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This article addresses critical issues regarding students' access to textbooks, curriculum materials, equipment, and technology. Using California as a case, it reviews the importance of these instructional materials to education, generally, and in the context of current standards-based education policies. Based on data from a variety of sources, we find that textbooks, curriculum materials, and technology are educationally important and that the consequences of not having them are particularly harsh in a high-stakes, standards-based education system. We also find that many California students do not have the numbers or quality of textbooks, curriculum materials, and technology that they require to meet the content standards the state has set. Compounding the problem, shortages and poor quality of textbooks and instructional materials often exist in concert with other problematic school conditions -- staffing shortages, facilities in disrepair, and overcrowding. Schools serving English learners and low-income students are most affected by shortages. A third set of findings details how actions by the state have either contributed to or failed to prevent students' lack of access to textbooks, curriculum materials, and technology. Finally, considering California's own policies and those in other states, we conclude that California does have policy options that would be far more likely to ensure that all students have the texts and materials they need and/or detect and correct problems in the supply and quality of texts and materials when they occur.

Abstract: State and local government decisions about how school funding is raised and allocated have profound impacts on American public education, and in recent years, experts have documented large increases in one type of spending in particular: public pensions. Because most data on school district pension expenditures are at the state level, it has so far been difficult to assess what changes local school districts have made in response. In this paper, I analyze a new dataset of the annual pension expenditures of approximately 200 unified school districts across the United States from 2005 to 2016. Consistent with findings in the literature, I find that pension expenditures rose in real terms in most of them, but also that there has been significant variation in that growth. Moreover, in a descriptive analysis, I find that larger within-district pension expenditure growth is associated with (1) greater revenue growth in the subsequent year and (2) reductions in school district employment, mainly through reductions in the number of non-teaching staff. Finally, there is evidence that districts’ responses to rising pension expenditures may depend on state political institutions, in particular whether the states have mandatory collective bargaining for teachers.

Abstract: School climate surveys are frequently used to collect information about student experiences in school. Less is known about how educators use survey data after survey administration. This paper explores one school district’s critical use of evidence to promote equitable change. We conducted eight semi-structured interviews with district and school leaders to investigate their uses of evidence. Through our qualitative, reflexive thematic analysis, we generated six themes: (1) using evidence to provide a common language; (2) bringing attention to trends to shift staff understanding of problems, (3) making structural changes, (4) planning for professional learning, (5) following up directly with students, and (6) engaging with the community. Findings illustrate how education leaders can apply a critical lens to their generation and use of evidence. We explore how the strategic use of evidence is needed to advance the broader goal of fostering school change and improving school climate for all students.

Much of the literature that examines critical science agency (CSA) focuses on how students enact their CSA to support knowledge construction and agentic action. Few studies, however, address how science curricula can be specifically designed to support students in exercising their CSA. In this study, I examine features of a community-based science (CBS) curricular design that engages students in justice-oriented science learning to advance their CSA. More specifically, I analyze the design and structure of an environmental science elective course to investigate features of CBS curricular design that support students in exercising their CSA, including: (1) leveraging learning goals to create community change, (2) developing students’ toolkits, (3) cultivating spaces for advocacy and critical hope, and (4) critical and ongoing reflection. The findings suggest that science curriculum can be purposefully designed to assist students in exercising their CSA through generative learning experiences that empower them as community change agents. As we move toward more equity and justice-centered science learning, I recommend that future science curricula take community-based science approaches to design, structuring learning around students’ CSA by attending to how formal science learning can be used as an avenue to support community change.

Abstract: With the growing recognition of the prevalence and impact of adverse childhood experiences, building trauma-informed service systems is critical. Although there are many online resources to help school systems become more trauma informed, how much they meet the needs of educators is not well understood. To help schools implement trauma-informed practices (TIPS) to support both educators (all school-based certificated staff) and students, a partnership among a California research university, a local foundation, and three school districts was developed at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The partnership envisioned a three-phase study to determine the feasibility, acceptability, and outcomes of an intervention supporting TIPS. First, two local districts were engaged in a mixed method needs assessment to explore educators’ wellbeing and use of trauma-informed resources. Input from district-level advisory committees guided a needs assessment that informed the development of trainings to (1) help administrators best support their staff, and (2) teach educators how to best support themselves and their students with traumatic stress and related symptoms. Second, researchers curated freely available resources to develop a 3-module administrator training and an 8-module teacher training. Finally, university-based psychologists and teacher educators delivered the curricula in two school districts and the university’s teacher education program. Researchers implemented a pretest–posttest evaluation design and gathered in-session feedback after each module. Results indicated that participants found the sessions helpful and relevant and they had greater knowledge of TIPS. Future directions include scaling up implementation, understanding outcomes from multiple perspectives, and integrating follow-up activities to help with skill retention.

