This article explores the theoretical conceptualization of the local as the preferential spatial domain for democratic participation and learning. It critiques the ideological nature of educational theory that bifurcates the local from the "the global" through the application of the Marxist concept of "fetish". The argument…

This article explores the merits, possibilities and difficulties of making intra and trans-disciplinary"border crossings" essentially of an ideational kind. Drawing ideas from complexity literature, the article lauds the potential of "concept studies" as means of making such crossings and addressing enduring issues (e.g., of…

This article offers a discourse analysis comparing selected articles in the national press over the consultative period for Phase 1 subjects in the new Australian Curriculum, with rationales prefacing official Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority documents. It traces how various versions of Australia, its…

Globalisation is often referred to as being external to education--a state of affairs presenting the modern curriculum with numerous challenges. In this article, "globalisation" is examined as something that is internal to curriculum and analysed as a "problematisation" in a Foucaultian sense, that is, as a complex of…

The state in Singapore has long insisted that Singaporeans be bilingual in English and an officially assigned ethnic mother tongue. English is to serve as the inter-ethnic lingua franca and facilitate economic competitiveness. The official mother tongue (Mandarin for the Chinese, Malay for the Malays, and Tamil for the Indians) is to serve as a…

This paper offers a broad overview of vocational education in Singapore. Looking at vocational education from Independence, it argues that the development of a skilled labour force was not only crucial in the age of globalisation and the dominance of multinational companies, but also an empirical litmus test of the newly elected post-colonial…

In concert with Singapore's ambitions of a global city well engineered to the human capital needs of the transnational knowledge economy, its schools in recent years have emphasized the teaching of critical thinking. Such efforts, however, are not without tensions and contradictions. Given that such a curricular ideal is underpinned by…

This paper examines the Singapore Ministry of Education's sexuality education curriculum in relation to two leading approaches to sex education, namely, abstinence-only-until-marriage education (AOUME) and comprehensive sexuality education (CSE). Based on competing cultural, political, and religious beliefs, the arguments between the…

The paper positions education and learning in the context of Gilles Deleuze's ethico-political philosophy oriented to becoming-other amidst experiences and events. Deleuze's unorthodox affective epistemology is inseparable from ethics in terms of real-life consequences at the level of practice. The paper presents the critical and clinical analysis…

In this article, we want to focus on the impact of the new health imperatives on young children attending primary schools because the evidence from both our own and others work suggests that younger and younger children are talking in very negative and disturbing ways about themselves and their bodies. We see this in a context where in the name of…

In recent decades, under the mutually constitutive processes of neoliberal urbanization and globalization, Vancouver has radically transformed and become a serious contender for the title of "world-class city". Against the background of this socio-spatial force reconfiguring the city, I explore how the city's unique development of "mini…

This paper examines the emergence of Hyderabad as a hub of the global information technology economy, and in particular, the role of higher education in Hyderabad's transformation as the labor market for the new economy. The extensive network of professional education institutions that service the global economy illustrates the ways in which…

Although Detroit is not a centre of global finance, and plays a declining role in global production, it nevertheless participates in the present remediation of the relationship between cities and the globe. Manoeuvring to reposition the city as the global hub of mobility technology, metropolitan Detroit's neoliberal leadership advances particular…

This paper analyzes the case of Porto Alegre, Brazil as a counter-hegemonic global city. Porto Alegre is a city with no particular relevance to neoliberal globalization that, nevertheless, was launched to a global scale by transformations in local governance. New mechanisms of deliberative democracy captured the attention of social actors…

Drawing upon our experience as university faculty in teaching novice educators, we explore the issue of resistance from students around learning that entails critical reflection. By novice educators, we refer to pre-service teacher candidates and graduate students in Education faculties, particularly graduate students in adult education/lifelong…