The paper outlines the history of the different uses of 'quality' in higher education. Emphasis is given to the United Kingdom, but consideration is also given to a range of international contexts. Three different uses of 'academic quality' are identified (the state-driven, sector-derived, and the traditional academic uses) and their relationship…

If there is one thing all university rankings have in common, it is that they are the target of widespread criticism. This article takes the many challenges university rankings are facing as its point of departure and asks how they navigate their hostile environment. The analysis proceeds in three steps. First, we unveil two modes of ranking…

Post qualitative inquiry has called for method-less research and warned against the incommensurability of the use of systematic research methods with poststructural and new materialist theories. This essay offers a counterpoint to the incommensurability argument by presenting four examples of studies informed by poststructural and new materialist…

This article presents the use of conversation analysis (CA) in the context of sociocultural theory (SCT) driven research on L2 development, or CA-for-SCT. I focus specifically on the CA concept of action ascription as it applies to understanding the nature of mediation in interaction. I begin with an overview of the concept of action ascription…

The Russian invasion of Ukraine, on 24th February 2022, was met with widespread condemnation across Europe, with many universities and higher education-focussed national and regional organisations issuing their own public statements about the invasion and subsequent conflict and, in some cases, taking specific action in relation to one or both of…

As an entitlement to rights, well-being and equity, young children's citizenship lays the foundation for a democratic, just and sustainable world. This article interrogates the discursive constructions of 'citizenship' within recent early childhood curriculum documents in China and Aotearoa New Zealand. Since the 1990s, both nations have released…

This article considers the role that the examination of text plays in empirical language policy research. It begins by examining the state-of-the-art in language policy, observing that a core focus on action represents a shared characteristic of the various strands of discursive and ethnographic research over the last two decades. That is, the…

This article delves into the examination of the similarities and disparities between education and enhancement, with a particular focus on enhancement within the realm of NBIC (Nano-Bio-Information Technology, Cognitive Science). After scrutinizing how proponents of enhancement have delineated the concept of education, our investigation unfolds…

This paper makes the case that love, in particular a lover's discourse, is regularly excluded from the work we do in higher education. As educators, we are seldom empowered to reach for a discourse of love, nor are we taught to embody love explicitly in our work. This doesn't mean that love doesn't exist in education, but rather something more…

In this forum paper, I grapple with critical questions about our understanding of science as a discipline and the education standards formulated within that framing. My exploration is contextualized in our current socio-political climate and is presented in discourse with Charity Winburn's "Meeting the needs of the individual student in the…

This paper argues that the dominant modes of academic address, the conference paper, the journal article, and the monograph, reinforce problematic and exclusionary assumptions concerning what counts as legitimate research, whilst also restricting academic enquiry and impoverishing intellectual life. It makes its case by exploring in some detail…

This paper focuses on contemporary tensions and contradictions in current Norwegian educational policy discourse. Based on critical discourse analysis (CDA) of Norwegian governmental white papers our analysis reveals that contemporary Norwegian policy formulation is torn between an egalitarian and a selection discourse about how to tackle…

Slogans in education have been the subject of critical analysis -- at least in the context of philosophy of education -- for more than half a century. Some of these slogans are no longer relevant or frequently used, while their analyses and explanations are still an appropriate theoretical basis for understanding new educational slogans. One of…

According to commognitive conceptualization, development of mathematical thinking, whether historical or ontogenetic, requires periodic transitions to mathematical discourse "incommensurable" with the one that has been practiced so far. In this new discourse, some familiar mathematical words will be used in a new way. Historically, such…

This conceptual essay explores the contentious discourse surrounding Coach Prime Deion Sanders' decision to leave Jackson State University (JSU), a historically Black college and university (HBCU), for the University of Colorado (CU), a predominantly white institution (PWI). Using King's principle of Black historical contention and Glaude's…