Early childhood scholars in New Zealand have long lamented a rising dominance of neoliberalism. Correspondingly they suggest that there has been a lessening of socialist ideals and principles of Te Ao Maori after years of a right-wing government. With the 'refresh' of New Zealand's national early childhood curriculum, "Te Whariki" under…

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…

This article is the third of three on "Sources of Authority in Education." All use the work of Amy Gutmann as a heuristic device to describe and explain the prevalence of market-based models of education reform in the US and the business-influenced Global Education Reform Movement. The other two are "Negating Amy Gutmann:…

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…

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 article presents the concept of rhetorical agency to understand and analyse the parallel and paradoxical agencies teachers are offered, and limited by, under discourses of globalisation within education. The paper identifies typical arguments, reactions, narratives and metaphors of globalisation. It discusses some of the consequences these…

As international standards are continually publicized, countries across the globe have adapted educational policies to meet the demands of the global market, which has led to much emphasis on specific subjects and teaching methods. Although modern educational policies tend to focus on rhetoric about inclusion, systematic segregation remains in…

Three decades have passed since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and, entering the fourth decade, major changes are apparent in the structure and content of the nation's education system. Because of the victory of the Islamic Revolution of Iran and the regime change and formation of an Islamic state, the changes in the educational…

Taking the latest reform of Swedish teacher education as a point of departure, the aim of this article is to analyse the way Swedish teacher unions construct a knowledge base for teaching as a strategy of professionalisation. The analysis shows that the unions construct such a knowledge base from opposing points of departure. Their professional…

In England, social choice in education faces trade-offs between equity and efficiency. The scope of these trade-offs ranges from the introduction of choice to correcting "market failures" to reduce inequalities and restrict social injustices. The article analyses the English school education system and its relationship with social…

The purpose of this article is to analyse and interpret the effect of the primary school teachers' trade union in Greece insofar as the formation and realisation of education policy is concerned, and, more precisely, insofar as it concerns the issue of teacher evaluation. The research material used comes from the filing and analysis of the…

This is a dialogue or conversation between Michael Baker (MB) and Michael A. Peters (MP) on the concept of modernity and its significance for educational theory. The dialogue took place originally as a conversation about a symposium on modernity held at the American Educational Studies Association meeting 2010. It was later developed for…

A key function of health education in New Zealand schools has always been to educate individuals to be responsible and accountable for their own health status. Educational, economic and political stances on what best constitutes effective health education, however, shift over time. The outcome of these shifts is that a multiplicity of disciplines…

Since the establishment of educational rights for children with disabilities in the 1970s, special education in the US has included a growing share of students and has constituted an ever-growing share of education budgets. Previous research has focused on the disproportionate assignment to special education of low-income and minority students,…

The study scrutinizes the rationale behind higher education policy change in England and Japan, giving attention to stakeholders' perspective and legitimacy, policy network, and policy sphere. It argues that change in higher education policy in England and Japan towards being more market-oriented in the 1980s (England) and the 1990s (Japan) can…