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We draw upon the metaphor of navigation to rethink how we think about place. We highlight three extensions that dominate current place-sensitive organizational research. We draw upon a set of six important papers published in Organization Studies that showcase the diversity, multiplicity and multidimensionality of place. The studies we select highlight three important movements in the study of place – from stable to dynamic, from physical to polymorphic, and from neutral to political. In doing so, they serve as a compass to guide our thinking and research on how place is created, negotiated and experienced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the application of a ‘signature pedagogy’ in the teaching of critical social work theory and practice on a social work undergraduate course at a Swedish university. Feedback from students over four terms, together with a one-off reflection focus group, provided relevant information that suggests that a signature pedagogical framework has value within the discussion of teaching critical theory practice and methods. The key arguments and findings found in this paper center on the interconnection between a pedagogical framework, the course in question, and the feedback from the students. The conclusion points to the argument that using a signature pedagogical framework can provide a guide to teaching critical social work and practice on a social work undergraduate course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper conceptualises political marketing as a field which needs to engage more deeply with the symbolic and discursive insights of critical theory in order to advance significantly beyond its current theoretical and empirical parameters. Although the marketing theories and concepts which have influenced this growing sub-discipline have been applied productively to the marketing of political parties (and, more broadly, to the processes of democratic governance), political marketing scholars now recognise the need to stretch both its theoretical and practical boundaries in order to promote a more inclusive research agenda. This paper reviews some of these concerns, analyses their strengths and weaknesses and proposes a "critical turn" for the field of political marketing based on critical theories of consumption, production and difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis program evaluation outlines the process, challenges, and outcomes of decolonizing middle school curriculum through an interdisciplinary approach. A diverse team of educators conducted a curriculum audit and restructuring initiative in a Western New York independent school. Faced with data analysis challenges, the team devised an Environmental Justice Education framework, drawing on Bullard’s Environmental Justice Theory and Critical Race Theory. The resultant curriculum map, implemented with students, embraced an interdisciplinary, place-based approach, grounded in Indigenous history and contemporary events, and emphasized action- oriented learning. The impact on student learning was profound, as the infusion of justice-based, localized questioning facilitated meaningful dialogue and engagement. Students demonstrated increased awareness, ownership, and civic involvement, sharing newfound narratives with peers and family. This paper provides a comprehensive guide for educators seeking to cultivate critical questioning skills through a community place-based design model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an example of transformative learning afforded to social work students participating in an international study program between United States and Germany focusing on Genocide and the Holocaust. Using epistemic justice as a frame, it foregrounds the experience of a Black female social work student who was the target of microaggressions while abroad and highlights the critical theories, such as critical consciousness, critical realism, and intersectionality, used to help students reflect on and make meaning of their experiences. Through self-reflection and sustained dialogue, the experience offers examples of how students were engaged in a learning process that enabled them to become critically aware of the various individual and social forces that impact the lived experience of others. It also demonstrates how examining past issues of social injustice and oppression can be central to transformational learning about agency and advocacy in the modern day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the potential for critical theories to contribute towards social transformation through a process of popular education that supports learning and organising. Theory can create a platform of understanding across different communities that are resisting social injustice. This can enhance opportunities for translocal learning to catalyse social transformation at scale. Too often, however, academic theories remain disconnected from contemporary struggles for social justice – and as a result their contribution to social transformation is diminished. Therefore, we must reconsider how critical theories develop. Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that builds theory through social action. It can guide a methodological infrastructure through which to best develop practice-led theory. I will explain how a critical pragmatist approach, anchored in participatory research, is more likely to generate theories that are both resonant to conditions of injustice and relevant for social transformation. The methodological innovations of early 20th century scholars WEB Du Bois and Jane Addams illustrate the key dimensions necessary for a critical pragmatist approach. Du Bois' contestation of structural problems and Addams' commitment to participatory experimentalism can inform an effective approach to these issues. In so doing, the article outlines key foundations for a philosophy of social inquiry to support learning and organising about social transformation. The ideas presented in this paper also contribute to debates about how to re-imagine the civic purpose of the academy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Social workers are expected to challenge the exclusion and oppression of marginalised populations which requires the critical interrogation of prejudicial views, discriminatory attitudes, and oppressive practices. In this regard, social work practitioners need to be vigilant of their own attitudes toward the people they serve. This is relevant to social work practice with sexual minorities. This paper presents the results of a mixed-methods study informed by a critical theoretical frame that explored Vietnamese