Australian Indigenous education policies are formed in settler colonial systems that are structured by institutional racism. Gumbaynggirr academic Lilly Brown (2019) argues that Australian 'education was incorporated into Indigenous policy as a justification for dispossession' (p. 67) throughout the 20th century. In recent times, First Nations…

This study examines the decolonization of play through the rediscovery and revitalization of traditional play practices in the post-colonial era. Through a comprehensive literature review, the research examines the historical suppression of indigenous play forms and their contemporary resurgence. The research highlights the cultural significance…

Thinking and writing draw on those who have gone before, in a more than abstract way. In this article, I answer the call of one philosopher--Novalis, the early German Romantic--in the form of a séance, which is really a dialogue with the dead. I speak to him, as a Maori writer, about the abstract philosophical issues that Maori encounter and…

This paper advances a theoretical analysis of the similarities and differences between critical theories of education and Indigenous theories of education along three main themes: epistemological and ontological groundings, the means of education, and political projects. While both schools of theory critique neoliberal and neoconservative…

This article presents a transnational Moana talanoa between two Pacific early childhood education scholars. Calling on both Samoan and Tongan indigenous understandings that breathe life into a Moana subjectivity is inclusive of ways of knowing, relating and becoming. We turn our attention to the importance of talanoa (stories/storying) in…

This article examines a particular incident in the Waikato wars, 1863-4 and its relevance to the newly mandated New Zealand History curriculum. The new curriculum will for the first time make the teaching of local history compulsory in years 1-10. I examine the wide variety of submissions about the content of this curriculum. As the Royal…

Educational policies and practices in the current age of heightened globalization are increasingly grounded on unjust binary curriculum approaches that favor educational designs from Minority-World countries at the expense of epistemologies of indigenous people in Majority-World nations that are typically deemed culturally inferior (Gupta, 2015).…

Early childhood scholars in New Zealand have long lamented a rising dominance of neoliberalism. Correspondingly they suggest that there has been a lessening of socialist ideals and principles of Te Ao Maori after years of a right-wing government. With the 'refresh' of New Zealand's national early childhood curriculum, "Te Whariki" under…

The world is changing, but political and educational institutions appears to be stuck in the 19th century. Modern policy and education are both premised on an Enlightenment assumption of the human, rational, individual subject. Increasingly, elements of these philosophical premises are being interrogated. The critique emerges from the…

The Anthropocene is a site of domination and resistance for those opposed to the corporatised food regime. The peasant farmers' movement, La Vía Campesina, uses pedagogical techniques based on Freirian horizontal communication methodology to contest the structural and ideological elements of this regime. This article analyses these techniques,…

This article considers the Sámi understanding of time and place in pedagogical settings. The study is based on research material gathered at Sámi schools and from teaching conducted in the Sámi language. These data were combined to develop a theoretical review of teacher education from a metatheoretical perspective. The research challenges…

Child-centeredness is a pedagogical approach common in US early childhood education, one that advocates young children should direct their own learning and excercise individual choice in activitites. This approach is reflected in national US Head Start policy. Using multivocal, video-cued, and traditional ethnographic methods, this study presents…

This paper considers the ways in which the words "school" and "education" are conflated in the social imaginary, and what the effects of this conflation in meaning and purpose are both theoretically and in practice. It is not difficult to see the ways in which these two terms are used almost synonymously, and uncritically. Yet…

An academic, Peter Dinniss, discussed the then emerging issue of professionalism in the early childhood education sector in 1974. "There has been much debate over the term ['professional'] together with discussion as to whether teaching is a profession" (1974: 11). On the cusp of the 21st century, the Education Council (now renamed…

The papers in this special issue on the spaces of pedagogy speak to the failures of neoliberal thinking when applied to education. Their pedagogical critique of neoliberalism contributes to a considerable body of work focused on challenging the driving discourses of education (or more accurately, school) systems. The source of the tensions between…