Although improving racial equity in critical college courses such as introductory statistics is a laudable goal, making research-based progress toward that aim in a scalable manner remains a challenge. To translate psychological insights to benefit racially marginalized students, we implemented the “Better Book” approach, where instructors, researchers, and developers work together to improve an online textbook used in introductory statistics. The “Better Book” approach to equity assumes that racially marginalized students are a “canary in the coal mine”, alerting us to systemic issues that can affect a broader array of students. We started by finding places in the textbook where racially marginalized students reported higher perceptions of costs (the effort and time required to learn the content) than non-marginalized students. Then we drew upon suggestions from users to redesign the textbook where gaps in cost perceptions peaked. We then analyzed data from both the original and redesigned versions of the textbook to evaluate the impact on students who were subsequently enrolled in the course. Results showed that perceptions of cost were dramatically reduced in the experience of racially marginalized students but also the redesign resulted in an improved experience for all students.

BackgroundSchool-based health centers (SBHCs) are ideal settings to address social needs of youth and families. Case managers can play a vital role in social care interventions.MethodsWe piloted a program to incorporate a Case Manager into the care team of 1 SBHC serving 2 local schools with over 900 students and their surrounding communities. This project's purpose was to evaluate program feasibility, utilization, and acceptability. Our mixed-methods evaluation included analyses of data from electronic health records, client satisfaction surveys, and staff interviews.ResultsDuring the 6-month pilot, the Case Manager served 133 clients (about one third of all SBHC clients served) through 593 contacts. Most contacts included referrals to support services (90%) and 37% addressed newcomer immigrant adjustment. All 37 respondents to the satisfaction survey during the 3-month administration period (44% response rate) reported that the Case Manager made them feel comfortable asking for help; 95% reported getting the help they needed. The 7 SBHC staff interviewed shared many program benefits, including increased time for clinical services.Implications for school health policy, practice, and equityInequities in children's health and educational achievement are influenced by structural factors. Results from our pilot program demonstrate that SBHCs may be well-positioned to deliver social care interventions and that case managers enhance the ability to deliver quality care.ConclusionsSchool-based programs to address unmet social needs are critical to supporting learning and wellness for all youth. Robust studies are needed to further test the impacts of case management in SBHCs.

Background:: Research that documents the influence of anti-racism programs on teacher practice shows some desired outcomes, including developing critical consciousness to support students of color and educate others about stereotyping; understanding how racial bias affects one’s teaching and relationships with students; and implementing anti-racist approaches in schoolwide policies and practice. At the same time, research on anti-racist professional development (PD) also highlights the challenges of engaging in this work when white teachers, in particular, respond defensively or dismissively. Studies have shown how these responses can reinforce stereotyping behavior among white participants and reinscribe unequal social relationships. Research Questions:: This article aims to answer the following questions: (1) How do white educators, if they do at all, display resistance to racial justice work? (2) How does resistance among white educators, if it does so at all, shape the experiences of educators of color? (3) How can schools reduce the potential burden of racial justice work on educators of color? Research Design:: This article draws on data from a case study of a New York City elementary school that participated in a yearlong racial justice program. Data sources include semi-structured interviews with school and program leaders; focus groups with members of the racial equity committee and other teachers; observations of professional development sessions, racial equity committee meetings, and other program activities; and artifacts related to the implementation of the program to deepen our understanding of the program’s implementation and responses from multiple stakeholders. Recommendations:: Grounded in critical race theory (CRT), the findings from this study paint a complex picture of the behaviors that white teachers may employ that derail racial justice work, the emotional and professional burden of that resistance on educators of color, and promising approaches for confronting resistance in order to advance racial equity. Beyond identifying the potential costs of engaging in racial justice work, our findings also offer schools and educators promising approaches for challenging white resistance while not perpetuating racial harm. We propose an implementation model that intentionally shields educators of color from the remonstrations of white resistors and the additional toll they can take on their time and well-being. Moreover, given what we know about the outsized role school leaders play in shaping school environments and professional cultures, it is essential that school leaders show commitment to organizational transformation, while developing the skills required to confront varying degrees of white resistance.

Prior work has shown that many undergraduate students have misconceptions about genetic inheritance, even after they take genetics courses. Visual representations, such as pedigree diagrams, are commonly used in genetics instruction, and they help students quickly visualize the phenotypes of multiple generations. In Study 1, we examined whether presenting a pedigree diagram of a wolf’s eye color in a rich and realistic manner (i.e., with rich perceptual images that resemble real animals) or in an abstract manner (i.e., with circles and squares representing animals) would help undergraduates learn from a brief, online lesson on inheritance of the wolf’s eye color, and whether they would transfer what they learned when reasoning about eye color in other species (near transfer) and other traits in other species (mid- and far transfer). Counter to our hypothesis, students transferred more with the rich diagram. In Study 2, we compared the rich diagram from Study 1 to a perceptually bland diagram (i.e., with color and textural features removed). There were no differences in students’ learning or transfer between the diagrams. These results suggest that realistic elements that are attention grabbing and easily interpretable by students can be beneficial for transfer in online lessons.

