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A major admissions reform was carried out in Finnish higher education at the end of the last decade. This paper focuses on three main policy papers connected to the reform and examines the use and production of evidence therein. Drawing on bibliometric research and research on educational policy, we aim to provide insight into how to utilize citation analysis when examining evidence in educational policymaking. In the three policy papers, domestic legislature was cited the most frequently, and research from higher education institutions was cited the least. Affirmational citations were the most prominent; perfunctory, assumptive, conceptual, persuasive, contrastive, and negational citations were found to a lesser extent. When cross-examined in relation to citation types, sources were mostly cited as affirmational, with the exception of research from higher education institutions, which was cited as conceptual information. We also found that the writers cited their own previously written ministry-affiliated policy brief as central information in one of the policy papers connected to the reform. Our study is in line with the earlier literature showing that certain sources, such as domestic publications, are favoured over others. It also illustrates the different citation strategies experts employ to substantiate and legitimize educational policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyses of policy documents and interviews with three Norwegian politicians revealed differences in how school leaders were described, positioned and ascribed responsibility in Norwegian education policy between 1990 and 2017. While how politicians positioned school leaders changed substantially during the period, a stable trait was vague descriptions of school leaders' responsibility. In 1990, school leaders were envisioned in a managerial position, above teachers, as employers. A more recent White Paper, from 2017, positioned school leaders closer to the teaching profession. The interviews showed that after the PISA-shock in 2001, politicians united across party lines in a 'new regime of understanding', downplaying traditional conflicts between Norwegian politicians. While Parliamentary politicians rhetorically disagreed, there was, underneath the policy discourse, a growing realpolitik consensus in questions of education policy. The study investigates policy descriptions of school leaders after 1990, when Management by Objectives was introduced in education. To position Norway in the international policy context, we draw on Stephen Ball's concepts fabrication, managerialism, magical solutions and neoliberal performativity. Three periods, with simultaneously appearing residual and emerging tendencies were identified. In conclusion, we question an apparent lack of ambitions for school leadership in Norwegian education policy. The article contributes with new insights into education policy fluctations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy analysis can be useful for learning about 'what works' in policy. Contemporary policy studies literature highlight that such learning is influenced by power relations in government that shape our ways of knowing the world. This paper offers a critically reflexive narrative account of power relations present during Indigenous higher education policy analysis research conducted in the Northern Territory (NT), Australia to shed light on how to effectively negotiate policy analysis. We reflect on tensions that arose by applying Nakata's concept of the 'cultural interface', which accounts for the complexity of meaning making across diverse knowledge spaces. Narratives from an Indigenous Project Reference Group member are included to provide a perspective on these tensions from an Indigenous standpoint. The paper concludes by describing enabling conditions and strategies that were necessary for effective policy analysis, and considers implications for Indigenous higher education policy analysis in the NT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will investigate how specific narratives on the inclusion of minority language students (MLSs) are constructed in Norwegian and Italian educational policy documents. We will employ the Narrative Policy Framework's (NPF) analytical categories with an interpretative narrative approach to reconstruct the two national policy narratives and compare their salient features. In response to international trends of inclusive education, Norway and Italy have developed two different educational policy models for the inclusion of MLSs. Norway operationalised inclusion through 'adapted education' for all students, while Italian policy defined an 'Italian path towards the intercultural school'. The results will show that the Norwegian approach to inclusive education is sustained by what we define as a technocratic (efficiency-oriented) narrative, while the Italian intercultural education employs a normative (ideologically-based) narrative. Despite the differences, the two policy narratives share an unresolved tension between a universalistic and particularistic stance. In the policy documents, the inclusive/intercultural education for all students is ambiguously complemented by integration measures designed explicitly for MLSs. The study will illustrate the travelling nature of inclusive and intercultural education in the policy domain and show that the policy shift towards inclusion needs to be understood as an ongoing and non-linear process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper delves into the intricacies of fostering bottom-up educational initiatives aimed at addressing power imbalances in