The overarching objective of this study is to become more closely attuned to the politics of curriculum by identifying the discursive practices employed by governments to position curricular reform. In particular, this analysis aims to show how the twinning of neoliberalism and neoconservatism has served to justify shifts in curriculum at three…

Background: This study took place within a policy context in which the state of Ohio, echoing moves across the country, adopted a set of K-12 Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) standards based in the work of the Collaborative for Academic and Social Emotional Learning (CASEL) and its core competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social…

Objective: With growing international interest in youth mental health as well as the other health issues faced by young people, school health education draws the attention of scholars from both East and West. However, what stands for health education in the context of a 'health and physical education' (HPE) curriculum varies widely between…

This article presents an analysis of those curricular practices that reproduce dominant ideas about nation, which in turn facilitate the circulation of exclusionary ways of knowing about subjects and their communities in schools. In this study we use ethnographic knowledge produced in two Chilean schools where we conducted ethnographic fieldwork,…

In this article, we examine how school district leaders bolster white supremacy by deploying white innocence, a discourse in which individuals or entities project a positive image of themselves while deflecting blame for racism. We focus on a school district that was the site of strategic and sustained advocacy from Black community members and…

In this paper, we make initial advances towards building an argument for the inclusion of Critical Literacy Awareness within the new Early Career Framework in England. Using illustrative examples from recent research projects, we argue that post-2010 education policy has discursively divided practitioners, structuring relationships between…

In an increasingly diverse U.S. society, schools maintain Eurocentrism and White supremacy through curriculum, failing to give marginalized populations (and students of color in particular) space to make sense of the world from their particular positions. This maintenance of White supremacy also means that White students do not learn how to better…

Mindfulness has woven through American education for decades as an enduring concept aimed at reforming teachers, students, and classrooms. Signified as a "quiet revolution" in media and education policy today, our youth have been rebranded and schools remarketed as "A Nation at Hope," with promises of mindfulness and…

Recent efforts to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory in U.S. public schools have been criticized for fundamentally misunderstanding both CRT and K-12 teaching and teacher education. This paper argues that Anti-CRT fear-mongering in the U.S. is a new face on an old practice, the racist use of public education to sustain White supremacy. Using…

This study presents a critical policy analysis of California's Assembly Bill 329 (AB 329) regarding inclusive sex education, coupled with a series of coding phases of relevant data. AB 329, enacted in 2015, mandates comprehensive sexual health education in California schools, aiming to address the needs of diverse student populations, including…

Developing the future scientists of tomorrow requires that the science teachers of today be well versed in the languages and practices of science. This may require in-service teachers to shift the way they think about learning and the role they play in their classrooms. One approach to helping teachers gain a sense of comfort with current science…

Turkey has become a powerful example of rising ethno-religious nationalism since the ruling Justice and Development Party allied with the Nationalist Movement Party in 2016. Conceptualising the political ideology in power as Islamic nationalism, I expose ways in which this ideology is articulated in the education reform discourse of 'new Turkey'…

This paper examines how the initiation of a national-level curricular reform invites different educational ideas and how such ideas attain legitimacy through policy narratives that confer meanings about school knowledge, schooling, and the nation using the case of the South Korean national curriculum reform of 2015. By critically analysing…

Integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is becoming increasingly common in K-12 classrooms, and small group activities are ubiquitous to STEM instruction. This article includes both theoretical and practical descriptions of a microethnographic approach to critical multimodal discourse analysis that we used to…

Purpose: Critical literacy foregrounds the relationship between language and power by focusing on how texts work and in whose interests (Luke, 2012, p. 5). It is highlighted as an "important skill" within Scotland's national educational framework for 3-18 year olds, the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), yet, as this paper aims to show,…