In this essay, music education is conceptualized as a game or performance within The Game, the "pervasive atmosphere" (Fisher 2009) of neoliberal capitalism, which inevitably shapes scholarship, practice, and policy. Even people who strive to see music education for what it really might be (e.g., those researching and promoting social…

This article suggests a sophistical autonomous practice in response to Platonian Aristotelian philosophy's domination over education. It shows the dangers of empty education in which education is reduced to schooling the perfect citizen in the image of a perfect state. An example is given in which schooling in empty education is reduced to a tool…

The meaning of the term 'inclusion' is often taken for granted and seldom defined. Empirical research on inclusive education is often normative since it is based on terms such as 'justice' and 'democracy'. Such terms are challenging to translate into real practice because their meanings depend on a subjective evaluation related to the time and…

This paper focuses first on the issue of measuring education. When we consider "education and equity," we tend to quantify educational outcomes and compare these figures with others. While it is necessary to consider "equity" (or inequity) through comparisons with others, if we quantify the achievement of outcomes and evaluate…

The concept of meritocracy stands as a fundamental ethos within the governance and educational paradigms in Singapore. This principle, notwithstanding its intrinsic paradoxes -- most notably, the juxtaposition of egalitarian ideals against elitist practices -- remains steadfastly upheld, with no indications of waning in the foreseeable future. A…

Decades of neoliberal capitalism have had a corrosive effect on public education, with implications for both the fiscal realities of education systems and the ideological values guiding curriculum and pedagogy. While the culture of neoliberalism has often been studied, it is equally important to expand analyses of the shifting material conditions…

My contribution to this special issue engages with Michael Sandel's "The Tyranny of Meritocracy" and its significance to the academic conversation about meritocracy and its discontents. Specifically, I highlight Sandel's diagnosis of the rise of populism and his proposed remedy for the 'tyranny of merit'. First, building on Menno ter…

Decolonising work in Higher Education (HE) has become increasingly mainstreamed. One issue is the relationship between such work and that of equality, diversity and inclusivity (EDI), or the potential reduction and co-option of decolonising for EDI purposes. This article discusses the characterisations of, and drivers for, decolonising inside UK…

The last few years have witnessed a resurgence of interest among both scholars and public intellectuals over issues associated with distributive justice and its gravitational orbit of concepts, including the idea of merit and the adjacent vision of a meritocratic society. Nevertheless, despite its centrality for conceptions of equality of…

Neoliberal capitalism's demands for efficiency and innovation have greatly impacted North American academic libraries and the work conducted in them, including information literacy instruction. The divisive forces of neoliberalism must be met with resistance, and libraries hold the potential for generating an information literacy praxis where…

In "The Tyranny of Merit," Michael Sandel argues that the American society is not meritocratic, that belief that it is causes various social harms, and that some of those harms -- in particular, the costs to social solidarity -- would be caused even if society actually were meritocratic. He also explores the way that the structure of…

Educational leadership serves a pivotal function in establishing the tenor of campus cultures. Executive decisions shape educational policy and practice in ways that either hinder or advance marginalised students' academic success. Leaders are in powerful positions to modify unjust academic ecosystems and to de-ideologise the white-centric…

There is an assumption of meritocracy in engineering that belies the interpersonal and institutional supports that contribute to professional outcomes. In a qualitative study involving career history interviews and using social support theories as a framing device, we explored the supports that contributed to the development and practice of…

In this essay, I articulate the value of understanding antiracism from a materialist perspective, drawing from the concept of racial capitalism. I critique the lack of accounting for race in class-first paradigms of critical scholarship in music education, arguing that racial hierarchy laid the foundation for capitalist exploitation through…

Purpose: This article is a critical analysis of educational leadership and administration's historically privileged Eurocentric epistemologies, research methodologies, and intellectual norms, shaping the field through conceptions of "coloniality." The purpose of this article is toward decolonizing educational leadership. Problem:…