The time is ripe to reexamine the social contract between higher education and society. Historically, the social contract has promised an advancement of the public good through applied knowledge production and thoughtful research dissemination, training citizens to lead and actively participate in democracy, and supporting local and global…

For decades, there has been a well-coordinated effort to unmake public education in Canada and around the globe. Neoliberal reformers have undermined public education through increased privatization, marketization, and managerialism. Government austerity measures have shaped policy that falsely necessitates, validates, and legitimizes the…

This comparative study traces the foundation and development of vocational and career guidance services in three Central and Eastern European countries in the light of the contextually bound factors of this region. Since the beginning of the 20th century, political transitions and changes in the ruling structures in these countries were so…

The article re-imagines the current developments of Swedish education into a possible future. Historically, education was organized and funded by the state; however, reforms towards privatization in the 1990s implemented school choice, private schools and a tax-financed voucher system with the option of turning profits on education. A new judicial…

In the light of the government's recent White Paper, we outline the history of the academisation programme, positioning it as part of the neo-liberal privatisation drive which has been sustained since the 1988 Education Reform Act under governments of all stripes. We contest central claims made for the supposed benefits of academisation, and call…

The UK education system is becoming increasingly dominated by exclusive economic and political ideology. The neoliberal agenda marketises young people and encourages them to take part in a competitive system. The rise of multi-academy trusts (MATs) further exacerbates an already inequitable system in which young people with special education needs…

This paper on the political sociology of school choice policies has been written as a supplement to the essays in the 2020 Politics of Education Association Yearbook and locates them in cognate literatures. In addition, the papers are situated against the changing political and global contexts of such policies, as global pressures, discourses, and…

The globalization of capital implied worldwide consequences, evidencing in the new international division of labor a global imperialist policy in which it is effective through its accumulation by spoliation. Educational policy does not limit its ideological basis only to the local precepts of its National State. From the conjuncture of…

This article discusses the expression of neoliberalism in Kazakhstan's emerging higher education system. The central tenets of neoliberalism are briefly articulated. Noted is the phenomenon that the general political-economic paradigm of neoliberalism differs in its specific implementation depending on the particular countries and cultures in…

In this Discussion Paper, the author presents a review of the papers in this collection, based upon the theme "Responsibility and responsibilisation in education." Each author in their own way has expressed a concern for analysing and charting the effects of the process called "responsibilisation" in the realm of education…

In September 2015, Governor Charlie Baker announced his support for raising the charter school cap in Massachusetts. This announcement has sparked a heated debate about funding for public education that problematically ignores neoliberal ideology. The "Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993" began a reign of neoliberalism impacting…

In "Can Education Change Society?" (Apple, 2013), Apple described a number of tasks in which the critical scholar/activist needs to engage. Among them are telling the truth about what is happening in the creation of inequalities, illuminating spaces of possibility, and acting as the critical secretary of the movements and people who…

This article attempts to locate the 'English-Speaking' class in contemporary India. By unpacking different aspects of one such class in Mumbai, it sheds light on the ways in which students, teachers and those who run the class view the 'English-Speaking' course and the ability to speak 'good English'.

We focus on describing some of the effects of austerity capitalism in the public educational sector in Poland, a country that was a part of the Soviet bloc from WWII and experienced dramatic transformation after 1989. This transformation from "communism" to "democracy" involved all spheres of the life of society and individuals…

Chile is recognized in the educational policy field as one of the first laboratories of neoliberal initiatives. These policies, initiated under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, did not change with the new democratic governments after 1990. This characteristic led international organizations to promote the Chilean policies in different…