Given my long-time interests in neoliberalism and questions of subjectivity, I am pleased to respond to Jesse Bazzul's paper, "Neoliberal Ideology, global capitalism, and science education: Engaging the question of subjectivity." In what follows, I first summarize what I see as Bazzul's contributions to pushing science education in "post"…

With the growing size of the "Millennial Generation" and its potential impact on American democracy, the civic education of this cohort deserves study. Using news media and discussion of politics at home and in the classroom at four public high schools in New Jersey, we conducted an experiment to measure changes in media use, political…

While there is little political opposition towards sex education as such in Norway, recent attempts at reforming the subject reveal underlying heteronormative presumptions that seem resistant to reform. While a focus on homosexuality is included in the national curriculum at all levels of compulsory education, the sexual practices involved in…

Education is dangerous. Authoritarian governments and religions have persistently tried to control the content of education and ration its distribution. In the colonial world, education was always a site of struggle as the colonizing powers sought control and modernization, and the colonized sought some balance between protecting local cultures…

In the twenty years since independence, new Eurasian nation-states of the former Soviet Union have introduced major changes to the way students are admitted to institutions of higher education. Azerbaijan (1992), Uzbekistan (1993), Kazakhstan (1999), Russia (2001), Kyrgyzstan (2002), Ukraine (2004), and Georgia (2005) have all created new state or…

This article reports on national standards about sexuality, sexual health, and relationships that outline topics students should learn, starting in kindergarten, and that they can build on as they grow older. The standards--an initiative by groups concerned with student health and sex education--are intended to mimic content standards for other…

This article, drawing especially but not exclusively on Bourdieu's work on practice and its relationships with habitus, capital, and field, argues for a perspective on policy, as informed by and as practice, and applies it across all elements of the policy cycle. It is argued that a practice perspective captures well the economies of power in…

This article outlines the findings of an Economic and Social Research Council-funded study exploring the role of English state primary schools in promoting positive attitudes towards disabled people. Data emerging from a survey of schools and interviews with teachers are presented. The article considers progress made by schools against particular…

Following the indecisive general election in May 2010, the Tories and Liberal Democrats formed a coalition government with David Cameron as Prime Minister, George Osborne as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Michael Gove as Secretary of State for Education. Right from the start, Gove was a man in a hurry. Within two weeks of his appointment he had…

Can a teachers' union successfully be both a hardball-playing defender of its rights and a collaborative force for the common good? It is both a question of philosophy and, increasingly, one of policy direction for the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), whose biennial convention in Detroit showed delegates grappling with the tension between…

After WWII, the economic prospects of the Philippines, then the second-largest economy in Asia, were viewed positively, but by the mid-1970s it had become Asia's developmental puzzle for its failure to sustain economic growth. In contrast during the same period, regional neighbours, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore, achieved previously…

It has long been lamented that Americans do not comprehend conservative and liberal ideologies and the associated policy preferences for each perspective (and the reasoning behind the associations). This research seeks to contribute to the teaching of conservatism and liberalism by creating a heuristic outlining six general characteristics for…

While many states are handling evolution better today than in the past, anti-evolution pressures continue to threaten state science standards. In April 2012, for example, Tennessee passed a law that enables teachers to bring anti-evolution materials into the classroom without being challenged by administrators. This law is similar to the Science…

Drawing on interviews with 33 young people between the ages of 14 to 17 attending three English schools we examine their experiences of a personalised education system. The policy climate in England has for some time been one of intense and persistent reforms. The Labour Party took office in 1997 and advanced "personalised learning" as a…

In this article, I reflect on the politics, practices and possibilities of the open educational resources (OER). OER raise important implications for current and potential students, for postsecondary education institutions, and for those currently teaching in higher education. The key questions raised by OER centre on the role of teaching in…