While the policies of the Coalition Government will divide learners and limit opportunities, education for the upper secondary years will continue to experience a more systematic "credibility crunch" with schools and colleges facing a crisis of legitimacy and posing major challenges for reformers. (Contains 1 note.)

Bringing post-Operaismo into network culture, this text tries to introduce the notion of surplus in a contemporary media debate dominated by a simple symmetry between immaterial and material domain, between digital economy and bioeconomy. Therefore a new asymmetry is first shaped through Serres' conceptual figure of the parasite and Bataille's…

This paper argues the need for critical discourse that at once illuminates the nature of injustices that plague society and the need to examine the political and ideological as well as pedagogical nature of social justice as an imperative for teacher education and practice. Given the reality of injustices in society, there can be little question…

The core theme of this article is the implications of a global language for the curriculum and how it can be dealt with in terms of content knowledge and reform. First, the article conceptualises curriculum from the perspective of schooling within a geographical territory, symbolising its own cultural history and the nation as a key agent in…

This article offers a commentary on the report by Russel Ogden (2010/this issue) on the use of the "debreather" for suicide assistance by the NuTech (or New Technologies for Self-Deliverance) program. The emergence of NuTech is set within its historical and political context. Nu Tech is criticized for its anarchic and extreme advocacy of…

Recent critiques have drawn important attention to the depoliticized consensus and empty promises embedded in network discourses of educational policy. While acceding this critique, this discussion argues that some forms of network analysis--specifically those adopting actor-network theory (ANT) approaches--actually offer useful theoretical…

Care theory is used to describe an approach to global ethics and moral education. After a brief introduction to care ethics, the theory is applied to global ethics. The paper concludes with a discussion of moral education for personal, political, and global domains.

The author considers the prospect that the new Liberal-Conservative coalition Government will use the crisis of the largest public debt since the Second World War to contract and restructure education and public services, and discusses what cuts and changes are likely to happen.

The construction of crises is a key analytical and political issue. This paper examines what is at stake in the processes and practices of construction, responding to the arguments made in Andrew Gamble's "The spectres at the feast" (2009). We suggest that there are three areas of critical concern: first, that too little attention has…

In European Union policy documents, the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) is described as a neutral tool embedded in an evidence-based policy process. Its purpose is to improve the transparency, comparability and portability of qualifications in the European Union. The aim of this article is to denaturalise the EQF discourse through a…

The 2008 Democratic presidential primary--one of the most riveting and lengthy primaries in recent U.S. history--was analyzed extensively, from the altered calendar that advanced several states' primary dates to the historic role of gender and race. The primary was particularly fascinating because candidate Barack Obama, then senator from…

Nearly half the states have adopted a new set of common academic standards, barely a month after their final release and, in most cases, with little opposition. As of July 9, 23 states had decided to replace their mathematics and English/language arts standards with the common set. Another flurry of adoptions is expected by Aug. 2, since the $4…

Background/Context: Prior work on Hannah Arendt and education has focused on democratic education, multicultural education, and conservatism in education. Most of these studies have concentrated on her essay, "The Crisis in Education." While this study extends that work, it does so by taking up the lesser studied but equally relevant piece,…

This paper documents the introduction of the comprehensive schools in the Irish education system in 1963 and seeks to illustrate how the two most powerful organisations most directly involved in Irish education during this period, the Department of Education and the Catholic Hierarchy, viewed the introduction of the comprehensive schools. Through…

This paper examines the relationship between political change and epistemologies and methodologies employed at doctorate level. It does so by analysing the range of topics, questions and methodologies used by doctoral students at the University of Pretoria's Faculty of Education between 1985 and 2005--a time-frame that covers the decade before and…