Drawing on one of the author's experiences of teaching white teacher candidates in an urban university, this paper argues for the importance of interrogating the ways that benign emotions (e.g., pity and caring) are sometimes hidden expressions of disgust for the Other. Using critical race theory, whiteness studies, and critical emotion…

How research can better inform policy and how policy can have a better research base are longstanding issues both in educational research and across public policy generally. Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, this article argues that progress in increasing the impact of research can be made through a clearer understanding of the nature of…

Drawing on the work of Martin Nakata, this paper brings into focus the everyday complexities involved in the cultural interfaces that educators, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, negotiate in order to promote children's engagement with formal education processes. Analysis of emergent data from a recent evaluation of a preschool education…

Research into literacy and school subject performance focuses overwhelmingly on identifying and addressing risk factors associated with underachievement. Strenuous efforts are devoted to diagnosing the causes of literacy failure that are patterned by ethnicity, social class, and gender. This study explores the possibility that equal, or even…

The aim of this article is to analyse how good intentions in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) discursively construct and maintain differences between "Us" and "Them". The empirical material consists of textbooks about sustainable development used in Swedish schools. An analysis of how "Us" and…

This paper outlines a theory of the educational encounter, the space of, and the right to that encounter. Situated in response to neoliberal educational reforms, this theory is developed through a reading and synthesis of the educational theory of Gert Biesta, the architectural component of his theory, and literature on the right to the city. The…

The aim of this article is to explore aspiration in contemporary urban locations in the context of almost universal policy initiatives to raise aspirations of young people to participate in higher education. The article is based on a study of how children's career and further education aspirations are shaped over time in five schools in…

The relationships between disciplines and the institutions within which they are situated is a fertile area for researching the shaping of sociological knowledge. Applying theoretical insights from the sociology of knowledge, this article draws on an empirical study of research publications in the sociology of health and medicine to show which…

Despite the frequency with which the concept of neoliberalism is employed within academic literature, its complex and multifaceted nature makes it difficult to define and describe. Indeed, data reported in this article suggest that there is a tendency in educational research to make extensive use of the word "neoliberalism" (or its…

The launch of the Independent Public Schools (IPS) programme in Western Australia (WA) in 2010 reflects the neoliberal policy discourse of decentralisation and school self-management sweeping across many of the world's education systems. IPS provides WA state school principals with decision-making authority in a range of areas, including the…

In this article, we examine how our work in educational development, specifically in graduate student training, enacts the logic of neoliberalism in higher education in Canada. We approach this examination through a collaborative autoethnographic consideration of and reflection on our practices and experiences as educational developers, the design…

Discrimination against lesbians and gay men has been endemic throughout Australia's history. However, in twenty-first century Australian society there are signs of growing sophistication and acceptance of sexual diversities. Despite this, schools continue to be organisations where sexual "difference" is marginalised and silenced,…

Currently, when there is a lot of political talk about the need for "evidence-based policy", and when public policy seeks to calibrate research quality and impact, there is a pressing need to reconsider the relationships between education/al research and education policy. This article seeks to do this, beginning with considerations of the…

As nonprofit adult literacy programs are often the only options for low-income Latin American immigrants in North America, problems accompanying these programs affect the ability of immigrants to benefit from them. North American nonprofit adult literacy programs often struggle due to the difficulties inherent in using volunteer instructors (often…

In education, contemporary discussions of standards and standardisation often appear incidentally, as part of the critique of particular standardisation projects, such as national or international assessments and comparisons. This review essay focuses not on particular standards but more broadly on how standards develop, how they participate in…