societies marked by intractable conflicts. Focusing on the establishment of a Palestinian-Jewish integrated bilingual education program in Israel, the study examines archival materials and stakeholder interviews to uncover the divergent motivations of politicians, educators, and administrators. It highlights the multifaceted nature of NGO-government negotiations, emphasizing the entanglement of contexts and the presence of internal conflicts within each entity. By exploring the ideological and operational challenges faced at different administrative levels, from national ministries to local municipalities, the paper provides a nuanced understanding of the support mechanisms for integrated bilingual schools. Findings call for an in-depth examination of these complex dynamics and their broader implications for educational policy and practice in conflict-affected settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid debates about CRT in education, this paper critically analyses laws that have reportedly sought to expand ‘education on racism, bias, the contributions of specific racial or ethnic groups to U.S. history, or related topics’ with the hypothesis that there would be little evidence of anti-racist ideology in policies pertaining to curriculum. The research design thus leans on King and Chandler’s (2016) distinction between non-racist and antiracist stances, as well as Andreotti et al’.s (2015) social cartography that maps out ‘soft-reform’ and ‘radical reform’ spaces, to achieve a latent content analysis of 14 pieces of legislation across 13 states since 2020 to identify and analyse the ideological characteristics of these pieces of legislation. Only four of the 14 documents from four different states contain a significant anti-racist ideological leaning; the others express a liberal multicultural ideological position that celebrates difference and recognizes contributions, but does not examine systemic racism. Thus, among states that are legislating more ethnic studies, the vast majority do not legislate anti-racist positions. This paper concludes that there is little evidence of anti-racist ideas being legislated into primary and secondary education in the United States, and that most curricular reforms toe a non-critical ideological line. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This final contribution offers an overview of issues that arise in the earlier papers. It makes a commentary on what has been established about teacher education for diversity in Anglophone countries, by considering three themes that emerge from a reading of the papers collectively: policy as the context for teacher education for diversity, what it means to be a teacher in diversity, and how diversity can be conceptualised in educational contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interventions instated to disrupt the destructive effects of the school-to-prison pipeline on students of color were repealed as a result of the US Education Department's 2018 Federal Commission on School Safety report. Using a critical policy and critical discourse framework, this paper examines how the language used in the report facilitated the process of repeal while concealing the insidious effects that the repeal could have on students of color and especially black students. Based on this analysis, the paper argues that education policy discourse is influenced by and supports the covert operation of white supremacist ideological structures that hinder the struggle for equity and justice in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the literature in skill formation systems has paid considerable attention to inter-variation between types of national skill formation systems and intra-variation among individual types as in the case of collective skill formation systems, less is known about the role of the European Union in establishing a European model of skill formation. Building on studies in educational governance and decentralised cooperation, this paper analyses the European Alliance for Apprenticeships (EAfA) and explores its relationship to national skill formation systems. We analyse the emergence of a European model of collective skill formation and offer case studies of Ireland and France to understand how this European model relates to these two contrasting skill formation systems. Through deductive qualitative content analysis of official documents, we show that (a) the EAfA, in resembling characteristics of national collective skill formation systems, promotes the emergence of a European model of collective skill formation, and (b) that Ireland and France show signs of moving further towards adopting elements of a collectivist training model centred on apprenticeship training although mediated by path-dependencies of a liberal (Ireland) and statist (France) skill formation model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In transnational policy, directives on how to improve "quality" through auditing flourish. However, more research is needed about how these quality audits affect school personnel in local contexts. This paper has scrutinised the discursive effects of how "quality" is construed in school personnel's comments during a quality audit conducted by the Swedish Schools Inspectorate. By drawing on Bacchi's (2009) WPR approach, such constructs were analysed and interrogated. The results indicate that "quality" is construed as an absence of "warning flags", and thus as compliance with standards. In effect, statements about quality seem to become problem-oriented. Moreover, "quality" is talked about as a responsibility, and in effect the concept becomes invisible. It is also suggested that "quality" is