For Pierre de Coubertin, Olympism was a tool which could serve to educate young people, employing a twofold approach, both sporting and intellectual. This ambitious programme involved a balance between mind and body, as his famous statement, "Mens fervida in corpore lacertoso" (a passionate mind in a well-trained body), demonstrates. Since the…

Free schools are new state-funded but privately-run schools set up under the academies legislation. Free schools represent the most overtly market-oriented policy within the Conservative-led Coalition government's school reform programme in England and have provoked intense controversy, centering on issues of pupil attainment, social equality,…

Promoting parental participation plays a significant role in education policies across Britain. Previous research has identified various barriers to involving disabled parents. This paper reports findings from part of a study examining disabled parents' engagement in their children's education, which focused on good practice. Twenty-four case…

In this essay, Jennifer Keys Adair aims to clarify the concept of "agency" as a tool for improving the educational experiences of young children in the early grades. She conceptualizes agency in the context of schooling as the ability to influence what and how something is learned in order to expand capabilities, drawing on economic…

In this essay, Harry Brighouse and Gina Schouten outline four standards for judging whether to support the chartering of a new school within a given jurisdiction. The authors pose the following questions to a hypothetical school board member: Will the school increase equality of opportunity? Will it benefit the least-advantaged students in the…

This paper examines ways in which privatisation of education is affecting the search for gender justice through education focusing on Uganda's higher education institutions (HEIs). Since 1988 when the first private university was opened, the winds of change have swept Uganda's higher education sector to change how it is financed and managed. The…

We describe the lived experiences of a Black Woman educational leader who has studied and worked in the academy and in the field of K-12 education. This partial life history, excavated through the tenets of Critical Race Theory (CRT), illuminates the social construction of race and the pervasiveness and permanence of racism. We determined through…

In this article, Lois Weis and Michelle Fine introduce critical bifocality as a way to render visible the relations between groups to structures of power, to social policies, to history, and to large sociopolitical formations. In this collaboration, the authors draw upon ethnographic examples highlighting the macro-level structural dynamics…

The notion of a conspiracy creating and maintaining the educational performance gap between Black and White students may seem to most to be far-fetched. However, experience of schools and of the workings of local education authorities points to a continuation if not a deepening of educational inequalities. How can this be understood? Gillborn…

In this article, Lauren Anderson takes an inductive approach to the study of teacher agency, specifically considering who supports teachers, and how, in their efforts to advance equity in urban, high-needs schools. Drawing from a larger research project, Anderson focuses on a multiyear case study of one early-career teacher and incorporates social…

In this essay, Jeff Duncan-Andrade explores the concept of hope, which was central to the Obama campaign, as essential for nurturing urban youth. He first identifies three forms of "false hope"--hokey hope, mythical hope, and hope deferred--pervasive in and peddled by many urban schools. Discussion of these false hopes then gives way to…

From the unique perspective gained heading Obama's education policy transition team, Darling-Hammond describes President Obama's commitment to making the education of every child a collective responsibility and reviews the major tenets of the new administration's plans for education. She reflects on the importance of suggested policy changes,…

In this essay, Vanessa Siddle Walker invokes the voices of black educators who challenged the diluted and failed vision for an integrated South after the 1954 "Brown v. Board of Education" decision mandating school desegregation. Through collaboration and activism, these educators fought against the second-class integration implemented in the…

Reflecting on the 2008 election, Prudence Carter challenges the popular notion that President Obama's victory is symbolic of a postracial society in the United States. Citing statistics about the opportunity gap that still exists in our nation's schools--as well as the recent Supreme Court cases that served to halt racial desegregation--Carter…

In this essay, Wayne Au carefully considers the educational stance of Barack Obama by exploring the president's speeches and his personnel and policy choices. Au considers the election of Obama as a moment of possibility for change in American education, but also questions whether Obama's hopeful message about education will be fully realized,…