This paper was invited as a commentary on the keynote paper for this special issue by Simon Marginson and Lili Yang. The paper begins by noting the importance of a fully balanced approach to comparison in higher education, that gives equal value and weight to Sinic and Anglo-American views by adopting a transpositional approach and also…

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) are often the center of discussion among faculty in higher education during discourse about curriculum conceptualization, design, planning development, and implementation. This commentary offers a functionally-centered framework that places faculty feasibility, fluidity, freedom, and flexibility around a core…

This article reflects on the epistemological steamrolling that the 2021 Ofsted Curriculum Research Review (OCRR) accomplishes: in part, by the positioning of the problem and solution through highly selective cherry-picking (omitting key causal factors); in part, through the discursive move of acknowledging complexity before offering simple and…

This article features interview excerpts from 10 Black women who worked as educators in marketized cities and schools, including urban charter schools operated by charter management organizations, and independent schools, known as standalone charter schools. Using a critical race policy framework, the article considers the pedagogical implications…

Wiljan van den Akker is a university professor, a respected academic administrator, and a published poet and writer. From a base at the Utrecht University, in the Netherlands, his three-decade long career spans three continents and includes one-on-one associations with Berkeley, UCLA and Oxford. Currently, he is the Vice-Rector for Research at…

In this interview, Dr. Ozen Guven talks to Dr. Mary Mendenhall, Sonia Gomez, and Emily Varni about their research on teachers and teaching practices in contexts of forced displacement. Mendenhall, Gomez, and Varni recently authored "Teaching Amidst Conflict and Displacement: Persistent Challenges and Promising Practices for Refugee,…

As the COVID-19 pandemic has unfolded, Catholic schools have been faced with numerous challenges, including finances, human resources, and curriculum. Catholic schools are founded on the principle of subsidiarity, a system that provides an uneven capacity for each school. This essay reflects on the impacts of subsidiarity in this time of crisis,…

This article is based on an interview conducted with Mark Olssen in October 2014, and the subsequent discussions. These conversations invited Olssen to reflect on his experiences of neoliberalism as a practising academic who has worked in the UK for some 14 years, and also to comment as a researcher and writer who is well known for his work on…

In praise of isolation: Who says professional learning communities (PLCs) are a better way? The author says the PLC trend is but the latest education fad that is not helping teachers or students. PLCs, says the author, represents an administrative, clinical ideal of collaboration. He blames legions of high-paid consultants, and says that all along…

In this essay, the author argues that inquiry and engagement in the social foundations of education is fundamental to cultivating professionalism in education. As many commentators on the subject have noted, teaching does not meet many of the criteria of a profession derived from the sociological study of fields of work. As Joseph Newman observes,…

The last decade or so has seen an emerging literature supporting the position that school leaders and school leadership are important. This article argues, however, that recent developments in the area of school leadership have led to an orthodoxy that needs to be challenged and tested. It is an orthodoxy that has been driven essentially by those…

Increased state intervention regarding the objectives and outcomes of career guidance leaves some practitioners deeply unhappy at the increased control this exerts over their work. In this article, I argue that practitioners are subject to the power and influence of the state's economic and welfare agendas that are contrary to their preferred…

This paper argues for a conception of autonomy that takes social oppression seriously without sapping autonomy of its valuable focus on individual self-direction. Building on recent work in relational accounts of autonomy, the paper argues that current conceptions of autonomy from liberal, feminist and critical theorists do not adequately account…

In this commentary, the author contends that, if teaching became less private and faculty interacted with each other about teaching more in the way they discuss research, the quality of education would improve. He discusses some ways to facilitate that interaction. In the author's own experience, actually sitting in on a course taught by a…

Education reformers are abuzz over school "turnarounds," a simple idea that has undeniable appeal. School turnarounds offer the opportunity to take familiar educational institutions and improve them through coaching, mentoring, capacity building, best practices, and other existing tools. Unlike most reform efforts, which focus on…