Throughout the last 30 years, many European countries have 'modernized' their governance of education. For the Central European school systems of Austria and the German Bundesländer it has been claimed that this 'modernization' was characterised by a sequence of reform 'waves' which culminated in introducing 'evidence-based governance' models…

The major aim of recent school education reform in China is to improve educational equity and quality. This paper aims to explore a collaborative reform in a school district in Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province. The major focus of the reform has been a change of school management from "government" to "governance," which is a shift…

In this article, we contribute to the research on the process of privatisation of Finnish early childhood education (ECE), describe how the privatisation has proceeded within the legal framework and how profit making has become possible in ECE. Furthermore, we analyse how local key policy actors justify the privatisation of ECE and what the…

In several countries where immigration influxes have changed or increased, citizenship education policies have been strengthened as a way to build social cohesion. In this paper, I took the case of Chile to explore citizenship education policies throughout their references towards immigration. Methodologically, I use the Foucauldian notion of…

This article examines the development of Taiwan's Environmental Education Act and how Education for Sustainable Development was mainstreamed into the national policy framework within the country. The goal is to understand the policy tools and governing strategies that were used by the Taiwan government to develop and implement a nationwide…

This article offers a critical analysis of the role of public health regulation on tertiary education in Aotearoa New Zealand and, specifically, the requirements and processes of Responsible Authorities under the "Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act" for the accreditation and monitoring of educational institutions and their…

Merton's law on unintended consequences (1936) warns against the undesirable and unanticipated outcomes of every action and policy. More recent research (Zhao, 2017) in the field of education, in relation to Merton, claims that these consequences are usually treated as inconvenient side effect of a policy, but are, in fact, planned by…

The year 2018 marked the 10th anniversary of the global economic crisis of 2008. In Europe, austerity has been a constant ever since the crisis. This article critically engages with recent institutional and ideological developments in the small Baltic state of Estonia. The article investigates the structural reforms and prevailing ideology in…

This paper argues that the 'new governance' narrative should be revised and modified to reflect context-specific details of the policy sector and styles of government. I discuss the modified network governance narrative, including how the theory of bureaucracy informs the function of network governance. I then apply it to analyze a case study of…

This article focuses on neoliberal governing by the European Union of cross-sectoral youth policies directed at young people 'at risk'. The aim is to show how the alliance of discourses of employability and precariousness in these policies has emerged and how these discourses operate in policy. In the article, we analyse European Council and…

What is the significance of regulations of job contracts and wages when it comes to young people's access to labour market? This is an issue that has attracted and continues to attract a great deal of interest in both research and politics. Proposals for deregulated employment protection and reduced entry-level pay recur regularly in public…

While universities now lie between two philosophical poles -- idealism and utilitarianism -- the Humboldtian ideal primarily serves to give a humanist glaze to a technocratic discourse. Regardless of its autonomy on paper, the University does not control its finances. This guise of autonomy has set a double authoritarian heteronomy of the…

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has unveiled plans to move into the field of early childhood education through the introduction of the International Early Learning Study (IELS), a new comparative test of five-year olds that is being piloted in three nations. This article explores the dynamics of this new project…

This article examines why the government in England has signed the country up to taking part in the OECD's new international assessment known as The International Early Learning and Well-being Study (IELS). The article highlights the role of IELS as a technology of neoliberal governance. Looking forward it considers how IELS may open up new…

Early childhood education (ECE) is not new in Indonesia. However, in the past decade, it has received more attention, as shown by the growing number of ECE centres in both urban and rural areas. This growth is accompanied by policy development that corresponds to the global agenda of ECE. Policy development is inevitably linked with the support of…