Who Decides and Why it Matters: Institutions, Differentiation and Northern Rural Higher Education

The purpose of this research was to study the impact of institutional forces on higher education policy processes. The project involved a case study analysis of the alignment between intention and perceived impact, focused specifically on the implementation of higher education differentiation policy within two of Canada’s provincial norths (Northern Alberta and Northern Ontario). These provinces were chosen because they represent two of the largest jurisdictions in Canada by population, and because they have both implemented differentiation policy frameworks within the last decade and a half. The research was undertaken within a theoretical framework that combined elements of new institutionalism (North, 1990; DiMaggio Powell, 1991; Thelen, 1999; Peters, 2012; Lowndes Roberts, 2013; Scott, 2014), strategic reaction theory (Oliver 1991), pragmatism (Allison Pomeroy, 2000; Duemer Zebidi, 2009; Anderson Shattuck, 2012; Kaye, 2013), and power (Foucault, 1980; Mills, 2003). Through examination of the ways in which similar policy goals were implemented in Northern and Rural Central Alberta, and in Northern Ontario, it was possible to identify institutional forces that impacted the policy process in each jurisdiction. The central argument of this study was that, in order to improve alignment between policy intentions and policy outcomes, policy makers (political decision makers) and policy implementers (organizational decision makers) must take these institutional forces into account at every stage in the higher education policy process.Ph.D