While 'national education' has regularly been invoked by post-1997 Hong Kong administrations, its pursuit has acquired new force and urgency since the introduction in 2020 of a National Security Law. Investigating the role of schooling in this reinvigorated project of thought reform, this article asks how far recent initiatives have merely…

Since the late 1980s, school curriculum revisions in Japan have sought to promote capabilities and dispositions that transcend subject boundaries and are often labelled 'competencies' in international curricular discourse. This study examines policy documents over the period, showing how Japanese policymakers have sought to navigate pressures…

Internationally, particularly in Western societies, the concept of multiculturalism tends to be associated with 'progressive' and liberal social visions promoting cultural diversity and minority rights. However, multiculturalism may not necessarily be a 'cure' for social division, but a 'veil' that covers political fractures and imbalances within…

Competence-based approaches (CBAs) in education have become an internationally important educational policy concept in recent decades. However, a substantial body of research has suggested that in order to understand and explain the evolution of CBAs, there is a need to analyse curriculum-making as a complex and multi-layered practice. To…

Kosovo introduced two major curriculum reforms over the past 20 years -- in 2001 and 2011 -- each aiming to bring education closer to international trends. Simultaneously, Kosovo underwent major political, social, and cultural changes after the war in 1999, and the declaration of independence in 2008. This article relies on document analysis and…

Issues of transitional justice are central to countries moving away from identity-based conflict. Research tends to focus on the most well-known forms of transitional justice, like truth commissions. Far less attention has been given to education as a form of transitional justice, and even less to teacher professional development, even though…

In many cases, political circumstances do not allow formal for transitional justice processes to occur in countries undergoing a transition from a violent past. In this paper, we ask if education can become a default front line of transitional justice work in the absence of explicit action by the state to address past injustices. Drawing from…

This article introduces the notion of "justice-sensitive education"--derived from the ideals and practices of transitional justice (TJ) in countries emerging from conflict. It describes three mechanisms for this: structural reforms (relating to inequity and division); curriculum change (the treatment of history, human rights and…