A recent report from the Democracy Project found that "confidence in our governing institutions has been weakening over many years, and key pillars of our democracy, including the rule of law and freedom of the press, are under strain." In the recently published book "The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to…

In this paper, the authors focus on everyday narrations of the nation as they are taken up by educators "in schools" in the United States, Denmark and Spain. As the primary institutions within which children from im/migrant communities are incorporated into the nation-state, schools are the key sites within which young people learn the…

As a postsecondary educator with most of my experience teaching in colleges, but with some also in undergraduate and postgraduate studies both in Canada and the United States, I have been teaching politics and government for close to fifty years. That time has been spent not only undertaking empirical analyses of political behaviour and the…

Publicly funded schools are supposed to serve everyone equally in egalitarian, liberal democracies. In this paper we claim that school music ensembles fail, on the whole, to adequately reflect current socio-demographic patterns in both Canada and the United States. From a postcolonial perspective we attempt to problematize, with reference to…

This paper brings together two ongoing research projects on current citizenship learning programs in Iraq and the United States, both of which draw from the theoretical ground of Marxist-feminist perspective. A particular strength of this paper is its comparison between two American citizenship education programs in the context of neoliberalism,…

This article takes a historical approach to the rise and fall of the public university, relating its fate to specific developments in public policy. Particular attention will be paid to the United Kingdom since it has developed an explicit drive towards the marketization of higher education in the context of an earlier commitment to public higher…

The neo-liberal move to depoliticise and deregulate governance of public sectors by transferring them to the technocratic and administrative marketplace management endangers the political and democratic processes at all levels. It influences education and educational leadership at their very core: the purpose of education is shifting from…

This commentary suggests that a countermovement for educational and social justice must learn from the dominant global neo-liberal movement and its successes in creating institutions and knowledge-making processes and networks. Local struggles for educational justice are important, but they need to be linked to a broader educational justice…

Faculty development programs in higher education frequently focus on educational practices advancing diversity, inclusion, and student success. They also usually address how to handle tense class disruptions arising over controversial topics. What faculty development programs usually fail to tackle, however, are fundamental questions of belonging.…

Critical responses to changes in UK higher education have emerged from various quarters. This article suggests that some of these responses are collusive with neo-liberalism and that a greater attention might be paid to the possibilities of the word "liberal" and to the more democratic implications of certain US initiatives.

There are several fundamental requirements for democratic government. First, there must be free and fair elections to elect leaders. Second, there must be freedom to express a wide range of views and positions, including criticisms of incumbent leaders. And third, the public discourse about elections and public policy issues must be conducted in a…

Civic learning, and education's vital purpose to cultivate engaged and effective citizens, is a national imperative. Civic education is consistent with President Obama's goal of regaining competitiveness in the global marketplace, and it is consistent with the goal of increasing student achievement and closing achievement gaps. There's much more…

The world is changing in dramatic and complex ways. There can be little doubt that if the twentieth century was "The American Century," the twenty-first century has already become a Global Century, framed by new power dynamics, new economic realities, and new quests for self-determination and freedom across all parts of the globe. In…

The "twisted cyber spy" affair began in 2010, when Google was attacked by Chinese cyber-warriors charged with stealing Google's intellectual property, planting viruses in its computers, and hacking the accounts of Chinese human rights activists. In the ensuing international embroglio, the US mainstream press, corporate leaders, and White…

This paper engages with a selection of scholarly writing in English that was published in the last decade and written from particular liberal democratic contexts (predominantly the UK, the USA, and Canada). The literature diagnoses the need for a more complex theory of citizenship education and theorises schooling for citizenship in a global…