We examine the ideal twenty-first century learner as discursively produced in recent future-oriented documents published by the OECD and UNESCO. Drawing inspiration from Bacchi's question 'What is the problem represented to be?', we identify a constellation of interrelated discourses that together craft an image of a post-political, resilient,…

This article presents an exploratory qualitative study that investigated a group of Chinese school teachers' imaginaries of intellectuals and self-perceived experiences of being an intellectual. The study was informed by the perspectives of critical pedagogy, that is, to transform technician-like teachers to organic, transformative, or…

Alternative teacher education programmes associated with the Teach For All network are emerging worldwide. Largely inspired by Teach For America, these programmes draw on the meritocratic vision that 'one day' all children will receive a high-quality education and fulfil their potential. This paper questions the underlying ideology of meritocracy…

Internationally, particularly in Western societies, the concept of multiculturalism tends to be associated with 'progressive' and liberal social visions promoting cultural diversity and minority rights. However, multiculturalism may not necessarily be a 'cure' for social division, but a 'veil' that covers political fractures and imbalances within…

This paper reports on a reflexive exercise contributing a meta-mapping of typologies of GCE and supplementary analysis of that mapping. Applying a heuristic of three main discursive orientations reflected in much of the literature on GCE -- neoliberal, liberal, and critical -- and their interfaces, we created a social cartography of how nine…

This article examines how and why the US reconstructed Okinawa in Japan, with a focus on the theme of 'self' and 'others' in educational interaction. I argue that during the occupation of Okinawa, the US tried to detach Okinawa from Japan socio-culturally, using the historically based racial tensions between them by promoting the local 'Ryukyuan'…

It was not until the 1930s that comparative education, with the initiation of dedicated courses and programmes at universities in various countries, that the field became internationally recognised in its own right. And, it was not until the 1930s that the first internationally recognised journal in the field, the "International Education…

This article analyses history teaching in South Sudanese secondary schools and focuses on the interplay of local context, curricular intentions, and teachers' agency. Drawing on ethnographic data, the article focuses on how the main objectives of national unity and critical thinking are enacted by teachers in the classroom. Through theories of…

Over the last decade, education has been advanced as a new and legitimate core of the humanitarian crisis response. "Education in Emergencies" (EiE) developed into an institutionalised field of humanitarian practice, advocacy, and scholarly work. Identifying how emergency discourses have been critiqued to operate as "social…

The article seeks to formulate a comparative framework that explains the uneven development of schooling in Cyprus and Singapore during the British colonial rule. It specifically focuses on the moment of transition to independence and on the role played by ideas and the interaction of ideas in the evolution of social institutions. The overall…

Nearly four decades of instability and fragility have led to many changes in the status of women and girls in Afghanistan. Yet, little research focuses on these changes within the education system. To understand the country's stance toward gender issues in formal practice, we examine gender representations in Afghan primary-level Dari language…

The promotion of "critical citizenship" has become a key objective of official school curricula around the world. Using an analytic framework developed by the authors, this paper identifies the diverse conceptions of critical citizenship that are promoted, by comparing the official school curricula for citizenship in England and France.…

Just as the world has increasingly been compressed over recent decades through transnationally engaged actors or "carriers" such as mobile experts, international organisations, and seemingly globalised bodies of knowledge, so have China's politicians and academics increasingly "gone global" in various fields of social action,…

This introductory paper emphasises the importance of sustained inter disciplinary engagement and context sensitivity for a holistic approach to policy studies. It introduces a model on possible perspectives that can be adopted in researching (language education) policy actions in different contexts. It proposes that questions on the…

This article discusses how history, the cultural setting, and the political-ideological contexts may influence educational research in China. It seeks to demonstrate a dichotomy between official and popular discourses, and argues that there is a need for the researcher to understand and interpret the language style used in various interview…