This paper wrestles with the concept of care and its role in the movement towards abolitionist education. I draw from my experiences as a teacher / ethnographer in an alternative high school, called FREE LA, that serves and was created by system-impacted young people who have been pushed out of or barred from, or otherwise refused to participate in, traditional schooling. Grounded in students’ perceptions of how this space departs from traditional schools and other carceral institutions, I grapple with their consistent emphasis on care. Students’ juxtaposition between the type of care they experienced in traditional schools, and a different type of care experienced at FREE LA, leads me to consider both the violent genealogies of conditional care as endemic to state schooling, and the potential for reclaiming old-new genealogies of unconditional care that map radically reimagined educational space(s). The juxtaposition between these two types of care opens broader questions about the limitations of educational reform and the possibilities for abolitionist departure.

The purpose of this study is to provide findings that would assist educators in better understanding the role of school administrators and how working together to meet Industry 4.0 demands can enhance their practice. Additionally, the findings should help educational institutions stay informed of these latest advancements and create innovative, adaptable strategies to enhance teaching and learning. The Fourth Industrial Revolution has sparked an impressive wave of technological advancements, significantly reshaping the educational landscape. This qualitative phenomenological study delves into the experiences, coping strategies, and insights of ten public school heads from secondary schools in the Lupon West and Banay-Banay District Division of Davao Oriental. Purposive sampling was employed to select participants for this study, and the data generated from the in-depth interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis. Participants' experiences unveiled four major themes: utilizing the new technology, equipping teachers with modern technology, leading to learn the new system, and struggling with technology integration in Education. Amidst their challenges, three coping strategies emerged: embracing change positively, advocating digitalization in education, and fostering collaboration with stakeholders. In insights, three themes emerged, offering valuable lessons for school heads: promoting digital literacy, tailoring teaching methods to the digital era, and nurturing a resilient culture. The study underscores the significance of visionary leadership and strategic planning among school leaders, facilitating a smooth transition into the digital age. Additionally, it highlights school leaders' pivotal role as guides, mentors, and catalysts for change, fostering an environment where teachers feel empowered to experiment and take risks. This research significantly impacts educational policy and practice. With increasing recognition among teachers of technology's transformative potential in the classroom, school leaders must utilize their management skills to ensure teachers are prepared to meet the evolving needs of modern education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Global citizenship' has gained traction as a policy objective across school systems in recent decades. It has been defined as education for the development of a sense of cosmopolitan moral virtue, planetary identification and 'global competencies'. In this paper, I argue that historical sociology can help explain why this goal has gained prominence in citizenship education policy since the late twentieth century. Focussing on the Australian case, I propose an analytical model where changes in citizenship education policy for schools are articulated to concurrent transformations of nation-state citizenship within a shifting international conjuncture. This approach reveals that the rise of neoliberal statecraft and the diffusion of human rights discourses since the 1970s are pertinent analytical coordinates to make sense of the growing presence of global citizenship within government policy agendas for schools. The Australian case illustrates the relevance of historical sociology to make sense of contemporary education policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the work of Tamatea and Pramitasari in the Bali Coding Class (2018), we ask if liberal empowerment can sit alongside Bourdieu's social reproduction theory in framing a non-formal education coding class for rural Balinese youth. While a review of critical theory informed literature suggests not, we appropriate the work of Mills to read data obtained from coding class students, teachers, and industry representatives to suggest otherwise. Focusing upon four 'problematics' identified in the 'critical' literature, we argue that Mills' non-ideal deracialised liberalism provide the conceptual space for working with liberal empowerment and social reproduction theory contiguously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to analyse the differences in the International Foundation Programmes in Australia, China and the United Kingdom and to explore different University Foundation Programmes' effect on international student satisfaction, learning motivation and their performance in higher education. Through this research, it can be seen that improving the interaction between teachers and international students in the foundation stage, helping international students establish a certain sense of belonging, and integrating into the local culture is considered a key factor in improving foundation students' learning motivation and their satisfaction. The discussion of the research results suggests that some countries with imperfect international foundation courses should establish a more diverse curriculum system and hold highly interactive cultural activities to make it easier for students to integrate into the local culture, so as to help international students maintain a positive initiative and attitude when entering undergraduate studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the process of China's borrowing of the Japanese vocational education model from 1895 to 1922 from the perspective of educational policy transfer. This study serves as a unique example in educational policy transfer research where historical sources offer the possibility of testing the applicability of the Contextual Map of Cross-national Attraction model. It elucidates some of the analytical limitations discovered by this study while applying the model to this study. It implies that more theory, particularly on the issue of the complex interaction between structure and agency, about the nature of educational policy transfer is needed to comprehensively and sophisticatedly analyse the complex process of educational transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank, the two largest global actors in the education sector, in their capacity as