social work practitioners' attitudes toward sexual minorities. The findings presented in this article were drawn from a survey of 292 social work practitioners based in Hanoi, Vietnam and 12 semi-structured interviews with volunteers recruited from the pool of survey participants. Findings: The findings suggest that practitioners who participated in this study held relatively positive attitudes toward people who identify as lesbian or gay. However, those who had what could be considered moderate to positive attitudes were not necessarily free from prejudicial and discriminatory views, particularly when it came to certain matters such as those relating to their own families and work with young children. Applications: The discussion of the findings illustrate the relevance of the broader social context to Vietnamese social work practitioners' attitudes toward sexual minorities. It highlights the potent influence of dominant ideologies in shaping prejudicial views and attitudes and points to the need for practice at a broader level targeting Vietnamese society and culture as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of critical policy analysis (CPA) in the fields of educational leadership and policy. In addition to exploring how CPA compares to traditional research approaches in educational leadership and policy, the authors consider the influence of long-established ways of knowing, why scholars choose to engage in CPA and how and why scholars who utilize this approach decide on specific methods. Design/methodology/approach – The exploration draws primarily on the use of CPA in the USA, though the authors also examine how scholars working within the UK utilize CPA. Findings – In the review of critical policy literature, the authors identified a number of assumptions common to traditional and critical policy research theories and approaches. For example, systems theory and analysis, structural analysis, cost-benefit analysis, technicist models, and political models were commonly used within traditional literature. In comparison, critical policy researchers relied on theoretical perspectives informed by critical theory, feminist theories, and critical race perspectives, among others. Critical policy researchers used these perspectives to engage in critique, interrogate policy processes, and epistemological roots of policy work, reveal policy constructions, and examine players involved in the policy development, interpretation, and implementation processes. Notably, the work of critical educational leadership and policy scholars also emphasizes the importance of context, the theory-method relationship and methodology. Originality/value – While there is a growing movement occurring in the education leadership and policy fields toward critical analyses of educational research, little is known about how scholars decide what methods to employ when conducting such analyses. The authors discuss the possibilities for scholars utilizing these methods in order to explore the complexities of education leadership and policy problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a conceptual basis for refashioning the formulation of critical teacher education. It argues that current critical teacher education is uncritically constructed upon key theoretical departures from critical theories. Drawing on Boltanski’s critique of critical theories, the paper examines the ways these theoretical departures limit the structure of critique and therefore impede critical teacher education in its effort to empower educational actors, including students. Specifically, it analyses how critical theories’ justification of the goal of emancipation for educational actors hinges on intellectual inequality, the ignorance-knowledge continuum, and the hierarchical perception of social relations. This paper introducesnetworked-hutong siweito reconceptualise critical teacher education that centres on developing teachers’ predispositions and skills to better mobilise and engage the critical capabilities of educational actors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The objective of this paper is to problematize and rethink the multiple threads of reasoning that come together to shape and sustain the desirability of English language learning in Asian countries. Under the theoretical framework of critical and post-structural theories, this paper challenges the construction of the English language as the language that promises development and progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phenomenology as a methodology reveals lived experience (van Manen, 2017); as such, it is an excellent methodology to help us understand the parent perceptions and experiences of child custody decision-making. Qualitative researchers have explored the ways in which lived experience is influenced by issues of culture and gender (Kall & Zeiler, 2014). In this paper, I explain how the key tenets of phenomenology, epoché and reduction, revealed the importance of custody status for participants, and also discuss how differences in gender was rendered invisible in the initial analysis. The flexible nature of phenomenology allowed me to use a critical lens after the initial analysis to consider another understanding of the parent experience, while still revealing lived experience. These new understandings better position us for social justice work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although nursing has a unique contribution to advancing social justice in health care practices and education, and although social justice has been claimed as a core value of nursing, there is little guidance regarding how to enact social justice in nursing practice and education. In this paper, we propose a critical antidiscriminatory pedagogy (CADP) for nursing as a promising path in this direction. We argue that because discrimination is inherent to the production and maintenance of inequities and injustices, adopting a CADP offers opportunities for students and practicing nurses to develop their capacity to counteract racism and other forms of individual and systemic discrimination in health care, and thus promote social justice. The CADP we propose has the following features: it is grounded in a critical intersectional perspective of discrimination, it aims at fostering transformative learning, and it involves a praxis‐oriented critical consciousness. A CADP challenges the liberal individualist paradigm that dominates much of western‐based health care, and the culturalist and racializing processes prevalent in nursing education. It also situates nursing practice as responsive to health inequities. Thus, a CADP is a promising way to translate social justice into nursing practice