Those most affected by a policy should have the greatest say in shaping it, the adage goes. Yet students--those whom education policies affect most--are far too frequently excluded from decision making. Even when students' voices are included, they are often only symbolically considered. In Washington, DC, student involvement in policymaking is…

The recent review of the Scottish professional standards for teachers, led by the General Teaching Council for Scotland, offered a unique perspective to interrogate participative approaches in policy-making in the Scottish education context and to provide insights and implications for future policy-making. Using one of the authors' experiences as…

There is considerable focus on finding effective governance approaches. This article examines experiences with using more collaborative approaches to developing new governance instruments in the context of higher education. The specific empirical case focuses on the introduction of multi-annual performance agreements between the ministry and the…

Full-service community schools are increasingly adopted as educational policy nationwide to transform educational institutions into community hubs, addressing racial and social disparities and countering deficit narratives related to marginalized youth and families. As the movement toward community schooling as an educational policy gains…

The intention of government to create a fully academised school system in England, whereby every academy will belong to a large multi-academy Trust (MAT), further erodes community engagement and accountability. This paper illustrates how the policy of academisation has enabled a top-down governance framework to emerge, replacing the power and…

Between 2000 and 2015, the eight UN Millennium Development Goals were central to the UN agenda, forming a blueprint for development. However, the manner in which multilateral agencies establish such global priorities is not well understood. The article analyses how and why universal primary education was selected as a Millennium Development Goal.…

The past two decades have seen a growing de-professionalization of teaching. Combating this educational climate requires music teacher education programs to prioritize both critical pedagogical practices and policy knowhow in order to reestablish a focus on relational engagements and the navigation of the complex tensions lived daily in schools.…

This book provides new and experienced Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCOs) with a critical approach to understanding the importance of outstanding leadership of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and how to effectively meet the current SEND policy requirements. Closely informed by the statutory guidance for SENCOs, this…

This study investigates teacher participation in Norway's most recent national curriculum reform. During the reform period, teachers were invited to take part in macro curriculum making as members of national curriculum committees. In policy documents, teacher participation is emphasised as key to the legitimacy of the curriculum. In this study,…

Research argues the importance of including young people, especially youth of color, to participate in educational leadership. However, adults who enact performative allyship towards these youth leaders often obstruct young people's ability to authentically participate in educational decision making and achieve justice-driven outcomes in K-12…

"Pathways to Implementation" highlights innovative strategies and effective models in career pathways policy, implementation, and programming, as well as challenges states encounter in this work. This seven-part series addresses the key elements of Bellwether's framework for career pathways policy implementation. Each brief defines the…

Despite post-1994 legislative and policy efforts aimed at the transformation of South African higher education, it remains entrenched in colonial and neoliberal frameworks that perpetuate exclusion, inequality and dehumanisation. This article argues that the failure to achieve meaningful institutional transformation stems from top-down,…

While there is no shortage of scholarship on "equity" in higher education, researchers typically examine whether a policy or practice is (in)equitable rather than how those responsible for designing and enacting a policy or practice make meaning of equity. Using a sensemaking framework and case study approach, I explored the collective…

Governmental policies in the United States and beyond increasingly call for school leaders to involve local communities in decision-making, yet engagement practices have often centered the perspectives of White parents and marginalized the voices of racially minoritized families. In this comparative case study of seven school districts, we draw on…

Research on school improvement has accumulated an extensive list of factors that facilitate turnarounds at underperforming schools. Given that contextual or resource constraints may limit the possibilities of putting all of these factors in place, an important question is what is necessary and sufficient to turn a school around. We use a…