knowledge brokers. For these actors, positioning themselves between research and policy and circulating their versions of evidence has become a popular governance instrument to amplify their impact at the national level. To compare the strategies and targets of the OECD and the World Bank, we analyze three publication series: the OECD's Education Policy Outlook and Reviews of National Policies for Education and the World Bank's Systems Approach for Better Education reports. The results reveal significant differences between the OECD's and the World Bank's approaches to producing evidence and brokering knowledge. We interpret the differences against the backdrop of the idiosyncrasies of the two organizations: The World Bank sees itself as a transnational actor, and its knowledge production and brokerage are highly decontextualized transcending national experiences. By contrast, the OECD is an intergovernmental organization that views itself as a facilitator of cross-national peer exchange. Situating the findings within the broader framework of the global–national nexus, we argue that the World Bank's approach promotes vertical policy learning, while the OECD's approach pursues horizontal policy learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws upon a critical policy analysis approach to examine the state of inclusive education policy in Global North settings over the past decade. Building on an earlier paper on this topic ten years ago, this updated article seeks to explore whether and how inclusion and inclusive education have been understood in varied international, national and sub-national policy settings over time. While it might be anticipated that schooling systems should be more aware and proactive in supporting inclusion within their policies, our findings reveal mixed results. At times, there appears to have been regression in some settings, stagnation in others, as well as moderate progress in other settings in relation to support and advocacy for inclusion in educational policies. In an era of increased attention to a range of issues of inclusion more broadly over the past decade (e.g. marriage equality, gender fluidity, Black Lives Matter, #StopAsianHate), our article cautions against assuming that such movements have somehow led to a more 'inclusive' conception of students' identities and wellbeing in schooling policy. Whether and how teachers can be expected to be more inclusive in their practices in such a variegated policy environment is an area for continued inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The editorial in the Journal of Advanced Academics focuses on the importance of relationships in research and academia, highlighting the impact of strong connections between researchers and participants. Various original research articles explore relationships in different academic settings, such as teacher-student dynamics and the role of discourse in student learning. Additionally, praxis articles discuss the significance of relationships in identifying and supporting gifted students, as well as building professional skills through authentic lab practices. The editorial also introduces the editorial team of the journal, emphasizing collaboration and collective efforts in academia. [Extracted from the article]

This article is the introduction to a special issue of Educational Policy titled, "Educational Policy: Analysis, Action, and Advocacy Across Contexts." The special issue presents contemporary education policy analyses from the United States, Canada, and Australia, which collectively represent methodological, contextual, and theoretical diversity. Individually, they offer detailed examinations of education policy processes and outcomes with a common focus on equity. The articles represent a spectrum of approaches to analysing education policymaking and enactment and point out various ways that educators, scholars, policymakers, and activists can take action. In this article, the co-editors identify key themes that distinguish the special issue's contribution and explain the importance of education policy analysis that informs future advocacy toward more equitable policy processes and outcomes across contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent efforts prohibiting race-related diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives have informed localized public pushback narrating anti-equity campaigns. Emerging research and media accounts have largely focused on adults engaged with or against these efforts, with less attention on youth and their perceptions of these campaigns. To center youth voice, we analyzed 224 student newspaper articles published in Carmel, Indiana and Loudoun County, Virginia—two sites replete with localized contestations of equity reform. Using narrative policy analysis and approaches to counter-narratives, findings demonstrate youths' roles as engaged policy actors as student journalists highlighted forms of political engagement and action in their local contexts. We include recommendations for school leaders and policymakers to promote youth voice and engagement in education governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.S. education system has been a critical site in the nation's ongoing fight for racial equity. Yet, despite many attempts to promote equity within and across schools, efforts fall short in a system designed to uphold norms rooted in whiteness and white supremacy. We need anti-racist educational leaders who can identify and push back at the racial bias embedded in educational policies. Through a research-practice partnership with a Midwestern high school, we sought to understand how an anti-racist policy decision-making protocol can be used to redress inequitable policies to be racially just. The anti-racist policy decision-making protocol promotes social justice by empowering school practitioners to become policy agents. Implications from our findings point to the need for school practitioners to be critically introspective and identify and directly address the politics of whiteness that can ensue when working in partnership to do anti-racist policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article advances an emergent framework for conceptualizing the relationship between principal leadership and education policy implementation. Based on a qualitative study of school principals and policy implementation in Region X of the Philippines, findings suggested that the way in which policies were interpreted and implemented at the school level was influenced by a variety of intrinsic and extrinsic dynamics and these were shaped in situ by individual, school and community inhibitors and facilitators. These motivations and localized contexts were critical to implementation, and compelled principals to ignore, monitor, or implement education policies as a priority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education policy has long been analyzed as a cycle where various actors influence different stages. However, few such