In this paper, we engage with the Research Excellence Framework (REF) -- the UK government's national policy tool for competitive allocation of scarce research funding. Success on the terms of the REF provides guaranteed income for UK Universities for a 6- or 7-year period -- and as a result, we suggest that the REF operates as an asset-like…

Philosophical anthropologies (PAs) -- ontological assumptions about human species-nature -- have long faced Foucauldian post-structural rejection of their value and legitimacy in explaining sociological problematics. In this article I endorse Bourdieu's resistance to a post-PA momentum, arguing that PAs need assuming in sociological research. In…

This paper explores how Hannah Arendt's view of education as love (1958) can contribute to refreshed perspectives of democratic education. In recent decades, the task of contemporary early childhood education has gradually moved towards an enhanced focus on individual learning and freedom of choice, closely intertwined with an image of the child…

Since 2019, the national competition rate of the elementary school teacher examination has begun to decrease dramatically, falling to 3.2 applicants for every position in 2018, 2.8 in 2019, and 2.3 in 2023. In 19 out of 47 prefectures, the competition rate was less than two. In 2023, about half of all prefectures could not fill the desired number…

The rise of business schools around the globe has been a success story. However, paradigmatic changes in technology, fundamental shifts in values and major demographic developments have put business schools on the defensive. Students question whether business schools still adequately prepare them for their future careers, managers are concerned…

This paper investigates how early career academics interpret and respond to institutional demands structured by projectification. Developing a 'frame analytic' approach, it explores projectification as a process constituted at the level of meaning-making. Building on 35 in-depth interviews with fixed-term scholars in political science and history,…

Arctic security is a complex and interconnected domain shaped by environmental change, geopolitical competition, economic interests, and sociocultural dynamics. Traditional security education often relies on reductionist methods that fail to capture these interdependencies, leading to fragmented decision-making. This paper introduces the Security…

Families are active agents in school systems and apply different strategies of educational advantage to help their children succeed at school. These strategies are planned and enacted by families with their children in mind, but they are always a response to the broader education system design. This article explores how through their strategies…