We argue that the compelling critical perspective put forward by Michael Sandel in "The Tyranny of Merit" could benefit from the account of power that "Cut Loose" advanced in its earlier typology. First, the ways that principles of meritocracy serve the interests of particular social groups become clearer when we consider more…

We explore social justice advocacy and education from the vantage point of elite theory as articulated in the works of Gaetano Mosca and Vilfredo Pareto. Elite theory is applied here to re-appraise the explicit and implicit educational means and ends inspired by contemporary social justice along three inter-related dimensions: the place of…

This article utilizes feminist and postcolonial scholarship to shed light on the affective governmentality that takes place in the context of both liberal democracy and right-wing populism. In particular, it articulates a political grammar of feelings that makes visible in democratic education how affective modes of governing operate and what…

With "Empire," Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri reinvigorated debates in political theory and radical philosophy about the cultivation of revolutionary subjectivity. Their theorization of Empire and multitude has also significantly affected the tenor of critical approaches to educational theory during the past two decades. In this…

This study aimed to present a political analysis on how the political power uses the neocorporatist strategy while generating consent to education policies and what role civil society associations such as educational associations and unions play in generating consent to the education policies implemented in Turkey. [This paper was published in:…

In the past ten years radical educators have developed several theories around the notions of reproduction and resistance. In this article, Henry Giroux critically analyzes the major positions of these theories, finding them inadequate as a foundation for a critical science of schooling. He concludes by outlining the directions for a new theory of…

Foundational to Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) was the influence of Marx's theory of historical materialism. Vygotsky's work radically rejected the traditional approaches of developmental psychology. The ZPD centralized the importance of potential development not only by measuring or testing what a child could perform, but a tool to…

The push toward socially just music education begs the question of whether activist music teaching may foster a new autocracy. In this paper, I consider how Deleuzian lines of flight and the related concepts of nomadism, territorialization, deterritorialization, and reterritorialization trouble or extend activist music education. I further explore…

This essay offers a new interpretation of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's landmark work of critical social theory "Empire." It develops an account of the politics of exile by situating this political strategy in terms of Hardt and Negri's claim that it is no longer feasible to confront capitalist power head-on. It attends closely to…

As it emerged in the late twentieth century, Empire promised a new era of global cooperation and stability through a seamless integration of late capitalism and neoliberal technocracy. Premised as an end to history itself, all that was left to accomplish was to tinker at the margins, stimulate corporate enterprise, embrace financialization and…

Contemporary politics has brought the figure of the 'uneducated' into glaring view, from Trump's 'love' of the 'poorly educated' to analyses suggesting a supposed 'uneducated populous' is responsible for the rise of far-right politics. In this paper I respond to this so-called 'post-truth' contemporary moment by considering how education underpins…

Critical discourses in intercultural communication (IC) scholarship continue to foreground the postcolonial malaise of Southern spaces. Intercultural communication education (ICE) may encounter some pedagogical challenges in its endeavour to reflect the complexity and depth of the discipline and its recent critical turn. This paper seeks to…

The primary purpose of this article is to present the critique of critical pedagogy in analogy to Karl Marx's and Friedrich Engels's critique of critical critique and through the materialist theory of education developed by the Polish philosopher of education and Marxist Bogdan Suchodolski, whose work, Fundamental Ideas of a Materialist Theory of…

In this article we ask, what was Lenin's idea of education and learning and what was needed in developing revolutionary consciousness in the service of the emerging Soviet Union? We suggest that bringing Lenin's ideas of education and learning back into focus in educational theory, and especially in critical pedagogy, it is possible to search for…

Accounts of neoliberalism in education frequently evoke a universal trend, with insufficient attention to context, as well as routinely presenting the 'pre-neoliberal' as the ideal. This paper argues that studies of neoliberalism, concentrated in the global North, frequently ignore the distinctive forms and histories of neoliberalism in the global…