Fields from political science to critical education policy studies have long explored power relations in policy processes, showing who influences policy agendas, policy creation, and policy implementation. Yet showing particular actors' influence on specific points in a policy text remains a methodological challenge. This article presents a…

This article examines the cultural construction of the school in Turkey in relation to the construction of Turkish nation-ness. By looking at how the modern school was fit together with a network of interrelated discourses available in early twentieth-century Turkey, the article investigates the ways in which the school became an object of thought…

Belonging has long been conceptualised as a fundamental human need, essential for the good health of individuals and communities. In relation to young children, belonging may be linked to their developing sense of identity, as well as the way they perceive and respond to others. Belonging is emerging as an important aspect of contemporary early…

This article discusses a feminist discourse analysis that explores the ways in which discourses of learning interact with discourses of militarism at four Canadian civilian universities named for military leaders. I discuss how this particular research topic became apparent to me and explore the current national context where it can be argued that…

Education is a critical instrument for governments and communities managing economic and social development in global times. Reboundarying educational work reflects this dynamic where the national and local are networked in complex ways. In this frame, the focus in this article is on a policy debate on educational labour force and gendered work…

While heads were spinning, policy watchers seemed genuinely perplexed by New York City's Mayor de Blasio's education opinions. De Blasio opposed many of Bloomberg's reform efforts despite the achievement gains realized by the nation's largest school district during the last 12 years. Yet on close reading, de Blasio's nine-page education plan…

It is often argued that as "consumers" of higher education, students, parents and leaders need objective, comparative information generated through systematized assessment. In response, we critique this trend toward reductionist, comparative, and ostensibly objective assessments in the United States. We describe how management has…

Since the 1970s, schools have been characterized as loosely coupled systems, meaning that the teachers' work is weakly coordinated at the local level. Nonetheless, few studies have focused on the local variations of coordination modes, their sources and their nature. In this article, the process of local coordination of the teachers' work is…

Debates about the meanings of inclusive education are long-lasting, and the imperative to include disabled students in mainstream schools is currently under threat by the UK government's educational policies. This paper draws on critiques from inclusive education and critical pedagogy literature, as well as on findings from field research in a…

The purpose of this article is to investigate the multiple political histories that have coalesced to produce support for or resistance to the Oakland Unified School District's full-service community schools policy. It analyzes oral history interview data from eight stakeholders who represent the district's major constituencies to explore the…

This article problematises emerging tensions in Chile, in relation to the discourses of early childhood teachers and public policies aimed at improving the quality of early childhood education. The aim of the analysis is to contribute to developing more nuanced understandings of these tensions, through the analytical lenses provided by the…

This article examines the relationship between pre-service teacher education (ITE) for primary schooling and primary teaching in England between 1974 and 2014, and explores the "fitness of purpose" of the current system of preparing teachers for the classrooms of the twenty-first century. Our historical analysis suggests that, despite 40…

The Conservative-led Coalition government in Britain is strongly committed to a programme of austerity. In the short term, this is a programme which makes more difficult the country's exit from a period of recession and slow growth; in the longer term, it threatens cuts and privatisation which call into question the welfare state. Yet,…

America's education system faces a stark dilemma: it needs governmental oversight, rules and regulations, but it also needs to be adaptable enough to address student needs and the many different problems that can arise at any given school--something that large educational bureaucracies are notoriously bad at. Paul Hill and Ashley Jochim offer here…

Immediately after President Obama's successful campaign, many hypothesized that the United States had entered a post-racial era. This study uses critical race theory to examine how high-achieving Black and Latinx college students make meaning of and navigate affirmative action policy discourses in an era of colorblind racial politics.…