Until recently the dominant critique of "student participation" projects was one based on the theoretical assumptions of critical theory in the form of critical pedagogy. Over the last decade, we have witnessed the emergence of a critical education discourse that theorises and critically analyses such projects using Foucault's…

In undertaking a critical discourse analysis of the professed aims and objectives of one of the most influential curricula in the teaching of thinking, this article foregrounds issues of power and ideology latent in curricular discourses of rationality. Specifically, it documents the subtle but powerful ways in which political and class…

Children's participation initiatives have been increasingly introduced within various institutional jurisdictions around the world, partly in response to Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Such initiatives have been critically evaluated from a number of different angles. This article engages with an avenue…

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…

Drawing on post-structural and post-colonial conceptions of gender, this paper explores multiple student masculinities and femininities in the classrooms of four junior secondary schools in Botswana. These gendered identities, it is argued, are negotiated within broader institutional constraints that have been socio-historically produced. Such…

Drawing on Critical Race Theory (CRT) and illustrating with examples from the English system, the paper addresses the hidden racist dimension to contemporary education reforms and argues that this is a predictable and recurrent theme at times of economic crisis. Derrick Bell's concept of "interest-convergence" argues that moments of…

Disadvantaged young people often inhabit a dangerous space: excluded from education, training and employment markets; constructed as disposable; and cast out as "human waste" (Bauman, 2004). There are many macro-level analyses of this catastrophic trend, but this article provides insights into some of the everyday educational micro-practices which…

In this conceptual piece, we examine media as a nexus of a traditional schooling pedagogy and performance pedagogy to make visible how their overlapping elements produce media's pervasive educative force but also to gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of using media in educational contexts. Nexus analysis examines a fashion makeover…

Neoliberal policies, in spite of their considerable damage to economic equality, the environment, and education, remain dominant. In this paper, we suggest that neoliberalism has remained dominant in part because the power elite who benefit from the policies have gained control over both public debate and policy-making. By dominating the discourse…

This inquiry explores who is the "good teacher of color". Through Michel Foucault's notion of biopower and disciplinary power, the analysis attempts to problematize the subject-position of "teacher of color" by exploring how a Latino intern and a Latina intern negotiated their subjectivity in a large diverse school district. Participants'…

This paper explores how Foucault's concept of the panopticon, power and knowledge impacts on the identity of young Nunga males in a secondary educational institution. I argue that the regulation of the Nunga body in schools is embedded in the discursive formations of knowledge about Indigenous people and the workings of power that are tied up in…

Through an application of Foucauldian theories of power and neoliberalism, this article employs an ascending analysis to identify an embedded neoliberal agenda within the documentary "2 Million Minutes". The author argues that this neoliberal agenda serves to support and maintain notions of international white supremacy as it assumes relationships…

An ethical and democratic globality, and the kind of education that would contribute to it, are only possible in the context of a recognition of the relations of power that have shaped history, and in particular the political, cultural, economic, and epistemological processes of domination that have characterized colonialism and Eurocentrism.…

This paper examines the methodological dilemmas associated with analytical framing as an aspect of the research process. Doing qualitative research potentially changes a researcher--changes their sense of self, who they think they are, who they want to become. The paper examines the ethical dilemma of what that change might mean--for the project,…

This paper explores "the 5 cm rule", a regulation around student contact discovered during an investigation of the sexual culture of schooling with 16-19-year-olds in New Zealand. Implemented to stem "inappropriate and unwanted" touching, it stipulates that students must maintain a physical distance of 5 cm at all times. It is argued this rule…