The visualization of education policy: A videological analysis of Learning Journeys

The attention to the visualization of education policy is an area of study yet to be developed and explored. This paper extends the scholarship of 'media-ted education policy production' by developing a visual methodology to analyse a visual education policy document that takes the form of a documentary titled Learning Journeys (2000), which documented an uptake of and for the 'Thinking Schools, Learning Nation' policy in Singapore schools after this policy came into effect in 1997. My analysis specifically draws attention to the concept of 'visual design', which I argue works ideologically to constrain the semiotic meaning potential of visual texts to a preferred reading path, and that 'design' textually contributes to an ideological closure as opposed to an open, multiple or contradictory reading of the text. Any critical reading of visual policy texts, I argue, must understand that 'design' in visual policy texts is situated and intertwined in the complex interplay of institutional constraints, ideological underpinnings, political assumptions and priorities. My textual analysis of the design of Learning Journeys will show that the televisual images in the documentary are managed to prioritize the construction of preferred schooling identities and to build consensus of what schooling ought to be and why new imperatives of education change are necessary in changing global economic conditions. Copyright © 2009 Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business.