"Because Democracy Is Difficult and Dangerous" is an excerpt from "Woke Is Not Enough: School Reform for Leaders with Justice in Mind" (2022). Each chapter of the book focuses on a domain of school reform relevant to school leadership today: racial justice, democratic governance, restorative justice, student activism, and…

Neo-liberal reforms in education have been sweeping the globe, undermining education as a public good, and diminishing its contributions to democratic life. Using post-structural perspectives, this article provides a critical discourse analysis of a proposed legislative bill in the province of Manitoba, Canada, as it relates to the construction of…

Setting in train various forms of curriculum and pedagogic change in schools whilst seeking to improve both teaching strategies and Aboriginal educational outcomes in Australia is a complex business. This involves a sustained effort to equip the next generation of educators with the skills and knowledges to identify, diagnose, and devise remedies…

Chen Heqin (1892-1982), who studied at Columbia University's Teachers College, is an important Chinese descendant of Dewey's pragmatic education. Chen Heqin proposed his own 'living education' theory through inheriting, transforming, and surpassing Dewey's 'life education' theory. This theory was based on Chinese experiments and multi-dimensional…

Just over a decade on from a spike of interest in Jacques Rancière's writing within educational philosophy and theory, I revisit his interventions on democracy and education to make the case for (re)engaging with Rancière's writing "now" to address important questions about contemporary education policy, the role of schools in democratic…

This study explores how early childhood teachers in a progressive private school in the Midwest adapted to changes resulting from the closing of schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Employing Bourdieu's notions of habitus, field, and illusio, we examine how educators in the school approached the move to distance learning during the early months…

In his acceptance speech of the National Academy of Kinesiology's (NAK) 2008 Hetherington Award, Daryl Siedentop (2008) humbly declared: "I have had the privilege for many years to play a small role in the development of research in the field now universally referred to as sport pedagogy" (p. 10). That declaration encapsulates the manner…

For decades, transnational knowledge circulation in relation to schooling in Ireland has been a neglected area of study among historians. This paper provides new insights through a transnational lens on primary, secondary, and vocational curriculum developments in the first decade following the advent of national independence in the country in…

In Arizona, the expansion and elaboration of neoliberal educational policies over the past three decades in Arizona have placed public schools and the teaching profession in precarious positions. These challenges have been compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic. Within this turbulent context, a school district in partnership with a college of…

Through a Foucauldian theoretical framework, this article contests the efficacy of the modern assessable and visible learning curriculum, and analyses how the current education episteme disempowers the ethical subjectification of the individual, dislocating the development of aesthetic agency. It articulates a tension between education for the…

Korea is recognized around the world for its performance on international educational assessments and the economic development its educational system has facilitated. However, there is also a deficit in well-being among young Koreans. In response, Korean educators have developed alternative, whole person approaches. This article reports a study of…

It is a widespread belief in many cultural contexts that teachers shall be moral educators and moral exemplars. However, in recent years, this conventional belief has been challenged by progressive views of various social and educational changes. In China, there is a particularly long tradition of regarding teachers as moral guardians who shall…

The author examines and critiques Ohio's new education policy in the context of historical education policy.

This paper makes a significant contribution to contemporary debates over the direction curriculum reforms should take. It challenges claims that progressive pedagogies can exclude disadvantaged learners from gaining access to powerful knowledge and argues that greater attention needs to be given to learner agency and subject didactics. It reports…

This study explores the experiences of teaching and learning in a progressive school. In this study, I explored three primary research questions: a) How do efforts to maintain a progressive educational approach to teaching and learning play out in the experiences of teachers and administrators? b) How does test-based reform affect or challenge…