What is at stake for K12 education in next month's presidential election? Both President Barack Obama (Democratic Party) and Gov. Mitt Romney (Republican Party) say improving education will be a top priority in their administrations, but their policies and initiatives would likely be quite different. While political platforms rarely offer detailed…

The public debates on history education that occurred in many countries over the past decades have given rise to the idea that people live in an age of "history wars". While these wars are primarily fought on a national level, they are increasingly looked at as a global phenomenon. In most cases, they are the expression of tensions between the…

Campaigns for state school board are typically quiet affairs, eliciting only modest interest from the public and even less from political donors. But the race last fall for the District 2 seat on Louisiana's board of elementary and secondary education was a remarkable exception. The contest attracted the attention of education activists and…

Before all the talk about "public intellectuals," Michael Walzer was one. For 50 years, he has gone back and forth between positions at Princeton and Harvard Universities and then at the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, New Jersey, where he is now emeritus. His writings appear regularly in "Dissent" magazine, which he has co-edited for…

Based on ethnographic research in a diverse New York City neighborhood, this article examines issues surrounding the practice of crossing from children's perspectives. Crossing refers to the use of language varieties to which one does not have conventional access, practices that could be disparaging or affiliative. The author explores how children…

Drawing on research on China's path to individualization, this paper deconstructs a nationally renowned Chinese individual's construction of his success in learning English in China. By deconstructing his success, this paper illustrates how he skilfully integrates traditional cultural discourses into his messages, calling upon individual Chinese…

This essay works to bridge conversations in philosophy of education with decolonial theory. The author considers Margonis' (1999, 2011a, b) use of Rousseau (1979) and Heidegger (1962) in developing an ontological attitude that counters social hierarchies and promotes anti-colonial relations. While affirming this effort, the essay outlines a…

Comparative international tests of students' achievements have become increasingly popular over the past decade. An outcome of this widespread practice is the tendency of various countries to evaluate their national status according to their pupils' international ranking in such achievement tests, partly due to the common belief that high ranking…

Recent research has explored the connections between universities and the cities/places in which they are located. Increasingly, emphasis is placed on the economic role of the university and on universities as urban stabilizers that can mobilize investment and advance development goals. This article explores a different charge for the university:…

This article assembles some ideas on equality and learning in relation to the notions of truth and emancipation. It considers learning as a political act, as defined by Jacques Ranciere and Alain Badiou, rather than, for example, an incremental process of psychological or sociological development. Practical exemplifications will be taken from…

Over the last 40 years child protection systems in all Advanced Western Societies have been subject to high profile criticisms and regular major reviews. In many respects the Munro Review of Child Protection (2011) in England, is very different to those which have gone before. This paper summarises the main findings and recommendations of The…

This paper summarizes the results of 244 correlates of national IQs that have been published from 2002 through 2012 and include educational attainment, cognitive output, educational input, per capita income, economic growth, other economic variables, crime, political institutions, health, fertility, sociological variables, and geographic and…

An overarching methodological focus in this issue of the "Journal of Educational Administration and History" has been to engage Michel Foucault's concern with "a history of the present". In this article, the author begins her overview of the collection in the present--specifically, and in keeping with the topic for this special…

The purpose of this study is to explore the programmatic changes that occurred in the Educational Opportunity Centers (EOC) and how those changes influenced educational opportunities for adults. A case study design was used for this investigation. The directors of three EOCs were selected and interviewed for the study. These directors combined…

This paper presents selected findings from a historical analysis of change in the discursive construction of social identity in UK education policy discourse from 1972-2005. My chief argument is that through its linguistic forms of self-identification the government construes educational roles, relations and responsibilities not only for itself,…