construed as something that both enables and obstructs different kinds of discussion and discernments. It silences what it is possible to say and calls into question the organisation of the adult education system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores ideas about the role of the school principal embedded in New York State education policy. Many public schools across the state fail to deliver equitable opportunities and outcomes for an increasingly diverse student population and improving school leadership offers the potential for substantial returns. Drawing on concepts of role identity, organisational coherence, and leadership for equity, I use an interpretive approach to examine how conflicting and ambiguous expectations for principal behaviour in New York's Every Student Succeeds Act Plan, its Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education Framework, and its approach to principal evaluations might endanger realisation of a principal's moral commitment to educational and social justice. I conclude with recommendations for state policy and future research with the aim of supporting principals to navigate the complexity of their role and lead to organisational coherence around equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The modest impact of national policy efforts on school digitalisation relates to a gap between views among policy-makers and practitioners, giving rise to complexity in translating policy into action. Acknowledging changes in governing through alternative policy formation-processes, and Ward and Parr's (2011) arguing for the importance of strategic- and operational policy coherence, the focus of this paper is the forming of a national plan of action for the digitalisation of schools in Sweden (#skolDigiplan). Within this interview study, the views on policy work and challenges of digitalisation of schools are explored among an exclusive management group of non-traditional Swedish policy-makers appointed to produce the #skolDigiplan. Based on the findings, I conclude that national policy making regarding the digitalisation of schools may be conducted through a collective process, with several educational stakeholders contributing. Furthermore, I suggest that non-traditional national policy-makers, arguing a lack of digital competence knowledge concerning schools at the governing or authority level, may consider taking a step back in the policy-formation process as a supportive action. Teacher training programmes, despite being portrayed as important for the policy outcome, were declared distant in this policy process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the production of educational policy discourse based on a view of increasing future unpredictability, focusing on how educational policy knowledge is reconceptualized as a form of anticipatory regime. Specifically, we investigate the Israeli Ministry of Education's Future-Oriented Pedagogy Research and Development Unit, analyzing how the unit produces ways of knowing for policymaking based on the epistemic value of anticipation. Through critical policy analysis of the unit's documents, we explore its structure and rationale, describing two key epistemological mechanisms driving anticipatory educational policy. First, the appeal to 'trends' as a means of generating a certain vision of the future. The centrality of trends establishes a discourse in which policies are subordinated to a future that is at once unpredictable yet inevitable. Second, the introduction of 'adaptivity' as a key educational response to unpredictability, positioning constant change and reaction to external developments as the organizing principle of educational systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the declining trend of fine arts education in secondary schools. We examine mechanisms that may explain this phenomenon on structural levels of policymaking and policy implementation in different areas of the education system. What will be defined as the "selection device" refers to the structurally determined selection of educational content at various policy levels of society. We argue that the choices politicians, principals, students, and parents make are regulated by "nudging" as an underlying principle of the selective device. By presenting students with "rational choice" alternatives, they are gently pressuring them away from selecting arts courses. This redirection is discursively conveyed by schools, but systematically governed by national and international guidelines in which the fine arts have a relatively low status. The declining legitimacy of arts subjects in secondary education can thus be seen as an outcome of policies embedded in the education system. By manipulating the features of the selection device, the transnational movement of the New Right exerts control over educational policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the current debates, anxieties, and perceptions around the idea of scholarly artistic research within doctoral studies, internationally and in South Africa. A common point of contention, both in South Africa and in the international arena, is the reluctance within institutional structures and external bodies to accept artmaking as research and the creative production or artifact as a legitimate component of the research output. Creative practice is permissible at the doctoral level of study but usually research or new knowledge that emerges from such practice is evaluated and analyzed through the lens of textual research. The unwillingness to qualify practice as autonomous research is coupled with its awkward positioning in the humanities as a kind of study secondary to and