This paper aims to demonstrate the analytical potential of initial vocational education and training (iVET) in the debate on the costs of social mobility. It is based on extensive qualitative fieldwork with over 250 young people in Romania's iVET (around 20% of whom were Roma). Central to the discourses of young Roma are the experiences of…

This paper explores the intricate interplay of racism, trauma, and identity in Toni Morrison's novel, "The Bluest Eye." It delves into the challenges faced by African Americans within a predominantly white society by utilizing current trauma theory and black feminist concepts. The theoretical framework includes cultural trauma theories,…

Past decades have seen increased emphasis on graduate employability as a driver of higher education policy. In the Australian context, employability discourses in the public domain have become inflected with anti-intellectual sentiment, serving to reproduce the perception that the humanities and social sciences are of less value to graduates'…

Elite schools, long tasked with creating a future national elite, often now find themselves competing in a global education market. This article explores how one such school, in Switzerland, articulates with the global imaginary of its local geography -- in particular, with images of luxury tourism and safety -- to appeal to a globally wealthy…

In this article, we posit a Marxist critique of the way that neoliberal capitalism has thwarted the possibility of comprehensive education. We begin with an explanation of the unique productive capacity of human labour, and the centrality of labour power for capitalism. We go on to show the importance of the education system for continually…

The issue of the multiple links between teachers' work, schooling processes, and social inequalities has been one of the greatest concerns in the field of educational research in Argentina in recent decades. The way in which the task of teaching and the problem of inequality are related and configured has integrated the agendas of the different…

Language policy and planning (LPP) has always drawn on research and scholarship in education as well as the social sciences in general (in particular sociology). Social theory has also figured as an important source of ideas and concepts, and critical LPP has arisen as a distinct strand of inquiry since the 1980s (Tollefson, in Planning language,…

In this article, we argue that healing from trauma in a racialized context requires an act of collective, critical resistance whereby educators and researchers reject a White-dominant colonial perspective of trauma on the grounds that it is pathologizing in several ways. We introduce a holistic trauma framework for understanding and responding to…

Educational reforms and introduction of compulsory schooling for nobility are rightly counted among the most important changes introduced by Peter I in Russia. This article employs a large sample of records from the Heraldry, a government agency in charge of registering nobles for their mandatory service, to assess the spread of literacy among the…

School funding policy in Australia not only promotes educational equity in some ways but also creates substantial between-school resource inequalities due to its embrace of market ideologies. School funding policies are designed to promote school choice and competition, based on the assumption that they are both a right and an effective lever for…

This article explores musical parenting in Norwegian schools of music and arts. These schools aim to provide extra-curricular activities in music and other art forms to "all" children and adolescents regardless of their social and economic background, but the schools reveal traits of social and cultural exclusion, serving mainly the…

The pedagogy of the colonising British in nineteenth-century India was critical of traditional Indian education for various reasons. The proselytising pedagogists who viewed the cultural practice of caste as a major stumbling block to their evangelising mission continued to confront the practice, which appeared to have stood on a footing of social…

This study examines social-class and sexuality in the context of being a teacher in a secondary school in England. It is pertinent as some levels of LGBT inclusion, are currently expected in English schools, however this varies within and across schools. This study explores the case of a single, gay, man from a working-class background, in…

This chapter examines the barriers that prohibit poor and working-class students from accessing and engaging in leadership development experiences. Suggestions to inventory these costs and reshape leadership education to be more inclusive to students from poor or working-class backgrounds are included.

In this article, we argue that a key diversity issue to be tackled in the classroom is disparity: Some students are more privileged than others, and their inputs are more valued than others'. Therefore, as educators, we need to devise new ways to rebalance benefits and deficits in our classrooms. Complementing critical work on privilege in…