In this paper, I have positioned myself with Kean Birch and explored some of the political-economic actors/actants of policy suites implicated in the biotechnologies and bioeconomy. In particular, I have considered Australia's recent National Innovation and Science Agenda and allied documents and entities (that is, Innovation and Science…

The report describes the mechanisms and practices that support evidence-based policy-making in the education sector in Europe. It comparatively looks at institutions and practices in evidence-based policy-making, as well as the accessibility, and mediation, of evidence. The report presents more detailed information on each individual country, with…

The study presupposes that workers must deal with often challenging demands as they confer between spheres of "life" and work. The study determines the current Work Life Balance (WLB) practices and policies as a basis for institutional policy reformulation in a Private Higher Education Institution (PHEI). Specifically, the study seeks to…

In his books "Public Opinion" and "The Phantom Public," Walter Lippmann argued that policy leaders should deny the public a significant role in policymaking. Public opinion, he argued, would inevitably be ill-informed, self-interested and readily manipulated. In "The Public and its Problems," Dewey countered Lippmann…

In his inaugural Presidential Address, given to the BERA Conference 2013 at the University of Sussex, Ian Menter addresses a number of issues concerning educational policy and the contributions that educational research might make to policy development. As BERA approaches its fortieth anniversary, he also sets out some of the responsibilities that…

Recently a number of studies have focused on states' adoptions of postsecondary-specific policies. Cutting across much of this research is the presence and influence of interstate diffusion of policy adoptions, a phenomenon for which support is scant. This paper seeks to address this through broadening the categorization of policies beyond…

The medium of instruction (MOI) has been a contested issue in multilingual polities globally, as English medium of instruction (EMI) has seen unprecedented growth, threatening the use and sometimes very survival of local/indigenous and even national languages. While the struggles to address related issues have been well researched, how and why…

Teachers and students are the main stakeholders of educational policies in the states; hence, the higher order policies, rules, and regulations must be in alignment with their rights, values, ideologies, needs, competencies, and peculiarities of each region and district. In such a case, the classroom practice will be improved and more promising…

The introduction of assessment orientated policy in 2016 marks a significant change in Scottish education as it will establish standardised national testing. Teachers in Gaelic medium education are well placed to offer insights as they have had considerable autonomy regarding assessment and this paper is the first to consider the impact of this…

Racial equity is a high priority in Oregon, which along with many other states has enacted reforms in the past decade to improve racial equity in school discipline practices. One common approach has been to focus on reducing the use of exclusionary discipline, which removes students from classroom instruction. In 2015 the Oregon legislature…

Institutional engagement with digital literacies at the University of Brighton has been promoted through the creation of a Digital Literacies Framework (DLF) aimed at academic staff. The DLF consists of 38 literacies divided into four categories that align to the following key areas of academic work: (1) Learning and teaching; (2) Research; (3)…

While education systems in Africa share common backgrounds historically (educationally, socially, politically, economically and culturally), they are deep variations in the approaches and contexts resulting in many questions than answers. The purpose of this study was to interrogate the current tertiary education curriculum, provide a rationale…

In 2014, the Australian Federal Government attempted to de-regulate higher education fees so as to allow universities to set their own tuition fees. The associated public debate offer critical insights into how the identity of a student as a "customer" of higher education is understood and deployed when developing higher education…

This paper provides a detailed account of the Queensland education system's engagement with reforming curriculum, pedagogies and assessment. In so doing, it responds to the University College London's Institute of Education report on "high-performing" jurisdictions, of which Queensland, Australia, was identified as one. In this report,…

In this paper, we present a case study of a philanthropic literacy initiative, Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, a book-gifting scheme for under 5s, and consider the impact of the scheme on literacy policy in the English city where it was introduced. We bring four lenses to bear on the case study. First, we analyse the operation of the scheme in…