This paper interrogates the concept of recontextualisation and discusses its relevance for understandings of the knowledge required for teaching subjects. While various distinctive approaches to recontextualisation can be identified, this analysis primarily draws on the work of Bernstein, with recontextualisation discussed in the broader context…

Reflecting through the prisms of past, present ("the shape of things that are and were") and future ("the shape of things to come"), this paper discusses three challenges for sociology of education: the rise of populism and declining faith in 'experts'; inequities within and re/produced by the sociology of education; and how to…

This article focuses on the diasporas' role in fostering Global Citizenship Education (GCE) and provides a basis for understanding how diaspora organizations educate themselves to defend their rights in everyday life. I argue that diaspora organizations are potential agents that foster GCE to defend rights in a hostile environment against people…

This article seeks to contribute to recent theorizing around the concept of powerful knowledge. I begin with a discussion of the current use of the term in both academia and the wider institutional environment of schools. I then give a detailed account of its origins in social realism before exploring different iterations of the concept in recent…

The health emergency generated by COVID-19 and the massive closure of schools has given rise to an unprecedented situation for education systems worldwide. This situation has raised fundamental questions about the role of the school in contemporary societies and whether it still fulfils a particular function as a social institution. This article…

Higher education should be a social good for everyone and, despite the intentions of university policy on inclusion and diversity with schemes on widening participation, the truth is that for working-class students, university is still a place where they encounter prejudices and feelings of exclusion. This article uses the method of…

Neoliberal critiques of university-based teacher education programmes have led to policy changes such as the rise of alternative certification programmes, bringing in to question the role of the university in teacher education. Concomitantly, such changes problematise the place of knowledge and evidence in teacher education. This issue is of…

This article provides a theoretical foundation to argue for an effective and meaningful realization of human rights education in school curricula and beyond. Despite emerging research on a content-related basis and large-scale initiatives, the practical realization of human rights education is mostly still a desideratum. By analyzing relevant…

University examinations categorise students according to their individual achievements determined by teaching staff. This procedure serves the elicitation and certification of student knowledge and thus reproduces academic hierarchies. Drawing on empirical evidence from ethnographic fieldwork in Engineering and History departments, this article…

Decades of developments in inclusive education have seen the waning of deficit discourse towards children with special needs, but exclusion has not yet left the scene. In response to this persistent problem, the Special Issue 'Destroying the Trojan Horse of "lazy inclusivism"' collects the wit of Chinese children, parents, and educators…

This article addresses the paradoxical nature of 'pedagogic governance', developed from Bernstein's 'pedagogic device', that is, the use of pedagogic means (including knowledge) to govern entire populations in a 'totally pedagogised society'. While knowledge structures have received extensive coverage, not much attention has been given to the…

In this article I explore a disposition towards a critique of 'reductionism' and 'determinism' that seems to me to be very much prevalent within British sociology. I take a qualitative educational sociology that uses Bourdieusian concepts as one body of research where this disposition is expressed with particular fervour. A close examination of…

The 'knowledge turn' in curriculum studies has drawn attention to the central role that knowledge of the disciplines plays in education, and to the need for new thinking about how we understand knowledge and knowledge-building. "Knowing History in Schools" explores these issues in the context of teaching and learning history through a…

The history of education is, and can be, many things. In this article, I argue that the history of education in the Nordic countries is marked by three phases, based on its institutional setting. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the history of education was written by schoolmen for schoolmen. In the post-war era, the…

Social media has become a core feature in policy development and enactment. This article extends current features of digital policy sociology to include the entanglement of education policy development processes with new media, paying particular attention to how two conservative think tanks in Australia have strategically used social media in…