studies have focused on identifying and interrogating the specific moments that shape an education policy's overall equity trajectory. This article uses Bowe, Ball, and Gold's policy cycle as an exploratory theoretical framework, focusing on the historic Review of Funding for Schooling (2011) in Australia, which evaluated the nation's school funding policy. The authors concentrate on the Context of Text Production phase of its policymaking process, and consider the implications for equity. From this work, the authors highlight two "critical moments" that they argue significantly influenced how the appointed panel approached equity. Their theorizing of a "critical moment" offers valuable insights for researchers and stakeholders seeking to understand or influence education policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our critical historiography of e-learning policy in Ontario, Canada, traces the policy's trajectory through three settlements (2006-2022) and shows how successive governments have mobilized neoliberal discourses of personalization, access, and choice to justify new arrangements with private actors, within a broader sociopolitical context that includes increased privatization and commodification of public institutions, cuts to public spending, and imagines individuals as rational subjects driven to maximize their economic potential. This context exacerbates challenges students marginalized by schooling already face. Findings from our critical discourse analyses of government documents and news media reports also demonstrate that online learning in Ontario is neither personalized nor customizable but instead is centralized, standardized and, by design, operates independent of rather than interdependent with community. Further, our findings highlight the interdependence of schools – online and in-person – with social processes that create and perpetuate inequality, including gendered and racialized poverty, locally and abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For centuries, universities have proliferated and flourished around the world, playing an important role in societal knowledge production and diffusion. However, in the past four decades, this old organizational form has been subjected to neoliberal, managerialist policy doctrines such as New Public Management. Following this, universities have tended to become more 'business-like' in their internal management and governance, with generally perceived adverse effects on the quality of academic education, research, and working conditions. These developments pose fundamental threats to academic freedom and free knowledge production and diffusion. Acknowledging various forms of academic resistance to, and coping with, these threats, the purpose of our paper is twofold. First, we adopt the concept of 'performativity' – hitherto researched mainly in primary and secondary schools in Anglo-Saxon contexts – to account for, and critique, neoliberal university policies, and practices in a variety of Global North settings. Second, through collaborative autoethnography, we add our own personal narratives to 'talk back' to managerialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4 - quality and equity in education and lifelong learning opportunities for all by 2030) as a global education policy, this article investigates the accompanying consensus politics. It shows how political consensus among 193 UNESCO member states over the national implementation of SDG4 indicators was convened into a measurable commitment to the production, utilisation, and sharing of education data, a technical one. It argues that, the Technical Cooperation Group (TCG), a political Initiative from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), made instrumental use of indicators (thus data) to formulate and put into practice a global set of policy values dubbed collectively here as experimentality. Experimentality being inherently topological (working in spatiotemporal configurations), these values helped TCG think and act in topologically reflexive ways. That is, they enabled the formulation and putting into practice of spatiotemporal frames critical to bringing the global and the national together into collaborations for SDG4. Advancing the cross-disciplinary notion of experimentality and a topological semiotic approach to policy culture, this paper adds a value-focused perspective to the mobilities research on global education policy. A large corpus of web materials made official by TCG constitutes the empirical basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data infrastructures exist in a variety of formats. This article draws on the insights of senior personnel involved in developing a new data dashboard in one state jurisdiction in Australia. While literature on dashboards often focuses on the teachers and learners influenced by them, there is less attention to those involved in their development and the politics that attend their work. While the dashboard initiative holds out the hope of enabling more educationally oriented benefits, such as assisting with cross-school moderation of students' learning in various 'like-schools' in a local region/state, there was also recognition by some involved in the development process that much of the discourse around the dashboard revolved around broader systemic concerns about who should have access to which kinds of data, and that such data were 're-presentations' of actual instances of student learning which limited understanding of what could actually be done to enhance students' learning. Processes of monitoring and temporal anomalies were key to sometimes problematic governance processes associated with developing the dashboard, eliciting various affective responses amongst different actors involved in its development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an international policy environment of intensified high-stakes accountability, pupil assessment data are an invaluable commodity and critical indicator of both school and teacher effectiveness. Teachers' engagement with pupil data and the associated experiences of increased accountability are of great consequence, and highly contentious for perceptions and experiences of policy. In the context of the English primary school, this paper explores the progressively tactical nature of teachers' enactment of assessment policy, and the impetus to 'make the data look good'. It draws upon an empirical study of rich qualitative data from 42 interviews with 22 primary teachers employed in the South-East of England. The findings add to an evolving field about 'gaming', and particular consequences for teacher identity are discussed. The paper further advances insights about teachers' experiences of 'in-school assessment' as pertinent for understanding gaming. It locates the pupil progress meeting as an iteration of teacher accountability and performativity, and particular site of contestation, and a specific contribution to knowledge in this regard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tension