The intersection of development in family and school settings has been well established and education policies have begun to promote ways to bridge the two contexts (i.e. teacher evaluations). For this manuscript, authors focus on how teachers and principals used a state educator evaluation policy to position parents as authorities on education.…

The aim of this article is to elucidate how a new system of school and teacher assessment in Catalonia is transforming the conceptions, practices and identity of head teachers, especially younger ones. It begins by considering the impact of global neoliberal policies on educational practices, highlighting their Foucauldian productive nature. It…

This paper explores changes to the educational policy-making arena through case study analysis of a Massachusetts law passed in 2012 that limits seniority-based job protections for public K-12 teachers. I use data from interviews with policy stakeholders, observations of public meetings, and policy artifacts to explore struggles over democratic…

The politics of the later part of the twentieth century have been marked by the emergence of neoliberalism, which has consequently impregnated the global policy climate with neoliberal technologies of government. It is within this political scenario of hegemonic neoliberal discourse that I explore one aspect of school reform in Malta--contrived…

This article proposes a framework for thinking about the ghostly, thus arguing that policy can be understood as a landscape of intersecting and colliding temporalities from which arouse curious workings of barely-there forces, spooky energies and vibrating saturations of affective ambivalences. I present an empirical study of a policy agenda of…

This paper explores the repositioning of state curriculum agencies in response to the establishment of the Australian Curriculum and the key national policy organisation responsible for its development: the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). I begin with an analysis of the federal Labor government's role in the…

The importance of intermediation between communities primarily engaged in research production and those primarily engaged in practice is increasingly acknowledged, yet our understanding of the nature and influence of this work in education remains limited. Accordingly, this study utilizes case study methodology and aspires to understand the…

This paper explores how the strong policy push to improve students' results on national literacy and numeracy tests -- the National Assessment Program, Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) -- in the Australian state of Queensland influenced schooling practices, including teachers' learning. The paper argues the focus upon improved test scores on NAPLAN…

Young people's aspirations remain an enduring focus of education policy interest and concern. Drawing on data from an ongoing five-year study of young people's science and career aspirations (age 10-14), this paper asks what do young people aspire to at age 12/13, and what influences these aspirations? It outlines the main aspirations and sources…

The increasing use of zero tolerance discipline policies in the USA has led to a "discipline gap," in which minoritized students receive harsher and more frequent suspensions and expulsions than their peers from dominant cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. Though disciplinary decisions are made by educators at the school level,…

In its advancement towards an education quasi-market, Catalonia has recently been driving the development of "school educational projects" in all schools (both public and private) as a tool to facilitate school autonomy and family choices. A school educational project is a formal document in which schools identify their pedagogical…

This paper focuses on the dual dependencies apparent at the intersection of the media society and the audit society by empirically exploring and discussing the relationship between Swedish local newspaper coverage and school inspection activities. The research questions pertain to the Inspectorate's media strategy, how inspection is represented…

Public-private partnerships in education (ePPP) are acquiring increasing centrality in the agendas of international organizations and development agencies dealing with educational affairs. They are designed as an opportunity to correct inefficiencies in the public delivery of education and to mobilize new resources to increase the access to and…

This paper presents the case of a relatively low-profile policy initiative that has been successively reframed as part of larger policy ensembles within UK schools over a six-year period, and translated during this time at national and school levels. The policy examined is that of study support or out-of-hours learning. The trajectory of this…

Lately, a deliberative conception of democracy has gained influence in policy debates throughout Europe. Individuals are here seen to be fostered into responsible, mature--democratic--citizens by being involved in dialogue. In the 1990s, calls for "democratic education" intensified in Sweden. This article analyses two pedagogical models…