distinct from that associated with scientific research methodology. This discussion engages with policies, developments, debates, and discourse around practice-based doctoral study in South African and globally, with the hope of presenting a comprehensive overview of the current state of doctoral level artistic research. Moreover, in drawing on international discourse and precedents the study proposes some guidelines, parameters and methodological approaches that can contribute to the understanding and development of doctoral artistic research in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the implications of the current landscape of education policy reform in Australian schooling. We argue that the decontextualisation of education policy enactments and the eschewing of concerns relevant at the local level of the school over the past two decades have prompted various reform agendas to fail. We contend that recognition of the deep contextualisation of schools is paramount in any attempt at renewal. Therefore, it is at the local school-level that reform agendas can and should be directed by the pedagogical and innovative work of educators. We focus on 'relational pedagogy' because it offers opportunities to enact school-wide reform and enhance the professional capacities of educators as pedagogical innovators. Contemporary education reform agendas are best situated and registered within school sites and relational pedagogy stands as a deeply contextualised provocation for enacting school renewal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines the notion of 'sheltered' pedagogies for English language teaching in English-dominant contexts. I specifically explore how the increasingly popular Sheltered English Immersion (SEI) model has been interpreted in certain contexts to further monolingual language ideologies. Drawing on critical and poststructural approaches to policy analysis, I ask who is being sheltered through SEI – interrogating the degree to which the model accommodates multilingual learners as compared to 'sheltering' monolingual pedagogies, teachers, students, and policies of the status quo. Ultimately, this framing destabilizes assumptions around who benefits from 'sheltered' approaches. I first introduce a theoretical framework to challenge claims of a widespread transcendence of monolingual language ideologies through theoretical advances such as the pluri/multilingual turn. Next, I analyze the socio-historical trajectory of SEI's use within U.S. English-only movements and the language ideologies produced therein. Finally, I provide a specific example of an SEI training mandate in the U.S. state of Massachusetts that demonstrates how monolingual language ideologies can be reinforced through teacher education, even in the absence of specific English-only policies. Beyond SEI classrooms, this analysis has implications for how language hierarchies are maintained across a broad range of educational settings and policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of international neoliberal and neoconservative trends, the status of the arts has been devalued in secondary school curricula. This paper examines why the arts are not considered core educational knowledge in pedagogic discourse arising from the New Right policy agenda. In a case study analysis of Swedish educational policy debates, curriculum codes and their underlying principles of recontextualization are weighed as they bear on the arts. Discursive positionings and socio-political networking between political standpoints and stakeholders have been analysed based on official Swedish documents associated with the legislative process of curriculum revision. Our findings show how justifications of arts education clash with coding orientations arising from a strong classification between what is presumed to be valuable and non-valuable knowledge, which in turn is due to an underlying principle of visibility. While advocates argue that artistic practices promote transversal competences and have intangible benefits, this same argument unwittingly strengthens the non-autonomous status of the arts. The illegitimacy of the arts also stems from the belief that they are only marginally related to visible market values. Taken together, the arts are not considered core knowledge because of their perceived relative unimportance for higher academic learning or vocational competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this Indigenous/non-Indigenous collaboration, we examine discourses of 'community engagement' in Australia's blueprint education policy, Through Growth to Achievement: The Report of The Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools. While the report addresses the education sector widely rather than being specifically directed towards Indigenous education, as a significant equity-oriented text it is accountable for responding to the educational inequities that so greatly impact Indigenous students and communities. We begin this paper by reviewing some of the complex historical meanings in educational policy assumed through the term community engagement, followed by an analysis of how Australia's non-Indigenous policy writers have historically constructed Indigenous identities and communities. Drawing on Carol Bacchi's poststructural policy discourse analysis, 'What's the problem represented to be?' we explore the taken-for-granted assumptions about who and what 'community' means including what cause and effect benefits are assumed from community engagement. We propose that colonial legacies are still present in the way 'community engagement' is defined in this influential report and advocate for a policy disruption that