Policy affecting teacher education evolves from a wide range of sources, including public perceptions and attitudes, federal initiatives, current trends in public schools and higher education, the visions and whims of politicians, and the profession's own initiatives. No matter how it emerges, it is not unusual for policy ebbs and flows to result…

This article seeks to shed light on the dilemma facing history education in regions beset by a protracted, and as yet unresolved ethno-political conflict. The article will examine this issue by means of a unique test case that observes a dramatic war event in Israeli textbooks. The event in question is the Six-Day War of 1967 and the study of its…

In recent years, the goals and purposes of education within the international development discourse have shifted significantly away from education for productivity or human capital development and towards education for the fulfillment of the individual through human rights. The current global education climate provides governments with an…

Perhaps more extensively and provocatively than any other contemporary theorist, Henry Giroux has theorized the relationship between youth and democratic public life. Beginning arguably with his first book, Ideology, Culture, and the Process of Schooling (Temple University Press, 1981), and continuing across a number of critically acclaimed works…

This article seeks to augment an emerging interest in education policy research in enactment theorising, to explicitly consider the role and contribution of materiality in this theorising. Guided by the notion of policy "matters," the article takes as its empirical context a major policy initiative, the Building the Education Revolution…

Adult education has often been on the margin of university offerings in Australia and elsewhere, sometimes regarded as "non-core" business or at least as a financial drain on the institution. At the University of Sydney, however, adult education has managed to survive in one form or other for over 140 years, currently through the Centre…

Two days prior to the federal election on June 28, 2004, the "Lethbridge Herald" ran an article in which the renowned Cree leader and former Member of Parliament Elijah Harper (Churchill electoral district in Manitoba, 1993-97) publicly implored First Nations people in Canada to participate in the forthcoming vote. Citing the recent…

If policy is the most significant gatekeeping element for access to and development of community goods and services, and if music educators have historically lived at the margins of policy, then who procures access for the field? How are visions for musical and educational development articulated and what are the resulting implications? This…

The author contends that too much political advertising is a form of public relations "spin" in which the truth is sacrificed and the political process damaged as a result. The goal of much of this advertising too frequently focuses on transmitting "disinformation" that, while perhaps not technically a lie, is intended not to inform the public but…

The Improbable Theatre Company (ITC) was created by and for theatre artists with disabilities. Based on interviews of members from the company, we discuss tensions between the disability movement and arts professionals, the correlation between arts and politics within the disabled community, autonomy, advocacy, and control. We examine the…

Although, in recent years there have been several advances in critical applied linguistics which have attempted to problematize the ideological underpinnings of language practices, there have in parallel been resistances mounted on the part of traditional applied linguistics that adamantly oppose any form of coming to terms with the political and…

The article is a transcript of a talk given by the author at a University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Education symposium. He argues that the role of the state has changed quite dramatically since the 1960s. From the postwar period through the 1970s, there was an emphasis on expanding the state, and an emphasis on growing more…

This paper attempted to reveal some inadequacies inherent in the Nigerian system of education and, how the pragmatic approach to education can help solve the problems of disfunctionality of the system. It does this by explaining the aims and features of the pragmatic philosophy of education. Furthermore, the paper gave answers to two basic…

Many who would define themselves as liberal progressives were heartened by the election of Barack Obama to the presidency. However, perhaps almost as many have been disappointed by Obama's policies as president. In this paper the author seeks to understand and explain the seeming reversal in Obama's policies, especially regarding education. He…

In this article, the author critiques the notion of accountability in teachers' work. It serves to place in context the rationale and introduction of accountability mechanisms, such as the performance management policy, as implemented in South Australian public education. Further, it serves to illustrate what MacPherson (1998, p. 4) describes as…