and education through transformative learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organization theorists have predominantly studied identity and organizing within the managed work organization. This frames organization as a structure within which identity work occurs, often as a means of managerial control. In our paper our contribution is to develop the concept of individuation pursued through prefigurative practices within alternative organizing to reframe this relation. We combine recent scholarship on alternative organizations and new social movements to provide a theoretical grounding for an ethnographic study of the prefigurative organizing practices and related identity work of an alternative group in a UK city. We argue that in such groups, identity, organizing and politics become a purposeful set of integrated processes aimed at the creation of new forms of life in the here and now, thus organizing is politics is identity. Our study presents a number of challenges and possibilities to scholars of organization, enabling them to extend their understanding of organization and identity in the contemporary world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meaningful service user involvement in health professions education requires integrating knowledge held by "lay" people affected by health challenges into professional theories and practices. Involving service users redefines whose knowledge "counts" and implies a shift in power. Such a shift is especially significant in the mental health field, where power imbalances between health professionals and service users are magnified. However, reviews of the literature on service user involvement in mental health professional education do little to explore how power manifests in this work. Meanwhile critical and Mad studies scholars have highlighted that without real shifts in power, inclusion practices can lead to harmful consequences. We conducted a critical review to explore how power is addressed in the literature that describes service user involvement in mental health professions education. Our team used a co-produced approach and critical theories to identify how power implicitly and explicitly operates in this work to unearth the inequities and power structures that service user involvement may inadvertently perpetuate. We demonstrate that power permeates service user involvement in mental health professional education but is rarely made visible. We also argue that by missing the opportunity to locate power, the literature contributes to a series of epistemic injustices that reveal the contours of legitimate knowledge in mental health professions education and its neoliberal underpinnings. Ultimately, we call for a critical turn that foregrounds power relations to unlock the social justice-oriented transformative potential of service user involvement in mental health professions education and health professions education more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper overviews some of the most important anti-Marxist traditions in the Romanian public sphere and analyses the discourse of three of the most important anti-communist philosophers today: Andrei Pleșu, Gabriel Liiceanu and Horia-Roman Patapievici. The main argument is that most relevant ideas of the author The Capital are misused and misinterpreted, due to a primitive understanding of Marxism. One problem is that Romania lacks academic studies of post-Marxism. The other is that the Romanian intellectuals are most often propagating ready-made Marxist ideas, half-truths without referencing the original context. Returning to the classical work of Terry Eagleton, who suggested that "Marx was right," the author proposes a return to Marxist concepts, so necessary when it comes to critically understanding present day capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The status of refugees in host nations may depend upon several factors, including the economic situation of the receiving state, political alignments, international commitments, ethnic affinities, the domestic refugee regime, security considerations and bilateral ties with the home country. The study aims to discern the role that bilateral ties and domestic considerations play in the refugee experience. Is there a pattern that can be drawn out from these two factors? The article uses neoclassical realist and critical theories to better understand the phenomena, while employing the case study method to make a comparative study. The study analyses how India and Turkey have dealt with refugees belonging to two ethnic minorities of the Republic of China: the Tibetans and the Uyghurs. The results show that the way the receiving states handle refugees depends greatly on domestic considerations. It becomes clear that even though bilateral ties between the host and the home nation are important, no simple deduction can be made on how this affects the treatment of refugees. Both cases provide varied response patterns; it is only through a blend of realpolitik and critical theory that the phenomena can be understood. Mapping refugees and their movements, as well as their status in the host countries, determines many of the policies created for their welfare. The article therefore attempts to provide a framework for a better understanding of the phenomena by considering bilateral ties and domestic considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussions about diversifying the discipline of international relations (IR) are often met with limited evidence in practice. Employing the concepts of epistemic oppression and academic dependency, this article contributes to filling the existing knowledge gap by examining what the pedagogical practices of IR professors, particularly in terms of syllabi design and content, tell us about the state of disciplinary diversity. The article examines results from a preliminary study that analyzes different graduate-level IR syllabi from leading universities in the Global North (represented by United States and United Kingdom) and Global South (Africa in particular) in order to determine how their design, including required readings and other pedagogical choices in the classroom, contributes to the explicit diversity needed to push IR beyond its usual canon. The findings suggest that although more perspectives have become accepted or recognized, what is considered essential for graduate students to study and further propagate is still primarily mainstream. Another point is that what has become known as "critical IR" cannot automatically be equated with diversity. This means there is the need to further interrogate and open up more avenues that go beyond what can be characterized as a "critical