For too long, the middle grades have been racked by a mistaken narrative that this age group is simply too difficult, or that it's a time in life when one must simply endure rather than thrive. The Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE) rejects that narrative. It is time for a unified policy agenda in support of the middle grades. This…

This paper presents the findings from the initial stage of an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded project which examines the pedagogic practices that embed young children's participative rights in lower primary classrooms in Wales. An evaluation of relevant legislation and policy in Wales from 2000 to 2022 was undertaken to…

In early childhood education (ECE), global policy discourses influence national policy frameworks for curriculum, pedagogy and assessment practices. Although aspects of these discourses travel across national boundaries via policy borrowing, we argue that consideration is needed of the cultural-historical evolution of country-level systems, their…

The intersection of the COVID-19 pandemic and anti-Black violence prompted talk of racial reckoning among educational grantmakers in 2020 to 2021. This study examines the nature and extent of this reckoning, offering insights into policy actors' responses to racialized crises. Through an analysis of grantmakers' professed policy…

Higher education, when understood as a public or common good, aligns with the values of an open access movement that promotes public access to information and published research. In the United States, land-grant institutions rhetorically appeal to their shared missions of public benefit and societal advancement. Do land-grant institutions with…

How do education policy processes and networks operate in sectors that have been chronically defunded? This article discusses elements of contestation and doubt in the context of a policy agenda around impact measurement in youth services in England. Drawing on interviews with policy makers, influencers and critics, it combines analysis of a…

Antiblackness is a persistent feature of American society with continued implications for the experiences, outcomes, and well-being of Black communities. In the wake of widespread protests against antiblack police brutality and heightened awareness of racial injustices in 2020, federal, state, and local political actors swiftly began a concerted…

This article evaluates the design of the official language policy of the Norwegian government in the field of higher education, which was set out in two white papers in 2008 and 2020. The language policy aims to avoid domain loss of the Norwegian language and thus keep it 'complete' and able to function as a unifying factor in society. In the two…

Policy and research engagement is a timely topic for researchers, decision-makers, and higher education institutions that aim to promote engagement and impact. Examination of the complex research-policy relationship in the higher education sector has been largely overlooked. This paper addresses this issue by presenting findings from in-depth…

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teacher advocacy is a particular skillset within STEM teacher leadership, but little is known about how STEM teacher leaders develop their identity as advocates for STEM education. To glean a more nuanced and deeper understanding of developing advocate identity among STEM teacher leaders, we…

Sometimes, public policy outcomes disappoint when unintended consequences arise. In many such cases, the problems might be traced back to poor reasoning. For most of antiquity, logic was considered the core element for successful human endeavour. In this work, we argue that Aristotelian logic -- specifically, the syllogism -- remains highly…

While reference societies as an "externalization" process are often used to justify borrowing policies from abroad, a concerted attempt to understand how "power" influences this process, particularly regarding "semiperipheral" references to the periphery, remains absent. This article explores the externalization…

Background/Context: The reckoning with racial injustice and growing inequality that have become hallmarks of the early 2020s in the United States has implications for impact analysis and the evidence it produced for public policy decision-making. Various researchers have highlighted the shortcomings that impact analyses have when estimating the…

This interview-based study examines how justice-oriented K-12 administrators and teachers in Iowa make sense of the recent state-level education policy, H.F. 802. Synthesizing literature on Critical Policy Analysis and epistemic justice, we introduce Critical Epistemic Policy Analysis to understand the micro-level impact of divisive education…

This study examines the impact of statewide Restorative Justice (RJ) policy reforms in Michigan and Texas on student disciplinary outcomes and behavior, in light of increasing concerns over the negative effects of zero-tolerance policies. As schools move away from exclusionary discipline practices, this research focuses on three primary questions:…