Humanizing Policy Implementation in Higher Education Through an Equity-Centered Approach

• In Event: Sunday Roundtable Session 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Empowering Education: Insights From Research on Writing, Math, Diversity, and Resource Management (Table 20)

Abstract

With an urgency to leverage existing and emerging policy reforms to improve educational equity, this manuscript explores the critical role of implementation in higher education–specifically in community colleges. We start by synthesizing the literature on policy implementation in higher education and weave together a conversation that centers on the importance of equity. Then, we highlight our Equity-Centered Policy Implementation Framework and its six tenets: Identity Conscious, Implementation Imaginations, Institutional Complexity, Sociopolitical Context, Layered Reforms, and Leveraged for Educational Equity. We close by sharing implementation stories that draw from our body of research to showcase research-informed strategies and approaches to policy implementation that led to more robust and transformative equity-oriented implementation processes in community college.

Authors

• Eric R. Felix, San Diego State University

• H. Kenny Nienhusser, University of Connecticut