canon" of IR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines a typology of visual analytical prisms based on social critical theories. Four compositional art analysis paradigms are presented. These include (a) two descriptive analytical prism-compositional analyses of spatial division for resources in the system, (b) compositional analyses of the reciprocal relationship between figure and background, or micro and macro levels of experience, and two transformative analytical prisms, (c) using compositional mechanisms as a way to self-define content for marginalized and silenced groups, and (d) using visual language to shift static social stands and negotiate multiple perspectives. Each of these analytical prisms is explained and illustrated using images created by Bedouin women in Israel, who are an Indigenous group experiencing marginalization. Implications for including a typology and methodology for using social theories to analyze art in art therapy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the methodological configuration of critical theories in the knowledge organization domain. We present these critical theories as a response to the ethical problems that affect particular groups in universal classification systems. We analyze the epistemological stances and methodological implications of three instances of critical theories applied to knowledge organization. As a result, we present a framework of methodological dynamics composed of three steps: 1) aporetics; 2) theoretical framework; and 3) proposition. We conclude that certain epistemologies (such as pragmatism) present a more developed methodology according to this framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a critique of the essentialized assumptions about identity, culture and education that are found in contemporary peace education literature and explores the implications that these assumptions have for teacher education in conflict and post-conflict societies. The authors suggest that there is a need to move away from the epistemological primacy of these assumptions toward a critical ontological, contextualized and historicized approach. The authors propose that teachers need to be educated to become ‘critical design experts’. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper proposes an identification of the main arguments suggested by certain critical theories concerning the relationship between law and power. In order to (re)think the function of law as an instrument not only of power, but as an element of social transformation, we promote here a reflection on aspects raised by these theories; among others, the same notion of power, oppression, intersectionality or decoloniality. These categories are relevant to examine how law regulates the experiences of discrimination of specific social groups, highlighting the intimate relationship between the social contexts, the premises and the legal answers. To do so, we examine in particular how asylum law responds to claims grounded on sexual orientation and gender identity. Finally, this reasoning suggests a conception of law oriented to action and the social change.

The 2021 Politics of Education Yearbook brings together scholars from diverse theoretical orientations—including policy studies, critical trans politics, and Critical Race Theory—to explore the politics of distraction within education policymaking. This introductory article previews the work included in the Yearbook and presents a grounding framework for policy distraction, which we define as a persistent focus on a narrowly defined set of policy solutions that diverts attention from root causes, structural forces, and historical/contextual circumstances (Bell, 2003; Giroux, 2013, 2017; Spade, 2011, 2013, 2015). We articulate five elements of policy distraction. They (a) rely on narrow policy frames to address educational problems of practice; (b) name phenomena in ways that affect our understanding; and (c) largely ignore inequalities and structural conditions. In doing so, they may (d) reinforce the status quo; and (e) reify ideas of what counts as normal or, alternatively, as deviant (Spade, 2011). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The field of environmental education (EE) aims to produce an environmentally literate citizenry that is not only aware of environmental problems but is motivated to work toward their solution. However, much of the U.S. EE curricular focus has been on understanding the biophysical environment with rural populations, with little discussion about the environmental problems created by the dominant Western cultural norms. Purpose: Freire's ecopedagogical framework provides a framework for this discourse, yet there are few studies exploring how to put the theory to action. Experiential education's principles of practice provide a platform to help environmental educators make this shift. Methodology/Approach: This mixed-methods participatory action research study includes observations, 71 document reviews, 29 interviews, and 15 surveys. Findings/Conclusions: This study presents two unique curricular interventions that aim to disrupt cultural patterns of environmental oppression through the use of ecopedagogy. Implications: This work expands on conclusions drawn in research by Smith and Segbers which recommended both transcultural pedagogy and a willingness to move beyond traditional models of curricula. Specifically, White environmental educators and researchers must rise to the challenge of adopting and innovating ecopedagogies that empower youth to explore solutions in their communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of Freire Today, this paper aims to present the results from a case study in Vietnam about the teachers’ perception of education with the recognized signals of being oppressed and the oppressors in their teaching. This study was conducted to clarify the problems preventing education to be developed in this context with the participants from 3 provinces in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. The qualitative data was collected through using a mixture of 7 interviews and 10 opened-question surveys due to the geographical difficulties. The data collection was framed by using the Padilla’s (1994) techniques of unfolding matrix for data analysis. The findings show that the authoritarian education remains unchanged or slowly transformed with the signals of the teachers as both the oppressors to their learners and the oppressed in their working system. The findings would be meaningful during the ways to figure out the real challenges of current Vietnamese educational system in which critical theories could be considered as one of the possible solutions.

