In this polylog to the special issue on "The rise of Chinese language education policies in the oil-rich Arabian Gulf: New players, discourses and linguistic markets," three researchers with different personal and professional connections to the three languages 'at play' in the region -- English, Chinese, and Arabic -- offer their…

Decades of neoliberal capitalism have had a corrosive effect on public education, with implications for both the fiscal realities of education systems and the ideological values guiding curriculum and pedagogy. While the culture of neoliberalism has often been studied, it is equally important to expand analyses of the shifting material conditions…

After the fall of the communist regime, Romania launched the first multi-systemic reform in the education sector in 1995. The reform was largely financed through a World Bank loan and closely followed the neo-liberal ideology promoted by Bank officials. It aimed to privatize and to implement private sector management principles in the public…

This paper explores the intersection of neoliberal ideologies and language policy in the context of Chinese language education in Oman's higher education system. Drawing on critical discourse analysis and theoretical frameworks of neoliberalism, the study investigates the introduction of Chinese language programmes within Omani universities, with…

Colleges and universities and members of their communities--administrators, faculty, and students--are caught in the crosshairs of sharply divided sociopolitical debates. Issues at home and abroad have polarized campuses, reflective of national division. With activism alive and well on campuses across the nation, and very much the focus of public…

This paper contributes to research on lifelong learning (LL) by examining discourses of multilateral organisations through the lens of 'progressive neoliberalism', in which contradictory ideologies of social justice movements and capitalism are hybridised (Fraser 2017). LL has been interpreted as a means of upskilling to remain competitive in the…

We argue that current approaches to Study Skills support are presented as being a panacea for resolving the issues presented by neoliberal approaches to educational expansion. We argue that for such a panacea to be believed pedagogically effective, four key tenets must be adhered to: Study skills is a definable entity; it is valuable for every…

With the expansion of online instruction in K-12 education, how and what is taught in a single course has the potential to affect the learning of thousands of students. Our mixed method study applies a critical lens to examine the extent to which four widely used online high school courses are culturally relevant and responsive. Online lessons…

This article considers how neoliberalism has created a reductionist view of lifelong learning in the UK focused on upskilling workers for the labour market. This critical policy analysis uses Marx's theory of labour-power, as conceptualised by Glenn Rikowski, to examine the Skills and Post-16 Education Act, 2022 and to identify its ideological…

Learning loss due to the pandemic has become a significant global concern. The purpose of this paper is to understand the newspaper coverage of the COVID-19 learning loss. Critical discourse analysis is utilized to analyze (N = 38) newspaper articles. Results include: constructions of youth identities, racialized constructions of youth identities,…

This article focuses on a particular group in capitalist society that is disabled, demeaned and denied by capitalism itself, through processes of economic exploitation, systematic and systemic class exclusion, and discrimination/ prejudice- that is- the working class. In doing so I recognise that the working class (defined as all those who sell…

This article presents the findings of a critical ethnography focused on the English-medium instruction (EMI) policy in Nepal's public schools. Through the analysis of policy documents and interviews with policymakers, the study reveals that policymakers view the EMI policy as a solution to the crisis in public schools by enhancing their…

The enduring colonial-like relations among Northern and Southern spaces continue to influence knowledge production and dissemination. Critical scholarship on epistemic diversity in higher education has argued that knowledge circulation is often unilateral considering how global partnerships among universities and higher education models are still…

This paper explores power bases and power tensions among education bureaux, inspection offices, and schools in China. The six bases of social power were applied as the analytical framework to scrutinize 13 policy documents and eight interviews with inspectors. The study uncovered three types of power tensions: education bureau's informational…

This study problematizes English language teaching departments (ELT) in Turkey that have ignored the importance of radical pedagogy, the history of British colonialism and neoliberalism in the curriculum because Orientalist, Occidentalist and neoliberal discourses have led to the exclusion of critical discourses in ELT in Turkey. Therefore, the…