The newly coined policy of social investment is an economic argument for targeting state investment to the most needy. I use Foucault's notion of biopolitics in a discursive analysis of recent New Zealand policy documents pertaining to a discrete group of 'vulnerable children'. I further argue that the Foucauldian metaphor of state institutions as…

This article describes the impact on young children of sudden and extended separation from a primary attachment figure. It recommends clinical intervention when the child's development and family functioning are negatively affected by the severity of the child's symptoms, and it highlights key treatment modalities derived from Child-Parent…

The recent headlines about parent and child separation at the U.S. border has raised concern about the impact of such experiences on young children. In this article, the author provides the children's perspective of parental separation and loss and their experience of mourning during infancy and early childhood. Three vignettes illustrate how…

Linguistic imperialism--a term used to conceptualize the dominance of one language over others--has been debated in language policy for more than two decades. Spolsky (Language policy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004), for example, has questioned whether the spread of English was a result of language planning, or was incidental to…

In recent years much has been written about the declining status of the humanities and the effect this has had on teaching and the curriculum. This article begins by examining some key defenses for teaching and studying the humanities that have been offered in the literature and points to their limitations. It is argued that in a policymaking…

O'Neill argues that the standard social democratic narrative of state schooling as a consensual, whole-of-society commitment to reduce educational inequalities across the system as a whole, for the collective well being of all, has been displaced by marketplace or commodity progressivism. He takes the position that reducing educational…

The OSeMOSYS project offers open-access energy modeling to a wide audience. Its relative simplicity makes it appealing for academic research and governmental organizations to study the impacts of policy decisions on an energy system in the context of possibly severe greenhouse gases emissions limitations. OSeMOSYS is a tool that enhances the…

The economics of happiness is a developing field of inquiry that is arousing more and more interest among public policy-makers. This article discusses some of the educational implications that stem from this new field of inquiry. The article argues that the economics of happiness shows that the present educational focus on enhancing productivity…

This paper critically analyses the introduction of drug detection dogs as a tool for policing of illicit drugs in New South Wales, Australia. Using Kingdon's "multiple streams" heuristic as a lens for analysis, we identify how the issue of drugs policing became prominent on the policy agenda, and the conditions under which the…

Nations actively write themselves onto human bodies. They etch and scratch their borders onto human flesh with figurative, often contradictory, ink that delivers stark material impact. The impacts hold their greatest force in metering the hinged consequences of contingent citizenship for some and unfettered citizenship for a few others. In this…

In parallel with an increased focus on border security in immigration and citizenship policy in the UK (the so-called 'hostile environment' policy), Government-approved English language tests for visa and immigration purposes were officially labelled 'Secure English Language Tests' (SELTs) in 2010. The proximity of security concerns in language…

The rapid spread of the coronavirus virus (COVID-19) has been responsible for massive global impacts on the lives of children, families and communities. It is important to document these effects for the Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) sector. This report focuses on the Asia-Pacific region and ECEC sector, given limited regional studies…

As someone whose training is in political science and who writes about the history of my own discipline, I admit to some hesitation in recommending future avenues of research for historians of education. For that reason, the following thoughts are directed toward disciplinary history broadly and social science history specifically. Moreover, the…

The need for transformation has led kingdom to envision and encode the Saudi Vision 2030 document; it is not merely an idealistic divination but a manuscript with an appropriate plan to accomplish its anticipated economic and social goals. In fact, planning is a critical factor in the document, which shapes it as a discourse of realization and…

This article employs event history analysis to explore the factors that were associated with the rapid uptake of teacher evaluation reform. We investigate three hypotheses for this rapid adoption: (a) downward diffusion from the federal government through Race to the Top (RTTT), (b) upward diffusion from large school district policies, and (c) the…