The proposed addition to this framework has four levels: the sociopolitical
environment from which policy, based on the dominant discourse, is
derived and within which its overarching guiding principles are formulated;
the strategic direction which emanates from the socio-political environment
and which broadly defines policy and establishes its success criteria as they
apply to spheres of activity such as education; organizational principles which
indicate the parameters within which policy is to be implemented in those
spheres of activity; and operational practices, based on the organizational
principles, which are the detailed organizational arrangements that are
necessary to implement the policy at the institutional level and to translate
such policy implementation into institutional procedures and specific
programmes of action. Thus, in terms of translating policy into practice, the
four levels are in a hierarchical relationship, the first two being concerned
with policy formulation and the second two with policy implementation. The
four levels are nested (Barr and Dreeben 1983) in the sense that educational
policy, derived from the wider socio-political discourse, is mediated through
the formulation of a strategic direction in the national and regional context
which, in turn, generate organizational processes within which schools are
located and curriculum content, pedagogy and assessment determined. In
this way, policy legitimized and derived from, for example, human capital
theory, is translated into activities in the school and classroom.