Power has always been an element of the program evaluation field, however, it has traditionally been attributed a negative connotation. With that in mind, power is seen as a force possessed to some extent by different stakeholders that can be imposed over others, and by which certain views, ideas, and decisions can be adopted. Given that program…

This article examines the liberatory potential of student-led discussions in an increasingly neoliberal global context. More specifically, it will explore one such poetry-oriented practice as it embodies theories from scholars like Peter Rabinowitz and Michael Smith (as established in "Authorizing Readers: Resistance and Respect in the…

Praxis development remains invisible in many discussions of professional learning because professional educators take praxis development for granted as an indissoluble part of education and educational work. This special issue provides new insights into professional learning for praxis development, and about the conditions that enable and…

In response to a proposal to reframe the 'research into practice' agenda in UK education using partnership working, this paper examines a type of collaborative research known as a research-practice partnership (RPP), drawing on models established in education in the United States. It examines their characteristics and what has been learnt from…

This paper, delivered as a provocative keynote address to the Collaborative Action Research Network (CARN) conference in Manchester on 28th October 2023, explores the question if action research might have a sweet spot. A sweet spot is defined as an ideal location, area or combination of factors for a particular activity or purpose. It draws on…

This article conceptualizes art therapy as an intercultural contact zone or social ecotone, defined as the liminal space that emerges when two or more habitats overlap. In the unresolved tensions of their interaction, negotiation of power through cultural humility is an ongoing, profoundly ethical process. This premise is illustrated with examples…

In China, formal school groupings known as 'education collectives' have become one of the most common forms of school-to-school collaboration, promoted by policymakers to narrow the achievement gap between schools and optimise resource allocation. Previous research has focused on the purposes and achievements of education collectives rather than…

Is assessment a top-down bureaucratic mandate, an undertaking that seems to have little to do with improving practice, an inauthentic activity that frustrates and disempowers, an afterthought? Or is it a process embraced and enacted together by all stakeholders as a means to learn and grow and enact change in the world? The authors of the…

In this conceptual article, the authors advance the idea of critical whiteness pedagogies by arguing that an improvisational ethos offers an alternative to whiteness and might inspire more nuanced anti-racist pedagogies with white people. This framework is born out of years of collaboration between the authors that resulted in an approach to…

A 10 week supportive arts program was conducted in Jinja, Uganda via the collaboration between a local nongovernmental organization, a Ugandan artist, and two art therapists from the United States. The artist facilitated weekly artmaking sessions for former unhoused youth being served by the organization, as well as engaged in weekly virtual…

The marketization (Marchand & Orsorno Velázquez, 2016) of higher education impacts faculty through hiring practices, workload structures, and reappointment and promotion policies. Women faculty in fields such as music education need to negotiate masculine discourses and gendered constructions of innovation (Alsos et al., 2013) in a STEM…

This paper draws on findings from a wider project examining "relational pedagogies" within Australian secondary schools. The paper considers the growing use of the "relationships" concept as a descriptor of specific teaching practices. Normative descriptions of "relationships" (and concordant descriptions of…

This paper draws upon recent research into leadership and the use of power in the virtual space and also upon the author's nineteen years as a facilitator of Virtual Action Learning (VAL) and Virtual Leadership (VL) training. This paper briefly surveys various developments in the last twenty years which have nudged us as people and organisations…

This commentary to Ha and Kim's article suggests three ways to expand the interpretive functions of framing to explore and support marginalized students' participation in collaboration and learning, based on our comprehensive review of Ha and Kim's and other relevant studies. We argue that framing can be a useful tool for (1) understanding both…

In school-university partnership work, critical theories such as third space and funds of knowledge have been whitewashed by the predominantly white, female teacher and teacher educator workforces. In this essay, we present an intentionally and explicitly critical framework based on critical race theory, CritPartnership, that can guide…