This paper presents an overview of critical policy scholarship (CPS) in education. Historically, policy research has been dominated by what is commonly referred to as the policy science tradition, which is positivist in its philosophical stance and instrumentalist in its purpose--it focuses on producing knowledge relevant for policy decisions.…

Philanthropic foundations are influential policy entrepreneurs in higher education, advocating new ideas, engaging in collaborative activities, and seeding research to inform the decision-making process. Despite occupying this role, the higher education literature has yet to examine how philanthropic foundations promote ideas between entities or…

We describe the alumni engagement efforts by Teach For America (TFA) in Detroit as a case study of the specific ways that the organization works to influence its alumni's involvement in educational politics and disposition towards particular types of educational reform. During the 2019-20 school year, TFA Detroit facilitated a series of…

In this qualitative case study, I examine pre-service teachers' experiences with school shooting policy. Analysis of individual interviews, group discussions and reflective memos with preservice teachers (n=7) in seven Massachusetts districts shows that pre-service teachers, while deeply concerned about the possibility of school shootings, viewed…

This paper discusses the emergence of an opt-out movement in Israel led by parent associations at local and national levels. The protest targeted the use of a national standardized test, the Meitzav. Analyzing media coverage of this movement and informed by the theoretical arguments of the Advocacy Coalition Framework, the study suggests that by…

In France as in other European countries, access to education for immigrants beyond compulsory schooling is selectively achieved, through a triage implemented by education administrations. Support organizations are increasingly solicited on this matter. Considering the twofold policy role of non-profits which both act as advocates and providers,…

Advocacy coalitions have the potential to be a vehicle for community-based education reform in urban school systems, where state legislatures have increasingly adopted top-down policies such as state takeover and accountability systems. Yet, coalitions are influenced by and create their own informal and formal power structures that can include or…

This article presents findings from an analysis of the American Federation for Children Network (AFC) policy network using tools from network ethnography and qualitative content analysis. Specifically, we examined tax forms and carried out extensive web searches to spatialize and map the AFC network, mined text from policy-actors in the AFC…

This article explores the policy interests expressed by the largest private educational system in the United States, American Catholic schools, during the first four months of the COVID-19 crisis. Critical discourse analysis is applied to public texts produced by the Catholic Church between March 1 and July 1, 2020, in order to understand the…

As American teacher educators and teachers are being roiled by restrictive legislation around critical race theory and divisive concepts in some states, our investigation explored the impact of critical communities of practice (CoP) on redesigning and teaching introduction to education courses with a transformative lens. This manuscript details…

Teacher leadership is important both within and beyond the school. Teacher leaders have the potential to expand their role beyond policy implementation in the classroom to influence educational policy development. However, few teachers receive explicit preparation or guidance for contributing their voice and providing first-hand knowledge of…

As the political arena becomes increasingly polarized, the legal arena is playing a more important role in the creation of education policy in the United States. One critical stage in the legal process for such efforts is at briefing where "amici curiae," or friends-of-the-court, may introduce additional arguments for the court to…

Mexican schools are in crisis, where LGBT+ students face constant violence and discrimination. In the past decade, civil society has led the way in evaluating school climate and assessing LGBT+ students' needs in Mexican schools. Unsurprisingly, individuals most affected by this violence and discrimination, LGBT+ individuals, have pushed these…

Science denial in the post-truth era is driven by both the rejection of empirical science and the fraudulent use of scientific language. Education policy based on junk science produced by philanthrocapitalists depoliticizes political questions by relocating complex legislative and policy issues from the realm of political and philosophical…

Scholars of political economy have raised the question of whether recent populist movements around the world signal the decline of neoliberal hegemony. What would such a decline mean for education policy, an arena that has been dominated by a neoliberal common sense for several decades? This study investigates the policy discourse of former U.S.…