utilises Indigenous definitions of community and community engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standardised International Large-Scale Assessments (ILSAs) have gained prominence in global and national educational discussions. ILSAs claim to offer valuable insights for improving education systems, but their impact on educational policy varies and has become a contested arena. This article analyses how these assessments fed educational policymaking in six Latin American countries based on a review of policy documents; the article advances three theses on how ILSAs are used by policymakers: First, there is a tokenistic usage of ILSAs; second, ILSAs must be considered more as political devices bolstering national reputation rather than studies in the academic sense; third, ILSAs can serve as leverage tools that can be mobilised for broader political ends. The study shows that the promises, designs and reporting of ILSAs are not necessarily aligned, that participation in ILSAs has become a symbolic gesture, and that ILSAs' data are often cherry-picked to support pre-existing diagnoses and policy agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Australia, an increasing number of students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are educated in inclusive classrooms. Research shows that teachers' self-efficacy beliefs impact the implementation of inclusionary practices. Eight pre-service teachers and eight recent teacher graduates were interviewed to gain insights into their experiences and perceptions of the inclusion of students with ASD. Specifically, this study explored the types of preparation: (1) university education, (2) experiences with students with ASD, and (3) support from school administration and its impact on participants' self-efficacy beliefs. Results indicated that participants who had more education, training, and previous experiences of engagements with individuals with ASD showed a higher level of self-efficacy. Participants' self-efficacy was linked to hands-on experience, guidance from mentor teachers, ongoing support from teacher-aides and school administration, frequent liaison with parents and professionals, building rapport with students, and undertaking ASD-specific coursework. Extending Bandura's theoretical self-efficacy framework, this study contributes to collective self-efficacy characterised by supportive administrations, colleagues, parents, health experts (e.g. psychologists) and educational authorities. Implications for policy, teacher education programmes and ongoing professional development for teachers are presented, including recommendations on considering wider avenues to increase teacher efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aims to explore the policy implementation process regarding 2023 Education Vision, a national-based top-down policy document, in the context of Istanbul through the lived experiences of 10 local-level administrators as street-level bureaucrats. This study adopted a qualitative research approach, incorporating phenomenology as the research design. The participants of the study were determined in accordance with criterion sampling. The data was gathered via semi-structured interviews. The researchers used content analysis to analyse the data. In the analysis, researchers reached three themes, which are reflections from the field, priorities, and barriers. Firstly, the findings unveil the contentious perspectives adopted from a great variety of education stakeholders regarding the implementation of this policy document. Secondly, the views of street-level bureaucrats reveal that some areas in the relevant policy document are much more highly prioritized than others and that these priorities are embodied in practice in a variety of ways. Finally, the findings draw attention to the hindrances street-level bureaucrats face regarding the implementation of this policy document. Also, it can be suggested that designing hybrid educational policies in both top-down and bottom-up ways is fundamental for efficiency in street-level policy implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What characteristics of space predict exclusive policies? Intuitively, socioeconomically exclusive spaces – such as wealthy urban centers in China – would also be exclusive in welfare provision. Drawing from cross-district comparisons within a Chinese metropolis, we identify a counterintuitive pattern where the urban center had easier migrant school access policies than the urban fringe. This pattern has existed in both the 2010s and 2020s, surviving a major school admissions policy reform. We call this pattern the inclusion paradox. The inclusion paradox can be attributed to two causes: a compartmentalization of school access along urban district boundaries, and a tendency of fringe districts to carry more migrant population with less fiscal capacity. As a result of the inclusion paradox, migrant children were more likely excluded from school access precisely where they were more likely to live. The inclusion paradox implies that policy exclusion and spatial exclusion substitute each other, a pattern that brings migrant school access in China in conversation with unequal school access in other contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study critically examines the K-12 curriculum reform in the Philippines and suggests ways on how it can move forward. Specifically, three recent curriculum guides (i.e., science, mathematics, and English) were analysed to determine how they fit with the Education 4.0 milieu. Using a curriculum analysis matrix, the findings indicate that these curricula may require conceptual and pedagogical