between broadening university capacity and maintaining quality is a global phenomenon. While numerous studies have analysed the enactments of various policies that aimed to address declining university quality, few have examined the underlying beliefs that define what is conceptualised as a 'quality problem' within the policy proposals. Utilising Carol Bacchi's 'What's the Problem Represented to be?' (WPR) approach, this study provides a nuanced analysis of this issue, centring on an underexplored aspect: how the 'quality' is made to be a particular kind of problem within a specific policy. Specifically, it scrutinises an uncommon policy in Taiwan – proposing the reduction of university places as a solution to declining quality – to critically analyse what quality is established as 'reality' that set limits on how higher education can be thought. A central thesis of this analysis is that higher education system comes into existence through ongoing formation as specific kind of object rather than existing as a fixed entity. Understanding the construction of quality problem and the objectification of higher education requires a critical examination of the underlying assumptions and a detailed mapping of heterogeneous practices that create forms of authority for certain perceptions of 'quality' accepted as true. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of evaluation and data in education and education policy is a trend manifesting across a wide variety of policy contexts, holding in its grip national and global policies, with impacts that reach the level of individual children, teachers, and their subjectivities. Earlier research has mainly focused on the phenomenon in neoliberal contexts. This article presents a case study of Finnish early childhood education and care (ECEC) policy discourse built on a tradition of social democratic political rationality and egalitarian values. By utilizing Evert Vedung's metaphor of evaluation waves, we examine how the evaluation trend has influenced the Finnish ECEC policy, which has traditionally been skeptical toward the assessment of individual children's learning and skills and the production and use of data for accountability purposes. In the genealogical reading of ECEC curricula and policy documents from 2002–2021 as data, we identify three discursive practices – partnership, pedagogization, and evidence wave – that have socio-historically contributed to the formation of the present conception of evaluation in the Finnish ECEC policy discourse. Our genealogical reading also reveals a movement toward international trends – evaluating the individual child's skills – especially through the evidence wave. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper engages, Sara Ahmed's theorising on 'the uses of use' to frame an analysis of the hidden, embedded effects of standardised testing policy that have become normative practice/s in Queensland, Australia. It (re)examines data from an ethno-case study into the datafication of assessment and learning over one school year, in primary and secondary schooling contexts, to understand the uses of the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) in a new, critical light. We explore schools' contemporary uses of NAPLAN – intended or otherwise – to demonstrate how the policy effects of NAPLAN have become insidiously submerged within the daily practices in schools. Drawing on interviews with 27 teachers and seven school leaders, classroom and staff meeting observations, and artefact data, we reveal the invisible yet profoundly altering presence of NAPLAN and its consequences. Specifically, we analyse the ways in which NAPLAN practices, structures and technologies are both hidden and yet manifestly altering as a) practices that disappear into their uses, becoming unidentifiable and routine; and b) practices that follow well-used pathways that further embed particular uses. We counter rhetoric of NAPLAN normativity and complacency, instead demonstrating that its current uses, while not originally intended, are insidious and profound. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the intertwining and evolution of neoliberal and nationalist discourses in post-colonial Hong Kong and Macao, arguing that their combination reveals the dual layers of political rationality in the dynamics of higher education policymaking. It suggests a move towards governmentality with Chinese characteristics, marked by gradual and continuous shifts towards decolonisation and re-Sinicisation within the 'One Country, Two Systems' framework. This perspective contrasts with existing literature on Hong Kong that emphasises the maintenance of the colonial status quo and points out abrupt changes due to the 2019 protests and the 2020 National Security Law. By analysing the reconfiguration of governmentality in the higher education systems of these post-colonial Chinese societies amid changing political landscapes, the article sheds light on both the incremental changes and significant moments influencing the trajectory of higher education development in Hong Kong and Macao. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates how and when the two first movers in knowledge-based regulation – the OECD and the World Bank – developed policy brokerage as an instrument of global governance in the education sector. We also examine how their target clientele – national governments – responds to this instrument. Given the surplus of research evidence in today's digital economy, intergovernmental organisations have the challenge of standing out as trusted and credible knowledge brokers in a crowded space. The authors make the case for a comparative research programme – tentatively labeled 'Governance by Numbers 2.0' – that is informed by a multidisciplinary (history, political science, interdisciplinary policy studies) interpretive framework and that advances a transnational, relational method of inquiry which draws attention to the global/national nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for the importance of foregrounding learners' experiences in language-in-education research, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and other postcolonial contexts where there is an unfamiliar language of learning and teaching. Standing firmly on the shoulders of decades of research that compellingly demonstrates a range of ways in which the use of an unfamiliar language is detrimental to classroom practice and learning outcomes, we suggest that there are yet further negative consequences that are currently under-researched. We argue that combining observation of learners with methods that create space for learners to explain their experiences in their own words enables important new insights into how epistemic injustices intersect with broader structural injustices in learners' lives. Our proposition is informed by our work and research in a variety of contexts but draws most heavily from qualitative research conducted with young people in