In this paper, which draws on two years of qualitative research, I examine the ways in which refugees are positioned and position themselves in job training programs and in their initial US jobs. I provide examples of how 'factishes', a combination of facts and fetishes, are fabricated and position the refugees, and those working with them, in…

The neoliberal turn has driven attempts to marketize education, but how does marketization occur? In this article I draw on ethnographic and linguistic-ethnographic methods to investigate marketization through a microanalytic lens. My investigation focuses on a team of educational professionals, who participated in a workshop led by an…

The "Wandiny" creative gathering of Indigenous and non-Indigenous poets, artists, Elders, and participants across Australia actively sought to foreground First Nations voices, stories, poetry, art, and ontology. This paper presents the auto-ethnographic reflections from the event organisers, demonstrating that participation in a…

In this article, the authors argue for what Édouard Glissant terms the 'right to opacity' in teaching and assessing communication and language skills in early childhood education (ECE). We draw from Glissant's writing on Relation, and his interrelated concepts of 'opacity' and 'transparency', to consider two vignettes from sensory ethnographic…

Thinking at the nexus of epistemic injustice, childhood studies, transgender studies, and gender and racial justice in literacy education, this article illustrates how curricular engagement with questions of age, gender, race, and power can simultaneously complicate and flatten knowledge about power relations. Drawing from a yearlong ethnography…

Efforts to desegregate schools have consistently been undermined by privileged parents finding ways to avoid undesirable schools. In some contexts, a more complex picture is emerging, where 'progressive' privileged parents choose 'diverse' schools but still reproduce segregation. We demonstrate how the desegregation aims of an Indian education…

This paper weaves together lineages of queer and trans theories through the lived experiences of a queer, trans, genderqueer, disabled, neurodivergent scholar of color. I share testimonies of epistemic injustice as a K-12 and university student which, while lifesaving in some ways, reinscribed neoliberal notions of individualized care through the…

Research framed by evolving sociocultural theories have been fundamental in advancing the study of early childhood literacies. More recently the field has been enriched by posthumanist theories that have shifted the analytic gaze from children's participation in literacy practices and events, to the fluid relationality of literacies. Concurrently,…

This autoethnographic study explores disruptive moments in a multiliteracies English-as-an-Additional Language (EAL) classroom with young adult students. Using a lens of affect theory, the study presents three strategic sketches (vignettes) to shine a light on unexpected intensities in the learning assemblage, initially assumed to be learner…

Led by an Australian team who witnessed the proliferation of local and global private companies, foundations and semi-government services seeking to 'partner' with schools, this special issue seeks to unpack global patterns in the 'outsourcing' of curricula. More specifically, using the 'problems' of obesity and mental health, the project aims to…

The 'digital imperative' of contemporary education practice is without contention; however, much learning technology research has focused on pragmatic issues such as learning design, often founded on uncritically accepted claims about 'digital natives'. This focus has come at the expense of learning theory. Alongside the scholarly voices calling…

While a growing body of research shows the prevalence of private tutoring in India, the ways in which these informal educational setups gain social legitimacy remains largely unclear. To redress this gap in the scholarship, this article investigates institutional and affective tutoring practices, in relation to formal schooling. It draws on the…

There has been a long-standing call for the participation of young people in decision making in school. However, research to date has mostly focused on pupil councils and is rarely conducted in areas of socio-economic deprivation -- the contexts for this study. In national examinations, the schools chosen had higher than average attainments given…

In this paper we frame children as geological agents, very much part of epoch and biospherical processes, enfolded in Earth system changes. We draw on the experiences of Indian childhoods in a context where the land, water, animals, children's bodies and forests are being shaped by a politics of corporate city building. We analyse how children and…

This article critically interrogates the model of language that underpins early years policy and pedagogy. Our arguments emerge from an ethnographic study involving 2-year-olds attending a day care centre that had begun to hold a substantial proportion of its sessions outdoors. The resultant shift in pedagogy coincided with changes in the…