In 2014 the Icelandic government implemented a reform that reduced the time of all academic programs of upper secondary education from an average of four years in duration to three, aiming to increase efficiency in the education system. Drawing on critical policy analysis, this study explores wider consequences of the reform's enactment for higher…

Every province and territory in Canada has the authority to oversee higher education policies. In recent provincial and federal policy reforms, neoliberalism and academic capitalism have been gaining influence in Canadian higher education. This particularly applies to the policy reform plan "Alberta 2030: Building Skills for Jobs," which…

The "Brown" decision represents a watershed moment in U.S. history as the remedy served as a guiding light during a pandemic. A pandemic is an epidemic taking place on a scale that spans the globe. A circumstance is not a pandemic merely because it exists in different regions of the world or results in the death of many people; it must…

This paper uses critical policy analysis to investigate how the concept of equity has been co-opted to promote a neoliberal agenda in education reforms in Manitoba. Early provincial reform documents contained a narrow definition of equity focused primarily on closing achievement gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. These reform…

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) is changing across Europe, reflecting multiple-policy intentions and assumptions about education in early years, and the role of the state in supporting, funding and regulating its institutions. In this article, we examine the evolution of ECEC comparatively in Finland and Sweden, and we explore the shifts…

There has been a transnational policy convergence in introducing professional standards for school leaders, and it constitutes a dominant discourse on school leadership. Focusing on the adoption of external references in policy transfer, this article presents a case in which the global leadership discourse was transferred to China, and the Chinese…

In the wake of the racial reckoning created by the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, several states have enacted multiple anti-equity educational measures. Florida is central in this discussion as it leads the US policymaking with 23 bills introduced and passed into law. Further, Florida's particular constellation of educational reforms has…

With the rise of accountability measures in education, many policymakers have also argued the need to record, assess, and certify students' holistic development. However, using China as a case, we caution how a policy-driven reform on the assessment of holistic development might fall into the pitfall of performativity. Borrowing from Ball's (Ball,…

Universities across the globe are considering how to effect meaningful change in their higher education (HE) delivery in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and shifting student learning preferences. This paper reports on a descriptive case- study of whole-of-institution curriculum reform at one regional Australian university, where more traditional…

The European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) is based on a quantitative and accumulative understanding of time, which increasingly frames academic practices and notions of learning in higher education (HE). By example of a recent Danish policy reform, the article explores the connections between the ECTS, new institutional…

Despite widespread commitment to inclusive education as government policy, global progress in the last two decades has been slow and uneven. This article explores the relationship between policy and its enactment to examine what conditions make inclusion available as a course of action within education systems. Focusing on learners with additional…

Curriculum has become a core element of universities' competitive positioning, internationally and nationally. This paper presents a longitudinal analysis of policy processes and outcomes associated with 'radical' university curriculum reforms that resulted in divergence from institutions' own historical patterns and national conventions and…

This article aims to serve as an introductory discussion of the European Continental tradition of pedagogics, specifically from a North American perspective. It begins with an overview of the Continental tradition and its main figures. Here, we find a philosophical and, thus, language-sensitive attitude toward the human, the child; and a specific…

This paper investigates how Norwegian school principals prepared to carry out the LK20 reform process. The importance of school principals and middle-level leaders as enactors of change efforts results from their close ties to teachers and teacher classroom practices. This suggests that without negotiation and support from micro-policy actors,…

Purpose: This study introduces a policy with great strategic significance and far-reaching impact by analyzing the background, measures, and future development trends of teacher evaluation reform in China. Design/Approach/Methods: This study primarily conducts a policy text analysis of the section on teacher evaluation of the "Overall Plan…