Using the Multiple Streams Approach (MSA) in an analysis of policy change in UK initial teacher education: a case study of agenda setting

In 2015, the Oxford Review of Education published a collection of papers from the influential BERA–RSA Inquiry, one of which examined teacher education policy across the four nations of the UK. A decade on, this paper takes up the analysis once again and draws on Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Approach (MSA) as an analytical tool to consider subsequent policy change and continuity. In order to carry out our analysis we scrutinised teacher education policy documents from 2010 onwards from each of the four jurisdictions to determine the ways in which activity in the three MSA streams (problem, policy and politics) has developed during this period. We then, through consideration of the role of policy entrepreneurs and policy windows, identify key moments in the policy trajectory where moments of opportunity and influence occurred. Our analysis reveals inevitable differences in the way in which teacher education policy has been both conceived and enacted. The MSA approach has enabled us to identify not only pivotal moments in the process in each of the four nations, but also the complex relationship between the ‘problem, policy and politics’ streams and the often hidden role of policy entrepreneurs.