refinements, particularly in the area of constructive alignment, technology integration, and specificity of its components. Potential implementation challenges in terms of instructional delivery, assessment, lesson preparation, school-based initiatives, and commitment of teachers and school leaders to curriculum reform were also discussed. Recommendations for future design, implementation, and studies are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A general shift towards competency-based curricula has meant that, for quite some time, skills including critical thinking have been central considerations in educational policy reform internationally. However, what happens at the policy level is only one aspect of change: gaining a deep understanding of how new curricula are approached and interpreted in practice, at the classroom level, is crucial. This study sought to explore connections between policy, practice and professional learning in the context of a critical thinking policy. The aim was to investigate teachers' perspectives to address the following research questions: What are teachers' perceptions and knowledge base of critical thinking? And how, and to what extent, do teachers incorporate critical thinking into their classroom practices? The study employed a collective case study approach. Participants were a sample of six teachers (three beginning and three experienced teachers) in Singapore. Data collection involved teacher interviews, lesson observations and the gathering of students' work. The data were analysed qualitatively. Through in-depth analysis of data, four major themes emerged, which characterised the teachers' perceptions, knowledge and classroom practices of critical thinking in relation to the policy context: (i) gaps in teacher knowledge; (ii) contextual factors shaping teacher knowledge; (iii) teacher knowledge shaping practice; and (iv) contextual factors shaping practice. This study offers, from the perspectives of teachers, insight into the connections between policy, teacher practice and professional learning, and points to systemic and contextual factors that can represent barriers and enablers to the enactment of a critical thinking policy. More broadly, it deepens the understanding of factors that may shape policy enactment at the classroom level, highlighting the crucial role played by teacher knowledge in effecting educational change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the ways in which female teachers negotiate their developing teacher identities and educational reform. It provides interesting data from the case of India that reflects female teacher identity and agency in the context of educational reform. Few studies specifically reference gendered responses to education reform; fewer still focus on how female teachers respond and act upon these reforms. It is argued that educational reform efforts in India should take into account female teachers' lives and development. This small qualitative study explores through semi-structured interviews the emerging identities of eight female teachers who work in five different higher secondary schools in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Their responses were analysed using the voice-centred relational approach. The findings point to the importance of understanding the different ways female teachers negotiate their developing teacher identities in response to the changing structural and cultural contexts in which they find themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In both academic and policy spaces, learning is often cast as lifelong, dynamic, constructive and in particular, agentic. Despite this focus students' voices are rarely privileged in these spaces – especially in policy. We respond to this oversight by deploying Foucault's theories of knowledge to explore how students understand themselves as learners, considering this alongside dominant political and academic discursive constructions of learning. Using a metaphor card approach, we explored metaphors for learning articulated by students in longitudinal focus group interviews. Conducted over a two-year period with 47 students from four Western Sydney schools, student metaphors for learning were diverse and wide-ranging, frequently reflecting strategic approaches to learning that aligned with requirements of high stakes exit exams. Significantly, student descriptions of themselves as exhausted, passive containers of impermanent learning were at odds with national and international policy and higher education constructions of learning as 'lifelong and agentic'. This contradiction raises critical questions about students' experiences of learning in schools, the role of teacher education, and re-direction of university equity programmes aimed at increasing access and participation for educationally marginalised students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we reveal the nature and effects of data infrastructures on the authorisation of data that represent students and educational practitioners, including how such data can misrepresent and govern educational policy and practices in sometimes problematic ways. To better understand the governance capacities of data infrastructures, we draw upon notions of discursive practices and materiality, and apply these to a specific school management system, OneSchool, in Queensland, Australia. We show how data infrastructures both promote and impede educational practitioners' use of data in decision making and daily practices. This includes precluding information about students' (positive) behaviours and omitting important enrolment information about students' Indigenous languages. By doing so, we show