it on the Grapevine': 'Hot' Knowledge and School Choice 16. The Risks of Social Reproduction: The middle Class and Education Markets