Chapter 14: An Intersectoral Policy Framework: Technology and Obesity Intersecting on Schoolchildren

The absence of a reliable general educational production process, one that could define the specific ratio of inputs necessary to mitigate the inequalities in schooling, has sparked a history of educational policy research. Yet, it is not uncommon for actors within school systems to have very little knowledge of the public policy process – or have knowledge of the hegemonic values that typically undergird prevailing discourses, politics, and the policy process. According to Stout, Tallerico, and Scribner (1994), “[t] he politics of education ultimately resolves distributive questions in a material sense, as well as in terms of the citizenry’s competing values, attitudes, and ideologies” that surface around questions such as who should go to school, what should be the purposes of schooling, what should be taught, who should decide issues of school direction and policy, and who should pay for schools (p. 16)? To address this knowledge gap on public policy among those working in school systems this chapter aims to codify research arguments emphasizing the application of a generalized public policy process to the pursuit of equity in education through focusing on two issues confronting education today: the role of technology in schools and obesity among schoolchildren.