how data infrastructures govern in ways that authorise the preclusion and omission of data, thereby representing students and schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand how information communication technology (ICT) educational policies have been put into practice in educational settings, we used the acceptance model to analyze the role of teacher characteristics in their acceptance of educational policies. By reframing the present technology acceptance model for the context of ICT educational policy, we employed two external factors to explore the correlates of perceived ease of understanding policy (ease of understanding) and perceived ease of incorporating policy (ease of incorporating) into teaching settings to predict the perceived value of the students' learning (value to students). Questionnaires were delivered by email to those participants who attended in-service professional development programs in Taiwan, and data of 372 teachers were collected for confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling. The results showed that personal traits (self-efficacy and innovativeness in information technology) were positively related to ease of understanding and ease of incorporating; both ease of understanding and ease of incorporating were positively related to value to students; and value to students was positively related to attitude toward implementing future ICT educational policies. The findings of this study may be particularly useful to policy-makers in those countries which often change their ICT educational policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As transgender students become an increasingly visible segment of college student populations, policies allowing students to indicate chosen names and pronouns will offer crucial support while also helping transform campuses into more gender-inclusive spaces. Successful implementation of these policies requires educated and supportive faculty. This case study examines faculty experiences with and perceptions of a pilot chosen names program and of students' use of non-binary pronouns. We found broad support for both, but also found that some faculty either resisted or had struggled to use non-binary pronouns. We read these experiences through Airton's [2018. "The de/Politicization of Pronouns: Implications of the No Big Deal Campaign for Gender-Expansive Educational Policy and Practice." Gender and Education.] 'extra/excessive effort' framework related to non-binary pronouns. We also propose and draw on a framework for understanding transgender identity through 'being' narratives focused on internal identity rather than 'becoming' narratives focused on bodily transformation. We discuss how these theoretical frameworks help us understand faculty members' responses, as well as implications for faculty training opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 threw the world into an unexpected turmoil; schools were closed, exams cancelled, and educational systems were forced to react to deep and unexpected changes. In educational policy, however, the idea that we should prepare for an unknown, uncontrollable and risky future has been widely accepted long before the outbreak. Building on insights from complexity theory and the study of dynamic systems, the article critically examines how the standard educational response to future unpredictability, which focuses on enhancing adaptability, fares in a time of crisis. It is argued that the emphasis on adaptability in response to a world that is increasingly becoming volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous is often uncritically embraced in educational policy. We suggest that furthering adaptability through education could be suited for tackling everyday uncertainty, yet is an ill-suited response to crisis situations because it hinders transformative change. The article also points to some additional difficulties with striving to further adaptability. Instead, it is argued that developing a vision might prove to be instrumental in guiding an adequate educational response. It is acknowledged that relying on a vision might raise some difficulties, but it is maintained that these can be, at least partially, avoided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most research to date about the English government's policy to make schools independent of local authorities (LAs) has looked at the "macro" level of national policy and at the "micro" level of the institution. The study of which this article is a part explores changes at the "meso" level of the locality. Over a period of six years, 52 semi-structured interviews were carried out with key actors at school, LA and local system levels in three areas. Participants were chosen purposively because of their key positions in the local schooling systems. The article focuses on the role of the LA as an actor in the "school-led" system and explores how LAs are repositioning their role and enacting influence in new ways. The article also discusses how changes in local arenas over time have been affected by the different responses to academisation of primary and secondary schools. The article uses an adaptive theory methodology to bring together theorising set out in earlier articles and theory generated by others, with theory generated from this new analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

