This article examines how the concept of freedom has been appropriated by the far right to impose a number of authoritarian policies designed to dismantle the critical functions of public and higher education. It explores, in particular, the ways in which Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has used an appeal to freedom to punish critics,…

Education systems are often expected to play a key role in developing, maintaining and promoting democratic values and behaviours. This is particularly apparent in Portugal where, after nearly half a century of dictatorship ending in 1974, democracy emerged as a central national aspiration, especially within Early Childhood Education (ECE).…

This article draws on psychoanalytic theory to reconsider democracy, education and their relationship. The author argues for the pervasive presence of fantasmatic thinking in relation to both democracy and education in much media and policy discussion, which fuels our subjection to ideology through cruelly optimistic promises about the future…

This article explores the values that bridge democracy and community dance. Policymakers show an interest in promoting democracy, including the very values shared between community dance and democracy. Observing this, we propose that policy may benefit from examining the pedagogy and practices of community dance, and incorporate relevant aspects…

Concept of citizenship is a key to comprehend about democracy and its working. The citizenship curriculum is straightforward based upon the social and political debates of the community. Therefore, this research article aims to analyze the political literacy as a dimension of citizenship education in the secondary school curriculum of Pakistan.…

An exploration is presented of how education policy and practice may be used to transform society. Specifically, connections are made between Paulo Freire's teaching strategies and radically democratic organizing. The connections are contextualized within the prefigurative tradition, which explores how the democratic process is central to…

In the last 20 years, there has been a growing preoccupation with fragile contexts. International development and diplomatic communities have focused on implementing Western-oriented education policies centered on democratisation efforts to transform fragile contexts. In order to understand what happens when education reform policies are enmeshed…

How questions concerning democracy and emancipation thread through teacher education is currently under theorized and there is a paucity of cross-national studies examining the problem. In this study, we draw from a number of theoretical frameworks for their discursive positioning of democracy and emancipation in teacher education and what we are…

Democratic comprehensive education has been the target of neo-liberal governments--Conservative and New Labour--for thirty years. The project of the present right wing regime Coalition is to complete the demolition. The question before the social democratic tradition is thus to ask whether Raymond Williams' historic "long revolution"…

The transformation of South Africa from a deeply iniquitous apartheid regime to a more inclusive democratic dispensation remains a huge challenge for all South Africans and its social institutions. The university remains one institution that is under severe pressure to transform. This pressure is exacerbated by the deeply entrenched apartheid…

Evaluation in environmental education is fairly nascent despite decades-long attention to its importance. In setting the context for future chapters appearing in this special issue of the "Journal of Evaluation and Program Planning," attention is devoted to the political circumstances associated with retrenchment in the public sector and increased…

The focus of this book extends the discourse on student engagement beyond prescriptive definitions and includes substantive ethical and political issues relating to this concept. As such, this collection includes voices of educational theorists, practitioners, and students. It provides a counter discourse to the current dialogue on student…

Article comments on contributions to an issue of Educational Policy that focuses on glocal politics of education in multiple national and international arenas. Commentary offered considers the ways in which the set of articles in this issue of EP require readers to take scalar leaps across the semiotic landscape of the local into the global. The…

This book focuses on the recent debates surrounding headscarves in public schools in France, where the wearing of an article of clothing became the focus of intense national debate. The book is divided into two parts. Part One, Framing the Discussion, includes the following essays: (1) Essay: Immigration and Integration in Europe (2) France; (3)…

Many educational systems, like many public sectors, find themselves in the midst of rapid changes. In many cases, decentralisation is the order of the day, often alongside re-centralisation. The new relations between supra-national, national, local and organisational levels create novel conditions for leading schools and for establishing…