Education theory has been exhibiting a renewed rejection of education's instrumentality to political and economic influences against a policy trend that implicitly considers education a mere pragmatic tool. This paper suggests an ontological investigation that goes beyond normatively supporting or rejecting the instrumentality of education. It…

Two movies appeared at the same time in the summer of 2023, Oppenheimer and Barbie. Although they seem to be quite different, they were joined together in the public eye, being referred to as "Barbieheimer". They were also notable for being very popular, although neither is a typical "summer movie". Each is focused on a serious…

In large aspects of contemporary career discourse, the importance of the "agile career" is asserted, although the speed of change has not been explicitly considered in relation to this concept. The political dimensions of the agile career via the lens of "speed" are explored in this theoretical paper. Particular attention is…

This article proposes the Kingdon-Khan Model (KKM) as an extension of John Kingdon's Multiple Streams Model (MSM) of agenda setting. While the MSM is comprehensively used to explain how issues reach policymakers' agendas, it underrepresents the influence of media, public opinion, and social movements on agenda setting. To address this limitation,…

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…

Previous literature informed by biopolitical theory has shown how global education for sustainable development differentiates between populations by assigning different roles, responsibilities, and lifestyles to rich and poor. Taking these arguments as a point of departure, this paper first identifies three different 'problems' pertaining to…

Translanguaging remains a timely and important topic in bi/multilingual education. The most recent turn in translanguaging scholarship involves attention to translanguaging "in context" in response to critiques of translanguaging as a universally empowering educational practice. In this paper, seven early career translanguaging scholars…

This paper grapples with methodological issues related to ongoing debates on positionality and reflexivity by drawing on the author's experience of conducting research in a culturally familiar field. The paper is based on in-depth qualitative research that examined the lived realities of unemployed young people residing in the township of Daveyton…

In 2023, charter school advocates continued to make legislative gains in statehouses across the country. These gains were made in red, blue, and purple states, oftentimes in ways that showed bipartisan support for charter schools remains firmly in place. In looking at the results of this year's legislative sessions across the country, four…

Slogans in education are designed to promote educational goals. One of the finest remarkable examples in Slovenian history demonstrates that political slogans can sometimes cover a whole range of social areas and operate as a central ideologeme, through which a very specific political and educational ambition was promoted in an otherwise…

One of the most powerful influences in higher education today is the concept of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). Managed by an ever-growing bureaucracy and promoting a seductive, though ambiguous, message to this generation of students, DEI continues to grow on campuses. Of course what gestates on campuses doesn't stay there. DEI is now a…

In conversation with playwright and theatre journalist Rina Vergano, multidisciplinary artist and musician Roxana Vilk unpicks her own experience of diaspora and the ways in which her cultural, familial and political roots have informed her artistic practice and inspired her current project about the power of lullabies.

In response to contagion, competing and contradictory movements emerge that engender openness to new modes of life and reactionary defenses of old ones, that acknowledge mutual dependency and vulnerability and that heighten the policing and surveillance of borders. Through reading the Empire project, this article articulates these as struggles…

This article examines why and how teachers of refugees enact protection by engaging with local forms of harm facing their refugee students. Through portraits of two classrooms in Jordan, we describe the relationships that form between Jordanian teachers and Syrian students, and the protection practices teachers develop in response. We propose a…

Federal and highly decentralized political systems open different spaces to interpret, adapt, and enact international policy trends and ideas within the same territory. Spain, a country with a highly decentralized educational system and contentious territorial politics, is a very suitable case to analyze these dynamics. Spain and its different…