In this article, the author reports on an awareness of controversial incidents on campuses around North America surrounding "politically correct" speech codes and thought control measures instituted at the behest of faculty and students of this ideological persuasion. It seems that critical theory is going beyond "critical…

This review is premised on the idea that poststructuralist theorising, particularly deconstructive conceptual ideas, is often seen as incongruent with research focused on social justice. Poststructuralism--if one can risk homogenising it into the one singular category given the variety of nuances--is considered anti-foundationalist. The utility of…

This paper focuses on the socialist underpinnings of education policies in three small (and micro) states: Guyana, Jamaica and Grenada. It explores the role of education underneath ideological pluralism in constructing socialist citizens through cooperative socialism in Guyana, democratic socialism in Jamaica and revolutionary socialism in…

Modern bureaucracy faces trade-offs between public and congressional input and agency expertise. The U.S. Forest Service offers an opportunity to quantitatively analyze whether an agency that is required to be more open to the public and congressional input will be forced to ignore its technical expertise in managing resources. This study uses…

For years, the St. Louis school district has experienced the convergence of two trend lines school superintendents hope never to see: rising employee-pension costs and falling student enrollment. Despite years of fully funding its share of the teacher-pension plan, the proportion of the St. Louis district's budget tied up in paying benefits for…

Nearly 25 years after New Jersey first took control of a troubled school district, a proposed state takeover of the Camden public schools sheds a critical spotlight on that state's long--and still mostly unsuccessful--record of trying to right struggling districts through such intervention. The state began running the public schools in Jersey City…

There are good reasons to press President Obama and his education advisors right now to both rethink the direction of educational reform as well as to reignite the national conversation regarding school change. A second-term president faces a moment where it's natural to analyze past practices and decide to either "stay the course or to…

The way in which societies around the globe are governed is changing towards more flexible and networked forms where the government is not the sole and main responsible actor in the organisation, funding, delivery and evaluation of public services. Analysing the new roles of philanthropic organisations, think tanks and business organisations is a…

The publication of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2009 (Cosgrove et al., 2010; Perkins et al., 2010) reading literacy results heralded a crisis of confidence in educational standards in Ireland. This article examines the national and international context of teacher education reform and the politics of the policy…

Recent research and theoretical work on whiteness in teaching highlights reific, monolithic discourses that position white teachers as deficient, resistant, naive, and ignorant. I seek to complicate similar reductive portrayals through a two-year case of one high school teacher's racial identities and subjectivities in and beyond the English…

In the face of competition from other nations, higher education in the United States has slipped from the status it has enjoyed over the years. With the economic downturn and changing demographics, new challenges have emerged that necessitate reevaluation of higher education policies. One consistent trend in recent years has been the steady…

This paper explores the governance of school-based and early education in England under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition Government (2010-15). It draws on three prominent Coalition policy areas--the academies programme, the pupil premium, and free part-time early education--and focuses on changes to the role played by central government…

This paper examines the debate in the U.S. Senate over the reasons why state governments have decreased funding for higher education. One side believes that federal mandates on states to pay for Medicaid have forced them to reduce spending on higher education. The other side believes that states unwisely reduced taxes, which decreased their…

This paper examines the discursive strategies employed by advocates of Parent Trigger laws in the United States which allow parents of children in "failing" schools, in some states, to call for interventions in the operation of the schools via petition. The paper reviews the genesis of Parent Trigger laws, the network of conservative…

In a time of increased standardization and top-down reform, teachers with democratic and social justice-oriented perspectives must work to create classroom spaces that value student voice and position them as knowledge holders. This article draws on a critical literacy framework to analyze the case study of one teacher working within a teacher…