primary and secondary schools in Tanzania, Rwanda and South Africa. Our conclusions demonstrate how learner-focused research could importantly and beneficially extend the evidence base that is available to support calls for changes to language-in-education policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary education is being undeniably shaped by datafication, and while new algorithmic and automated decision-making processes can have educational benefits, they also raise issues about children's digital rights and education policy responses to these rights. This study mapped how children's digital right to privacy and related human rights concepts are present in education policy documents of Australia's three largest state government departments of education. A children's rights coding framework was developed from the United Nation's 'General comment No. 25 (2021) on children's rights in relation to the digital environment' and used to code the dataset. Two levels of analysis were then undertaken. Level 1 involved code and subcode frequency analyses of concepts related to children's digital rights in policy documents. Level 2 was a descriptive qualitative analysis designed to understand how digital rights were expressed in policy. The study found that although all state government departments of education reflected some elements of children's digital rights, some states had a more complex, sustained and public-facing commitment to expressing these in policy. The study concluded that Australian government departments of education should work towards providing more transparent public-facing policy on children's digital rights that can empower students and their families to make informed decisions within a rapidly shifting digital environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While school policies are not a panacea, gender and sexuality diversity-inclusive policies have the potential to relieve educators' concerns about what they are 'allowed' to engage with in respect to GSD inclusivity and to guide their proactive efforts to support gender and sexuality diverse (GSD) students. Unfortunately, policies enabling educators' proactive, positive support for GSD students are far from systematised in schools across Australia's eight states and territories. This paper presents an audit of publicly available policy guidance for educators in Australia's government schools, analysing these against an original evaluative set of best-practice criteria developed from research recommendations from the field of GSD-inclusivity in K-12 schools. Analyses for each state/territory are provided. Results from this audit highlight the unevenness in articulated policy support available to Australian educators and illustrate the criticality of developing Australian federal policy mandates with respect to GSD inclusivity and professional development for educators, including both articulated expectations for the creation/maintenance of a safe and affirming environment as well as pragmatic support for how to create school cultural change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following record-high public support for improved teacher salaries, many states initiated a variety of pandemic-era reforms to teacher compensation policies to improve teacher morale and retention. In this article, we examine a minimum teacher salary reform in Missouri, a state home to a diverse geographic landscape including major metropolitan areas and large rural regions. On the one hand, we estimate eligible teachers would receive sizable salary increases averaging almost eight percent. Conversely, these teachers were located almost exclusively in the state's rural areas, effectively excluding most urban teachers and students and, due to the state's non-white ethnoracial concentration in urban metropolitan areas, virtually all of the state's non-White teachers and students. As states craft policy reforms to support their teacher workforces, attention must be devoted to the magnitude and the distribution of funding to ensure its equitable allocation across teacher and student characteristics and district urbanicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political involvement differs according to youngsters' social background, but the role of students' own educational pathways in that social gradient is less clear. We investigate whether track position and the school composition mediate and/or moderate the social gradient in the development of students' political involvement. Examining schools in Ghent (Flanders, Belgium), Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain) and Bergen (Norway) – we investigate whether these determinants for change in political engagement during upper secondary education differ between educational systems. Results from multilevel conditional change models show that the role of social background in changes in political involvement matters across the studied educational systems, but the role of track and school composition varies. In Barcelona, all the impact from social background on the increase in political involvement can be accounted for by track position, whereas in the Flemish system, the increase in political involvement is higher among those in academic tracks if they have low social background rather than high. There is more variance between schools in Ghent, and ethnic school concentration is associated with a smaller increase in political involvement there. The Norwegian system has little between-school variance and small differences between tracks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many policies in higher education are intended to improve college access and degree completion, yet often those policies fall short of their aims by making it difficult for prospective or current college students to access benefits for which they are eligible. Barriers that inhibit access to policy benefits, such as cumbersome paperwork, can weigh more heavily on members of marginalized communities, including racially minoritized students. Such administrative burdens can thus reinforce patterns of inequity. In this paper, we present a conceptual framework for examining administrative burdens embedded in higher education policies that can negatively affect prospective and current college students, especially those who are racially minoritized. With the use of our proposed framework for addressing racialized administrative burdens, researchers can improve the understanding of ethnoracial disparities in higher education, inform policymakers' design of racially equitable policies for higher education, and enable practitioners to implement those policies to promote racial equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper documents the hopes, desires and structural betrayals experienced by young people attending transfer schools in New York City. Transfer schools enroll more than 15,000 students each year who are disproportionately young people of color, poor and working-class youth, from immigrant families, and