This article draws on the sociology of Basil Bernstein to show how his detailed theories of "recontextualisation" and the "pedagogic device" provide useful analytic levers to examine the politics of educational change. We focus on recent policy developments that have significantly impacted Australian school education: the…

Today, more than 60 percent of teachers in the United States work under a union contract. The rights of teachers to unionize and bargain together have expanded dramatically since the late 1950s, when states began passing "duty-to-bargain" (DTB) laws that required school districts to negotiate with teachers unions in good faith. Recently,…

The past 15 years have seen a wealth of civic education initiatives. States have passed supportive laws, a blue-ribbon commission has identified best practices, and new programs are blossoming. Some emphasize knowing, and others emphasize doing; some are geared to academic learning about government and politics, while others emphasize…

In December 2014, the Coalition for the Future of Detroit Schoolchildren (CFDS) was formed to make sweeping educational reform recommendations regarding the provision and governance of public education in Detroit. Spearheaded by community organizations, labor unions, and business interests representing an array of stakeholders in the Detroit area,…

This symposium, "Barack Obama's Significance for Rhetoric and Composition," aims to provoke and renew disciplinary conversations about the meaning of an age now nearly past, as well as to pose questions that resonate for presidential rhetoric generally. It includes: (1) "Obama's Rhetoric: Black Talk Flow, White Folk Fluent"…

Obama's, and other policymakers', speeches claim that "creativity"--the ability to derive novel, excellent and relevant ideas and products--is a valuable student asset for the 21st century, but why? Two types of rhetorical appeals to long-held educational values in these speeches are examined: pragmatic claims about student creativity…

Situated against the backdrop of a widespread and growing interest in the linkages between neo-liberalism and welfare, this paper introduces the lens of neo-liberalism as a conceptual strategy for thinking about contemporary issues in education policy. Through charting the historic rise of unfettered market institutions and practices in the…

The issue of research within the Greek Universities pushes forward the learning and maturation procedure through action, a procedure that will change the framework of the University Community function by developing, on the basis of a rational reorganization, structural relationships with society. This study presents and analyzes the state of…

This study explores the intertextuality between Aurora Caceres's "La rosa muerta" (1914) and the novel "Del amor, del dolor y del vicio" (1898) by her ex-husband, Enrique Gomez Carrillo. Caceres strategically mentions Gomez Carrillo's novel in "La rosa muerta" to invite a reading of her work in dialogue with his. Both narratives follow the sexual…

The compilation film "La venganza de Pancho Villa" (ca. 1930), created by itinerant exhibitor Felix Padilla, combines footage from two national cinematic traditions--those of the United States and Mexico--to construct a biographical film about the regional hero and revolutionary general Francisco "Pancho" Villa. The film's use…

America's colleges and universities have been moving slowly but steadily away from tenure over the past decade. The American Federation of Teachers reports that community colleges have seen a 22% increase in the number of instructional staff between 1997 and 2007. During that time, the percentage of community college faculty that were full-time…

In this commentary, the author reviews in depth Roland S. Persson's (2012a) target article. According to him Persson (2012a) presents a convincing argument as he wove through examples and explanations. The idea of superculture connects well with the established neocolonial literature and the North-South/Centre-Periphery debate. From general to…

In a conversation between Francis Fukuyama, the Stanford-based political scientist, to publicise his new book "The Origins of Political Order," and Martin Wolf, the distinguished financial journalist, Fukuyama compares political systems in countries like China and Singapore with the liberal West. Without taking the analogy too far the…

This article seeks to explore a politics of becoming. Emphasizing the dynamics of both time and the affects produced with it, we engage by following the questions that are taken up, which bubble through the middle and which niggle at the margins of our thoughts. In sensing out the imperatives that seek to tie emotions to subjects, we argue that…

In this paper, I try to argue why it is worth turning to Hannah Arendt when reflecting on education. I am exploring her political theory in "The Human Condition" which, with the anthropologic category of natality, seems to offer an interesting approach for democratic education. Apparently everyone can participate in politics or even…