Case management is experiencing a major evolution that involves the isolation of its roles and the compartmentalization of its functions. As educators, it is challenging to keep track of these changes and to equip students for contemporary practice. Five social work academics from three educational institutions undertook a co-operative inquiry into the research question; 'What are the tensions within the contemporary human and community services environment that are influencing the teaching of case management?' The inquiry examined the dominant tensions between social work case management and the contexts within case management is practiced. The shifting and shifty nature of case management and personalization approaches in the quasi-market emerged as key themes. Finally, we reflected on how our teaching practices equip students to deal credibly and courageously with the global and local trends that are currently influencing case management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The neoliberal university is described as a space where there is an ever-present 'scarcity of time' as faculty face increasingly high-paced demands for efficiencies and productivity. By this logic, students are produced as self-enterprising individuals, steeped in the values of competition, and solely invested in enhancing their human capital. Within this context, online education has gained prominence as an alternative to on campus, face-to-face post-secondary education. In this article, we draw on findings from qualitative interviews conducted with social work educators who teach using online-based pedagogy as well as recent graduates who completed their social work education in distance learning programmes. Our research explores how distance education shapes the pace of knowledge production in Canadian Schools of Social Work where a mandate to promote social justice-based professional practices coincides with time constraints associated with neoliberalism. Building on conceptualizations of temporality, we found that when mobilized as a time-saving measure, online programmes can exacerbate the intensified workload for both teachers and students, and they can also limit potential for equity and inclusion in the university. However, when mobilized as a 'time-taming' measure, adequately resourced distance social work education programmes offer possibilities of resistance to pressures faced in post-secondary institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored educational persistence in the narratives of students re-engaging in secondary school, specifically relating to the messages they received from their families motivating them to succeed in school. Framed in Yosso's (2005) theory of community cultural wealth, students described the methods their families used to support them that largely diverged from traditional methods of academic family involvement. In the midst of educational reform discourse that takes a deficit view of students and families who do not follow institutionally recognized norms of family involvement, this study seeks to challenge the notion that families who use non-traditional forms of support do not care about their children's education. In fact, student narratives show that the community cultural wealth they received from interactions with their families was integral in motivating them to persist through obstacles in school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qualitative methods are not intrinsically progressive. Methods are simply tools to conduct research. Epistemology, the justification of knowledge, shapes methodology and methods, and thus is a vital starting point for a critical health equity research stance, regardless of whether the methods are qualitative, quantitative, or mixed. In line with this premise, I address four themes in this commentary. First, I criticize the ubiquitous and uncritical use of the term health disparities in U.S. public health. Next, I advocate for the increased use of qualitative methodologies—namely, photovoice and critical ethnography—that, pursuant to critical approaches, prioritize dismantling social–structural inequities as a prerequisite to health equity. Thereafter, I discuss epistemological stance and its influence on all aspects of the research process. Finally, I highlight my critical discourse analysis HIV prevention research based on individual interviews and focus groups with Black men, as an example of a critical health equity research approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After almost four decades of feminist International Relations (IR), I here rethink the journey this has entailed - for myself and others -- and contemplate where it has taken us. I first consider my own introduction to the discipline of IR and interpret activist commitments of the 'first generation' of participants. I then return to early developments and initial questions that fostered boundary-transgressing feminist contributions. Recalling three 'imagined' critical conversations - regarding empirical criteria, epistemological frames and normative/political strategies - I then reflect on the feminist journey of many into, within, and increasingly beyond the constraining boundaries of disciplinary IR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on critical race theory (CRT) to foreground the role of race and racism in the ways in which Black students experience social work teaching and learning. It reviews some of the available literature on Black social work students' experiences of teaching and learning. The article reframes understandings of the perceived failures of this group of students to adapt to the world of higher education. It is argued that race and racism are salient determining factors in the experiences of Black students within social work education. Emphasis is placed on understanding the specificity of this group of students taking into cognisance the social, cultural, economic, and political contexts within which they are located. The article uses CRT as critical lens to reflect on peer support groups as potential counter spaces that can disrupt the negative experiences of black social work students. