The concept of learning has obtained great popularity in many fields. In common cause with neo-liberal ideology, learning has led to a learnification process that turns social pathologies into individual deficits. Various ways out of this situation have been sought; chief among them is the recruitment of unlearning as a promising negation of…

This paper suggests that scholarship on the affective life of neoliberalism in academia needs to exercise more caution when it invokes the notions of "neoliberal subjects" and "neoliberal affects." It is argued that this scholarship needs to expand its conceptual and theoretical vocabulary to recognize the multiplicities of new…

At the heart of the neoliberal university, affective energies linked to roles, responsibilities, expectations, policies, and bodies impact the atmosphere of university life. Associate professors report the highest levels of dissatisfaction among all ranks, as they find themselves entangled in affective knots. To understand these knots in associate…

Most educators enter the profession with a strong sense of purpose, often connected to a love of children and hope for the future, a desire to make a difference and give back to the community, or a belief in education as a catalyst for social justice. However, competing educational goals and purposes, as well as current educational reforms rooted…

Humanities educators are frequently frustrated by students' poor engagement in reading. The contemporary student experience is characterised by disruption and precarity. Similarly, is that of teachers who work in casual employment. This discussion is located within broader conversations around the neoliberal university, but aims to make more…

This article explores the increased concern with students' well-being in higher education as a mode of governance that goes hand in hand with new mechanisms of exclusion. Focussing on a new student survey in Denmark that measures students' well-being, we show how the well-being agenda is entangled with a new 'taxonomy of attitudes and emotions'…

The aim of, Jane's, Soundwaves Early Childhood Music lead, and Karen's, Early Childhood Studies lecturer, inquiry is to encourage new insights into how multiple relationalities and learning play out, throughout Soundwaves, an early childhood music education (ECME) programme. We work with Barad's diffractive methodology to shape our…

Academic identity refers to the experiences, ideas, beliefs and values of academics regarding the core values and principles of academic work. It is significant in defining the professional judgments, attitudes and behaviours of academics, and is fundamentally (re)constituted in the social, economic, cultural and political context of the academy.…

Our essay provides a provocation supporting the special issue of the "International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education's" titled "Why antiracism and critical whiteness now?" As editors, we circulated its call knowing that the conditions of our work in race and whiteness studies had changed. In our essay, we work…

This qualitative self-study brings philosophies of weak education to bear on the author's leadership practice situated within the belly of a business environment. The study investigates the author's practical application of weak educational theory into a weak educational leadership practice. This research reflects the author's struggle with…

As we move towards an ever-increasing authoritarian, neoliberal and populist education, it is noticeable how elements of religious thought are embedded into our language and practices. This article uses the lens of political theology, drawing on Carl Schmitt's work which explores how the secular is often based on theological concepts such as…

In this paper, the authors consider the intersections of philosophy and education. Extending the concept of a "minor pedagogy" first presented by Mazzei and Smithers (2020), the authors reorient thinking toward more equitable and just pedagogy as a cultivation of difference. This paper has three major sections. In the first two, the…

Early career academics (ECAs) are a highly vulnerable group, typically facing job insecurities, persistent pressure to publish, and conflicts in academic values and beliefs. Researchers have noted the precarious position of ECAs in neoliberal universities and expressed growing concerns regarding the effects of neoliberalism within higher education…

This book critically analyses how cultural and educational policies construct creativity through a range of concepts and compares this against the open and expansive idea of creativity as experienced by individuals in society more broadly. The book draws on empirical data, case-study examples, and ethnographic motifs to identify the discursive…

Underlying current research on China's world-class university (WCU) policy approaches are analytical foci that privilege the agency of social actors and the problem-solving approach to policy analysis. Foucauldian poststructuralists draw our attention to policy document, which is seen as a discourse that organizes and administers society. Inspired…