In this article, Xin Xiang investigates what dushu, or "schooling," means for rural senior secondary school students in a high-poverty county in southwestern China. With the persistence of China's rural-urban education inequality and alarming reports about secondary school dropout rates, rural students' and their families' attitudes…

Preemptive censorship occurs when educators avoid particular books because they dislike the ideas or values the books contain or fear the controversy the books may evoke. Although not as blatant as other forms of censorship, preemptive censorship has the unfortunate consequence of restricting children's access to ideas and information. Moreover,…

This chapter begins with a brief history of higher education's role in assimilation, oppression, and removal of Indigenous people. A short literature review outlines the progression of higher education literature from deficit focused ideologies to current research that decolonizes and centers of Indigenous Knowledge Systems. "Sharing…

The scholarly debate about academic freedom focuses almost exclusively on the rights of academic faculty. Student academic freedom is rarely discussed and is normally confined to debates connected with the politicisation of the curriculum. Concerns about (student) freedom of speech reflect the dominant role of negative rights in the analysis of…

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) is leading the charge to return "higher" to higher education. We are challenging the status quo to restore academic freedom, academic rigor, and real accountability to higher education. And, we are doing so with an ever-widening network of supporters and partners.

This article presents both sides of the debate as to whether urban teachers need structure or freedom, and then takes a stand on urban teaching in the current high-stakes assessment climate. First, we trace the 30-year development of American educational policy in the area of structuring teaching. Then, we present research from proponents of…

In June 2015, the Colorado Supreme Court struck down a successful voucher program in Douglas County, invoking a provision of the state constitution that harks back to an era of widespread prejudice against Catholics. But because of the court's reliance on this discriminatory provision, its decision could well be overturned by the U.S. Supreme…

This conversation explores unschooling through theory and personal experience of Astra Taylor, who examines deschooling alongside the continua of Freedom/Oppression, Personal Control/Personal Autonomy, Solitude/Boredom, Privilege/Social Reproduction, Socialisation/Democracy. Taylor reveals complex relationships between the main strands of her…

Academic freedom is best understood not as an abstract universal principle or an ideal state of being but as concrete university practices nested in specific relational environments. As such, practices of academic freedom vary across the world, according to variations in political cultures, educational cultures and state-university relations. The…

This article draws upon a research project on intercultural language education conducted online between 2014 and 2017 with people living in the Gaza Strip (Palestine). Because the Gaza Strip has been under blockade since 2007, people cannot travel in and out freely. This context thus prompts educators and scholars to reflect on intercultural…

Focussing on the ideological aspects of privatisation, this paper explores ways in which "freedom" has been activated discursively to justify actions involving changes to both the structure and the content of formal education in the UK. Empirically, the paper will analyse examples in England of UK Government "new provider"…

In this article, the author presents observations learned while "on loan" from Northwestern University (NU), Evanston, Illinois, to the campus library in Doha, Qatar, (NU-Q) Middle East. The author's ongoing experience is helping her see how important global exposure can be to a library professional's attaining a deeper and wider level…

I have previously argued that open education is a liberal project with a focus on the freedom of things rather than the freedom of people (Winn, Joss. 2012. "Open Education: From the Freedom of Things to the Freedom of People." In "Towards Teaching in Public: Reshaping the Modern University", edited by Michael Neary, Howard…

Children and their teacher participated in a project that explored the question of how engaging in transmediation after hearing a story might affect children's meaning construction. In this article we share our work with a teacher and her third graders as they were challenged to move from the traditional activity of drawing a picture about a story…

Universities in some developing countries are undergoing reforms over the recent decades so that they become research-based institutions. It has been stressed that research is of paramount importance for enhancing the economy of a country and for societies to become knowledge-based. However some of these concepts and challenges faced by these…