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This paper examines the importance of ‘self-determination’ and ‘hard work’ found within interviews with a group of young people in Manchester, England. The author suggests that moments of apparent contradiction within the interviews have much to offer, particularly when analysed in relation to discussions of inequality and political economy. Data from this paper show that while the young people mostly spoke about work choices in primarily individualistic ways, they used the recession as a means to acknowledge that acquiring jobs simply cannot just be about ‘choice’ or working hard, but is also configured by the market and structural inequality.

This paper maps the global dimension of higher education and associated research, including the differentiation of national systems and institutions, while reflecting critically on theoretical tools for working this terrain. Arguably the most sustained theorisation of higher education is by Bourdieu: the paper explores the relevance and limits of Bourdieu’s notions of field of power, agency, positioned and position?taking; drawing on Gramsci’s notion of hegemony in explaining the dominant role played by universities from the United States. Noting there is greater ontological openness in global than national educational settings, and that Bourdieu’s reading of structure/agency becomes trapped on the structure side, the paper discusses Sen on self?determining identity and Appadurai on global imagining, flows and ‘scapes’. The dynamics of Bourdieu’s competitive field of higher education continue to play out globally, but located within a larger and more disjunctive relational setting, and a setting that is less closed, than he suggests.

In the context of globalisation and hegemonic neoliberalism, the state's ability to legitimate the economic system and its own policies cannot be assumed as a positive automatic effect. The economic and political conditions that once framed state action have changed, and it is reasonable to think that the emergence of a new accumulation regime implies also a shift in the traditional strategies used by the nation-state to legitimate its policy-making. This paper reviews how the neoliberal educational agenda develops a new political rationality that changes the traditional forms in which the state has managed its legitimation crisis. In addition, the paper argues that context-based factors, nationally specific, show that this political rationality may not be uniformly applied among different nation-states. The case of semiperipheral countries provides some evidence on the necessary combination of old and new strategies developed by the state to legitimate a neoliberal agenda.

Castells argues that society is being reconstituted according to the global logic of networks. This paper discusses the ways in which a globalised network logic transforms the nature young people's transitions from school to work. Furthermore, the paper explores the ways in which this network logic restructured the manner in which youth transitions are managed via the emergence of a Vocational Education and Training (VET) agenda in Australian post compulsory secondary schooling. It also notes the implications of the emergence of the 'network society' for locality generally and for selected localities specific to the research upon which this paper is based. It suggests that schools represent nodes in a range of VET and other networks, and shows how schools and other agencies in particular localities mobilise their expertise to construct such networks. These networks are networked, funded and regulated at various levels - regionally, nationally and globally. But, they are also facilitated by personal networking opportunities and capacities. The paper also points to the ways in which the 'reflexivity chances' of young people are shaped by this network logic - a situation that generates new forms of responsibility, for schools and teachers, with regard to the management of youth transitions.

It has been argued that a transnational elite class is emerging, and that elite schools are ‘choreographing’ this process. This article nuances this developing theoretical framework with empirical data from an economically elite boarding school in Switzerland. It demonstrates that young men and women at this site linked to a global economy whilst refracting geopolitical tensions in their interactions with one another. This draws our attention to the multi-sited understandings that elite young people develop, despite the widespread assumption that in modern globalisation, wealth can break down cultural and juridical borders. This paper thus importantly contributes to an emerging discussion about the possibilities and constraints of transnational class formation at elite schools. In particular, it suggests that different kinds of elite schools may fill different kinds of roles when it comes to such processes.

Privileged benefaction in elite schools and the moral dilemmas, contradictions and power politics involved are the focus of this paper. The notion of ‘the gift’ provides our analytical lens. We concentrate on two girls’ schools – one in South Africa and one in England. These were both built, in various ways, on the British model of public schooling. These schools pride themselves on their gifting practices. We offer a broad overview of the different local and global manifestations of and justifications for these practices as they occur in these schools and in the transnational organisations of which the schools are members.

This paper discusses the Japanese history textbook controversy over ‘comfort women’ to tease out insights that help globalize the existing theoretical discussion of politics of school knowledge. I begin by documenting how the domestic struggles over Japanese history textbooks are empowered and disempowered by the regional and international power relations. Using the Japanese case, I first problematize the use of hegemony in critical scholarship wherein struggles over school knowledge have been defined within the framework of a nation‐state. Second, I call for situating the discussion of counter‐hegemonic strategies in the increasingly internationalized politics of education witnessed around the world. In sum, this study calls for broadening the application of the notions of hegemony and counter‐hegemony in critical education scholarship to take full account of the complex political dynamics of globalizations.

In this paper we draw on concepts from policy sociology to analyse the new equity deal for schools in Queensland, Australia. We examine this ‘new deal’ through an analysis of the language of ‘inclusion’ and ‘educational risk’ in key policy documents associated with a major reform of public education in Queensland. In addition, we analyse the interview talk of key policy actors involved in policy framing, carriage and monitoring. We note that globalism has increased rather than reduced social inequity. At the same time, good quality accessible education can play a crucial role in challenging the inequalities produced by global informationalism. In Queensland, Australia, equity is still on the agenda, but in radically new neo‐liberal economic ways. The focus is individualistic—each individual needs to be tracked because they are potentially ‘at‐risk’ of ‘school failure’. Identification of ‘at‐risk’ students has been devolved to the level of the school and district, and intervention strategies have to be dev...

This paper moves beyond a conceptualization of globalization as a top‐down imposition of policy directions ‘from above’ to focus on the active two‐way dynamics between global, national and local levels of policy processes. Arguably, the particular ‘case’ examined here of ‘quality’ policy is especially appropriate as quality policy and golbalization rose to prominence in educational discourses at roughly the same time during the 1990s, suggesting that the two may be intimately interconnected. An analysis of new quality policy in Australian higher education for the 2000s is used as a vehicle to explore the dynamic reciprocity of global–national–local interactions in policy processes as revealed through empirical evidence collected during interviews with members of the national Australian Universities' Quality Agency. The concluding discussion highlights a key meta‐level theme of education policy transfer between countries and the potential for global policy convergence.

This paper is an attempt to trace the history of working class male ambivalence towards both the structure and the processes of higher education. An analysis is attempted whereby the nature of working class masculinity as ambivalent regarding education is problematised and placed within a much larger social network for consideration. It is hypothesised here that as society changes from being production-led to information-led the nature of working class masculinity will have to change. Previously, working class masculinity had been inextricably linked to notions of hard, unpleasant work. This will have to change, and it is further hypothesised that at present we are witnessing the 'lag' as working class masculinity tries to catch up with the world of work, technology and the forces of Globalisation.

This article explores the way in which the ‘everyday world’ of teachers and the teaching profession has been discoursively formulated in sociological research. In particular, it is critical of the way certain sociologists have ‘deracialised’ that world. In part, then, the argument complements Sandra Acker's (1983) feminist critique of the sociological literature on teachers. In the first part of the paper I look critically at the discourses of Schoolteacher (Lortie), Teachers’ Work (Connell) and Teachers’ Careers (Sikes, Measor and Woods) and argue that deracialisation is achieved and confirmed in these seminal studies through the processes of ‘globalisation’ and ‘commatization’. Following on from this, I look at the emergence of ‘Images of studies of ethnic minority teachers. I question the efficacy of their challenge to deracialised studies because of their tendency to articulate with the discourse of multiculturalism and, as a consequence, their implicit legitimation of ethnocentric conception...