U.S. policymakers designed the Gainful Employment Rule (GE) and College Scorecard (CS) to make college decision-making, the outcome of major choice, and long-term economic cost/benefits of student loans readily transparent. Yet, focus group d/Discourse indicate that such interventions fail to meet these ethical objectives but also undermine student educational progress and well-being. Using structurating activity theory and critical discourse analysis, we draw out discursive-material themes and contradictions to portray how students resist, shift, and comply with GE as well as U.S. educational and career philosophies and practices. We contribute to critiques of academic and vocational preparation and achievement as cultural formations or Discourses that appear to (a) offer hope for personal fulfillment, economic prosperity, and life-long career success; while they simultaneously (b) alter expectations, defer dreams, and incur unanticipated outcomes. In doing so, we contribute to policy communication research and social justice with pragmatic multi-level applications based on generative contradictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, a study of combined discursive emphasis on the concepts "culture for learning" and "learning outcomes" in recent education policy messages is presented. These concepts have been individually examined but seldom as parallel or converging policy messages. Inspired by discursive institutionalism, we address the policy framing of a 14-year period of intense education reform with Norway as an example. Findings indicate that the key concept of the reform culture-for-learning policy idea functioned as a buzzword for a shorter time, gaining public acceptance of the new reform, while the more concrete learning-outcomes policy idea rooted. Both ideas were presented as solutions to perceived problems in schools due to unsatisfactory PISA results and the emerging globalization of educational policies. This study highlights the roles of concepts and ideas in educational governance and how these roles can be factors in reform success or failure. It is beneficial if the new policy is in a chain of equivalence with other concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to interact critically with Matthew Clayton and David Stevens's recent critique of non-confessional religious education, constituted as a separate, compulsory subject in the school curriculum. Three different critical arguments are considered: the contention that religious education is an unsuitable vehicle for fostering toleration and mutual understanding; their framing and application of an 'acceptability requirement' to religious education, which states that government principles and policy should be justified by reasons that cannot be rejected by reasonable citizens, and which they believe religious education fails; and finally, their rejection of the view that religious education fulfils a democratic purpose in providing pupils with the competences to consider and assess religious claims to truth. Religious education is defended against all three charges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While limited research on inclusive education in sub-Saharan Africa and Tanzania focuses on the perspectives of preservice and practicing teachers, this case study features those of governmental and non-governmental national policy actors. To analyse these influential voices shaping inclusive education, key education sector policy actors working in the national government and non-governmental organisations were interviewed about their perspectives on inclusive education progress. Beyond documenting the presence of barriers to Tanzania's inclusive education policy process, this study generates nuances in relation to multifaceted contextual influences by applying a policy environment systems theoretical model. Improved understanding of policy actor perspectives and the nuanced role of context is invaluable to inform future policy directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I describe how a policy aimed at increasing achievement among students labeled EL initially went awry—and how a researcher-district partnership persevered to rectify it. The policy, which called for 100% EL classrooms, produced unintended consequences. Critical discussion of empirical evidence and district-solicited input from multiple constituencies brought to light sociocultural, sociopolitical, and socioeconomic factors. This shift enabled policymakers to rectify the policy, allowing integration of ELs with non-EL peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Finland, curriculum design is allegedly carried out through a deliberative process that involves various stakeholders, interest groups, experts and ordinary citizens. To facilitate participation in curriculum design, online crowdsourcing has been applied. The objective of this study is to explore to what extent the design process of the latest Finnish national curriculum for mathematics was open, democratic and deliberative. The theoretical framework of the study is the theory of democratic will-formation of the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas. The comments given on the early version of the core curriculum of mathematics were analysed using directed content analysis, in which the above theory was applied. In the empirical analysis, the comments on the core curriculum were divided into three categories based on the quantity and quality of the arguments: strong, medium and weak modifications. Based on this empirical analysis, it is argued that majority of modifications suggested by commenters did not play a significant role in the curriculum design. Thus, in terms of the theory of democratic will-formation, there are legitimate reasons to suspect that the process was not as democratic as it was intended to be. To conclude, limits and opportunities for deliberative democracy in curriculum design are reflected upon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]