Internationally, assessment and the use of diagnostic data are recognized as critical capabilities for teachers. This is not a recent development, with assessment recognized for some decades as playing a significant role in informing learning and learners.This paper will examine whether teachers and members of the school leadership team utilize…

Critical policy analysis examining how powerful actors use educational policies to reproduce unequal social structures presents many challenges. These challenges are amplified by the politics of spectacle, where duplicity comes to dominate how educational policies are conceptualized, presented to the public, and subsequently enacted. The pursuit…

Researchers often find themselves reflecting on either/or questions. This article examines the multiple discursive reality of gender equality, a topic comprising several juxtapositions connected to either/or thinking which also provide the topic its legitimacy. The examples come from the context of gender equality work and gender equality policy,…

The citizenship curriculum used in Taiwan during the authoritarian period from 1949 to 1987 sacrificed the individual for the national interest as a tool for political socialisation. In the wake of democratisation since 1987, the curriculum has gradually been stripped of its nationalist overtones which were designed to foster 'informed citizens'…

This paper draws on Gramsci's concept of hegemony to locate the Newbolt Report, published in 1921, within a context of the weakening political authority of Britain's ruling class. One indication of this is the fact that in 1917 200,000 workers were involved in strikes in 48 British towns. The moral and cultural dimensions of the problems facing…

In this paper, I explore the ways in which post-oppositional theorizing can be used to bridge between qualitative inquiry and praxis to address issues of inequities in education. I present an overview of how oppositional thinking has been privileged in academia creating an ontological trapping, with subsequent drainage of our energies and efforts.…

Chicago has long struggled with racial residential segregation, high rates of poverty, and deepening class stratification, and it can be a challenging place for adolescents to grow up. "Unequal City" examines the ways in which Chicago's most vulnerable residents navigate their neighborhoods, life opportunities, and encounters with the…

Contrary to David Olson's claim that authority is conveyed by textbook language, it is mainly the school context of textbooks that establishes their authority--and that of teachers--in students' minds. The curriculum is not in the text but in the social rules reflected by school organization and teachers' authority. (JW)

Although Luke, de Castell, and Luke rightly notice the role of social structure in the authority of the textbook, the pattern of social authority outside the school is primarily reflected in the text itself. The task for writers, then, is to clarify the grounds for their authoritative claims. (JM)

Examines common assumptions concerning the interrelationship between power and knowledge, and considers four ways that the power/knowledge argument can go awry: power as the cause of social inequity, categorization as discrimination, reason as repression, and the system as responsible. The paper encourages greater thoughtfulness in talking about…

Interviews English parents who had at least one child who had finished compulsory schooling about their school choice and experience of compulsory schooling. Examines different significances that parents attached to discipline and why. Argues that power relations between adult/child and resulting from social location are relevant to understanding…

Discusses illiteracy in social structural terms, that is, as a predictable consequence of the routine workings of basic institutions in a class-based society. Shows how, in this context, illiteracy can be seen as a "rational" achievement. (CMG)

Within the current historical crisis of transnational capitalism, disabled people are finding themselves increasingly at risk. It is essential to (re)theorize the category of disability, particularly in critical response to the emancipatory possibilities offered through "border pedagogies." The paper locates the conceptual category of disability…

Teachers and principals have a lot of power, but the power of teachers is different as the students over which they have power are more vulnerable. Teachers should acknowledge their power and the opportunities they have been given to open doors for children. (MD)

Literacy, reasoning, and civility in education are discussed from the perspective of social organization and cultural patterning. Schools are part of the larger social environment and perpetuate social class and rank as well as teach the curriculum. Reforms should change the social relations between teachers and students as well as instructional…