Countries in the global South, such as Pakistan, face challenges to determine their education policies without any external pressures. The national sphere of authority of the state has to deal with both global and national policy pressures. The travelling policy gets embedded in the local context adjusting to the local demands. However, for this…

This study interrogates the colonial and Western epistemology underlying mainstream curricula and proposes a decolonial approach that can build an "epistemically insurgent curriculum" that takes into account non-Western epistemologies. We begin with an analysis of coloniality in Western culture and knowledge systems, including in…

The article introduces a special issue of "Policy Futures in Education" on changes and challenges in educational policies and systems of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The countries in the region share some characteristics, such as their historical experience with the authoritarian-socialist or communist rule and its impact on…

There is a claim currently circulating the European Union (EU), both cynical and misleading: "multiculturalism is dead in Europe". No wonder, as the conglomerate of nation-states/EU has silently handed over one of its most important debates--that of European identity--to the left and right wing parties, recently followed by several…

"Democracy thrives because it helps individuals identify with the society of which they are members and because it provides for legitimate decision-making and exercise of power." With this statement, the Council of Europe raises for us some fundamental questions: what is the practice of democracy, its merits and its limitations? A…

This article has two aims. The first aim of the article is to show some emerging problems and questions facing intercultural dialogue. This involves a critique of intercultural dialogue by situating it within emerging models of cultural change. The second aim of the article is to show alternative approaches to cultural dialogues. This involves the…

Knowledge economy policies are currently very powerful drivers of change in contemporary university approaches to research. They typically orientate universities to a national innovation system which both positions knowledge as the key factor of economic growth and sees the main purpose of knowledge as contributing to such growth. In this article,…

The author first briefly outlines what he considers to be the defining features of transmodernism and its relationship both to postmodernism and to Marxism. He then suggests that transmodern interpretations of the legacy of the European invasions of the Americas are illuminating, as is Marxism, in providing an understanding of how the imperialism…

The author begins by discussing David Geoffrey Smith's analysis of the enantiomorphism inherent in the rhetoric of New American Imperialism. He goes on to examine critically Smith's defence of Enrique Dussel's advocacy of transmodernism as a way of understanding this enantiomorphism and of moving beyond what are seen as the constraints of both…

The author begins by arguing that in order to understand imperialism it is necessary to have a conceptual awareness of the concepts of racism and racialisation. He then considers how the British Empire impacted on schools during the imperial era. He goes on to examine the nature of the New Imperialism. Calls are currently being made by notable…

With Indigenous knowledges being increasingly available via different media, there is the risk of these knowledges becoming disengaged from the peoples who imparted them. A consequence of this disengagement is that it creates the conditions for the creation and perpetuation of misunderstanding and misuse of Indigenous peoples' lifeworlds. This…

This article uses Nikolas Rose's theory of governmentality to examine ways in which intellectual property is imbricated in a broad spectrum of globalised and globalising discourses. Using the 2004 Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement as a case in point, it shows how discourses of culture, trade, foreign policy, and security intersect and…