The aim of this paper is to contribute to a long-standing critical tradition in the educational leadership literature through an analytical examination of the idiosyncrasies of leadership in Higher Education institutions (based on the UK example). It applies a postmodern way of thinking to the educational leadership phenomenon to problematise and…

In this article, the author reports on an awareness of controversial incidents on campuses around North America surrounding "politically correct" speech codes and thought control measures instituted at the behest of faculty and students of this ideological persuasion. It seems that critical theory is going beyond "critical…

The author seeks to revitalize the interests of social educators in the value of using critical, postmodern discourses for rich comprehension of and productive scholarly research in our field. These discourses (a) challenge existing understanding within social education and the knowledge and knower they help produce; and (b) imagine more complex,…

In the shadow of triumphalist and hubristic capitalism, many adherents to critical pedagogy promote "democracy" as a kind of anti-capitalist challenge to inequality, oppression and exploitation. However, American culture has gone global, immersing the world in the received wisdom of a variety of liberalisms or in the reaction formations of…

Over a decade after publication of "Thinking Again: Education After Postmodernism" (1998) contention still emerges among Foucaultians over whether discursively made-up things really exist, and whether removal of the constituent subject leaves room for agency within techniques of caring for the self. That these questions are kept alive shows that…

This article elaborates mimesis as a theory of causality used to explain human behavior. Drawing parallels to social constructionism's critique of positivism and naturalism, mimesis is offered as a theory of causality explaining human behavior that contests the current dominance of Newton's theory of causality as cause and effect. The contestation…

This paper critically analyses the neo-liberal discourse informing global education policy and practice. We use postcolonial theory to deconstruct the contexts for global educational partnerships, highlighting how issues of power and representation are central to their development and the learning that takes place within them. Teacher development…

While modernism with its principles lying in reason and metanarratives was commended for rationalism and absolute truth yielded in science and technology, postmodernism rejects scientific achievements which have brought both benefits and disasters to life and widened social stratification. It describes a rejection of such fundamental Western…

In his "Rethinking Domination and Resistance: Challenging Postmodernism" ("Educational Researcher," January-February, 2004), Aaron Schutz questioned what he saw as postmodernism's fascination with the workings of pastoral modes of control, a preoccupation that prevents postmodernists from locating and opposing the disciplinary controls experienced…

Perhaps one of the most taken-for-granted features of contemporary social theory is the ritual and increasingly generic critique of Marxism in terms of its alleged failure to address forms of oppression other than that of "class." Marxism is considered to be theoretically bankrupt and intellectually passe, and class analysis is often savagely…

These books are, in many ways, companion volumes addressed to educators working on curricular issues and educational reform. Both consider how postmodernism, feminism, and cultural studies contribute to contemporary educational theory and social criticism. The authors make a convincing case for critical "border pedagogy" that examines…