youth with disabilities. Most have fallen behind on academic benchmarks. Many have been systematically pushed out of school through zero tolerance policies, high stakes testing cultures, and a lack of culturally relevant approaches to curriculum and pedagogy. This paper explores survey responses from 842 transfer school students, collected as part of a broader participatory action research study. Our analysis reveals that many transfer school students persist in the face of multiple obstacles that disrupt their educational progress, including material insecurity, previously alienating school experiences, housing insecurity, violence and struggles with mental health. Moreover, we find that students experience the transfer schools in this study as relationally rich, caring, intellectually rigorous, and mutually accountable learning communities that help them overcome obstacles that previously held them back. Our analysis confirms transfer school students' desires and persistence in the face of adversity and demonstrates the academic and socio-emotional commitments and impact of educators and counselors in transfer schools. Under current federal and state accountability frameworks, transfer schools are threatened by one-size-fits all metrics, punitive policies, and racialized austerity. As such, their importance and impact is consistently mismeasured and under-acknowledged. In this paper, we present evidence that these schools represent the radical rim of what is possible in public education, and we argue that we must support their efforts, honor their commitments, and establish a more equitable system for evaluating the essential work they do. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Moroccan Ministry of Education has recently implemented a multilingual programme, called 'language alternation' (LA). The programme aims at improving students' foreign language (FL) proficiency level and promoting plurilingualism by using French, English, and Spanish, for the teaching of math, physics and life and earth sciences at the secondary level, instead of the official language, Arabic. The study sought to understand this new tendency in Moroccan education by examining official educational documents and exploring teachers' perceptions using Grounded Theory (GT), which is a hypothesis-generating methodology. The findings showed a gap between the conceptualised language recommendations in the official documents and the implementation of these recommendations in Moroccan schools. In addition, it seems that the new enacted educational policy has brought about challenges for both students and teachers. The interviewed teachers were concerned about their students' initial FL proficiency, the negative effect of the new policy on students' content learning, the lack of trainings in the methodology of the new medium of instruction (MOI) policy and limited agency of teachers in the conceptualisation and implementation of the new policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores digital competence education by looking into how discourse in a typical digital competence framework for educators may or may not promote democracy in the way it features information and communication technology (ICT). The authors examined the Norwegian Professional Digital Competence Framework for Teachers, which is aligned with similar frameworks from all over the world and therefore offers insight into international discourse about ICT. They performed a critical discourse study (sociocognitive approach) to uncover inherent knowledge and assumptions about ICT. Findings show an adaptive approach to this technology, which is conveyed as a 'tool', 'arena for participation', '(communication) channel' and 'changing force'. Thus, there is a focus on participation in politics ON the internet. Politics OF the internet and ICT, however, is not mentioned, which indicates that the technology is naturalised and thereby kept away from democratic debate. This suggests a risk of democratic deficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Despite the growing interest in the applicability and value of educational research for improving educational policy and practice, few studies have demonstrated how English-as-a-second-language (ESL) teachers apply research findings in their second language (L2) teaching. This paper reports on a study in which four Hong Kong ESL teachers were given research findings about L2 vocabulary teaching and learning and how they engaged in professional development (PD) sessions with a researcher specialising in vocabulary teaching and learning to make sense of the research findings. Methodology: In addition to the dialogues between the researcher and teachers, individual semi-structured interviews with the participating teachers were audio-recorded and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Findings: Our analysis revealed how ESL teachers made sense of the research literature to inform their L2 vocabulary teaching practices by (1) bridging the gap between the school culture and practices and empirical research findings; (2) connecting the researcher's explanations of the theoretical literature to real-life pedagogical practices; and (3) explaining how research findings can be applied to future classroom teaching and learning. Originality/Value: Based on the findings, we argue that professional dialogues between teachers and a researcher can facilitate the creation of a dialogic space for teachers to deploy their knowledge, including but not limited to pedagogical knowledge and beliefs, prior language learning experiences, and teaching experiences, to better understand research findings, thereby challenging their existing thinking and teaching. Such a dialogic space provides an opportunity for teachers to reflect on their pedagogical practices, which can promote quality teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Education is pivotal in the global effort to reduce inequalities. Through education, there are numerous opportunities to advance gender+ equality both within and outside of educational institutions. Gender budgeting, a strategy designed to align policies, plans and financial decisions with gender equality commitments, was used in this research to develop approaches through primary education. Research was conducted in collaboration with the biggest municipality in Iceland and three schools during the years 2019 and 2020, employing multiple data collection methods, including the review of policymaking documents and semi‐structured interviews. Through qualitative content and thematic analysis, the research identified several opportunities to foster equality through primary education, categorised into four key themes: policymaking, curriculum, student participation and school–family relations. It is recommended that policy‐based gender budgeting is implemented to prioritise actions that advance equality, social justice and equity within educational systems and broader society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]