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article considers critical social work education within the context of the challenges associated with the increasingly neoliberal, corporate and competitive nature of higher education and human service provision. The metaphor of maps is used as a framework for exploring the potential for transformational learning opportunities associated with alternative ways of thinking about teaching and learning. Countering the neoliberal tendency to depoliticise, metaphors of maps and map-reading, as discussed here and applied to social work education, evoke diverse perspectives and engagements in relation to the politics of knowledge, knowing, theory and practice. In emphasising the partiality of knowledge, the indivisibility of the ‘knower’ and the ‘known’ and, as such, the personal and the professional, efforts to cultivate critical consciousness, thus, enable different conversations. The central premise of this article is that in offering opportunities for engagement which open up rather than close down the space for meaningful dialogue, educators may contribute, in profound ways, to both student development and the (re)shaping of public discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

“Learner-centred” and “teacher as facilitator,” among the most influential concepts (re)shaping education over the past decades, are often represented as bringing democratic participation, equality, and empowerment to learners and helping transform and liberate societies. At the same time, these concepts are constructed in binary terms with “teacher-centred” and “teacher as authority” projecting the two ends as being mutually exclusive. Drawing on data collected through interviews and scholarly works from teachers teaching Humanities and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) in Asian and English-speaking Western universities, this article examines their positionings, mode, and form of critique/criticality of learner-centred education. It demonstrates in what ways equality as the starting point (Ranciere) is not embedded in how learner-centred education has largely been promoted in these contexts. As well, while Ranciere’s concepts of equality and dissensus may empower those seen as marginalised and disadvantaged, these concepts fail to acknowledge the multiplicities and dynamics of positions of those presupposed to be “powerful” and “privileged.” [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

What counts as critical policy analysis in education? Over the past 30 years, a tightening of national educational policies can be seen in the USA and across the globe. Over this same period of time, a growing number of educational policy scholars, dissatisfied with traditional frameworks, have used critical frameworks in their analyses. Their critical educational policy work has contributed to a unique intellectual landscape within education: critical policy analysis. This article presents a qualitative exploration of the critical policy analysis approach to educational policy studies. Participants included scholars known to utilize critical theoretical frameworks and methods in their research. Through a historical approach that makes use of oral history interviews with educational policy, we developed an understanding of the critical approach to policy studies, its appeal among critical education policy scholars, and the rationales driving its use. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper describes the experiences and reflections of two scholars as they began an ethnographic research project attempting to rethink and re-imagine possibilities of learning/teaching with highly vulnerable students in an inner city high school. The work is rooted in critical theory and presents ongoing reflection and action regarding the students' as well as the researchers' mindsets, practices and interactions. Analysis of the data promoted the realization that voice in underrepresented groups resides in counter-narratives that must become part of the educational discourse in order for disenfranchised students to embrace school learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leisure research based on critical theories is an effective path to social justice for groups and communities that are marginalized or oppressed by those in power. In response to Henderson (2011), who frames our work as postpositivist, we argue critical theories are a more appropriate research paradigm to reflect our philosophical positions. Our inquiry into leisure is informed by an emancipatory vision for social change that aims to enact social justice. In this response, we detail our rationale for embracing critical theories as an effective research-based approach to affect social justice. We conclude by suggesting that paradigm proliferation enables researchers to enhance social justice within their communities of concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this research is to examine how a different critical perspectives are being accepted by Israeli students from different groups and minorities (Jewish, Muslim, women, men, Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, middle class, and lower class) who attended sociology classes that took place in four different Israeli academic institutions. The social heterogeneity of the students in these geographically scattered institutions, together with the turbulent political and social times experienced by Israeli society during the process of data collection, enabled different comparisons that shed a new light on the role of the critical knowledge reproduced in the educational systems of conflicted societies. This research found that while the feminist and elite perspectives incurred overall positive reactions from most students, the remaining three perspectives (Post Colonialism, Marxism, and Pluralist Theory) provoked the students and frequently encountered antagonism. These reactions indicated that most students adopted a critical theory only when it promised to provide them with an advantage over competing groups. Accordingly, "critical" perspectives were rejected by students when they were perceived as endangering the interests and position of the groups to which they belonged. Thus, the findings of this research show that studying "critical" theories towards Israeli society does not develop universalistic points of view that perceive equality and freedom as rights to which all human beings are eligible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]