Recent evaluations of reforms to improve low-performing schools have almost exclusively focused on shorter term effects. In this study, we extend the literature by examining the sustainability and maturation of two turnaround models in Tennessee: the state-led Achievement School District (ASD) and district-led local Innovation Zones (iZones).…

Most of the literature on student between-track mobility or school choice examines decision making in comprehensive systems or in tracked general education schools. In this article we present data on inter-school mobility (transfers) of upper secondary students in a differentiated educational system with academic, professional and vocational tiers…

This study explores "toddling style" in adult-child interaction. Toddling style was conceptualised by Gunvor Løkken in relation to toddlers' playful and social style in peer groups; however, adults' position was rarely explored. Therefore, this article aims to examine adults' emotional and playful support in creating, maintaining and…

In 2013, the Chicago Board of Education closed 47 elementary schools, directly affecting 13,000 students and 900 teachers. The closures created employment uncertainty for closed-school teachers, and this article investigates the labor market consequences for teachers. We employ a difference-in-differences approach that compares the exit rates of…

This paper critically examines Equality and Human Rights Commission's (EHRC) 2019 report into racism in United Kingdom Higher Education. After outlining the context of the report, the paper is situated within discourses of internationalization in higher education (HE) and those of investment, excellence and social mobility. Using transversality,…

Teacher attrition is a considerable burden for students and school leaders. Therefore, it is important for administrators to develop policies which increase retention rates. The purpose of this study is to explore teacher retention policies utilized by highly effective school districts. Through the use of semi-structured interviews with three key…

Place is often seen as a location of meaning. But whose meaning fills the location? Who defines meaning? What kind of meaning do we seek? These questions inadvertently call on place-based education to reflect on the often-unexamined meaning of place prevailing in the field. This paper draws substantially on the work of critical feminist…

Mobility provides the fabric of everyday life but is rarely considered part of learning and is almost never used as relevant, experiential content in teaching. This special issue integrates ideas and efforts across different fields into a more unified framework to study and design for what we call Learning on the Move. Approaches used in these…

Formal education in Iran, especially higher education, has been a means to smoothen the road to social mobility, provide good jobs, and boost people's earnings. Now, being a university graduate and remaining unemployed is regarded as a challenge. In addition, governments consider this new unemployment a threat to their legitimacy. It seems that…

Higher education faces a conflict between the traditional logic of professionalism and an increasingly prominent corporate logic. Using interviews with 30 faculty at a single institution, we seek to understand the consequences of these competing logics. Across our interviews, faculty express a misalignment between their professional values and the…

A successful journey through higher education is, for many, a once in a lifetime opportunity for social mobility. Unfortunately, one notable feature of higher education systems is that students from some backgrounds do not achieve the same academic attainments as do others. The current study tests the role of one particular set of processes:…

Travel has become ubiquitous for most social groups as holidaying abroad has become ever cheaper and ecumene. This paper considers how travel can be understood as part of family practices around children's educations and futures. Drawing on Kaufmann's concept of motility, we examine how spatial mobility might become a form of cultural capital to…

In this paper, I reflect upon my journey of learning to do comparative education research over the last decade and half. It involves transnational moves from Japan, Canada, US, Australia and back to Japan where I encountered numerous 'others'. I use my story of a series of relocations as an entry point for theorising what I mean by 'negative'…

Categorical career stages offer an institutional framework through which mobilities can be claimed and contested by feminists in academia. Inhabiting career stages uncritically can serve to reproduce neoliberal academic structures that feminists may seek to resist. Collaboration across career stages is a significant empirical case for…

Berlant's notion of cruel optimism refers to investments in material structures, social norms, and ideological claims of being that work against individual and collective flourishing. Drawing on ethnographic and interview data spanning 2007-2016, this longitudinal study utilizes cruel optimism to explore material and affective investments of…