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This paper engages with the Freirean concept of politicity for critical policy studies in education. The first part lays the ground to expand the conceptualisation of teachers' politicity. I argue this entails an examination of the limits and possibilities within a juncture. To develop the argument, the second part focuses on a teacher strike that took place in Chile and draws on corpus-driven discourse analysis to explore news from a national teacher organisation and from an influential newspaper. Through the angle of politicity, I identify and discuss ideational projects during the strike with an emphasis on counterhegemonic resources for change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the ongoing engagement of neoliberal ideology in Indonesian higher education institutions and in commodifying the global spread of English. With the growing number of faith-based higher education institutions in Indonesia, the neoliberal and English ideologies are contested and promulgated, creating ambivalent spaces. This complex entanglement of ideologies begs us to examine how they are appropriated by English teachers who are at the front line in translating the ideologies. In this respect, I argue that Bakhtin's construct of ideological becoming (Bakhtin, 1981. The Dialogic Imagination. Transalted by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press) has explanatory power that may help understand teachers' ideological formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, many populist leaders and parties have succeeded in taking over the levers of state power, in spite of the fact that much of their political rhetoric in opposition expresses anti-state sentiments. This paper examines how populist leaders and parties in Asia have been able to use the institutions of the state, including education, to exercise and perpetuate their power. Focusing on the examples of India, the Philippines and Singapore, the paper shows how in each of these cases, populist politics consists in attempts to reconfigure the nature of the state and its relationship to civil society, often seeking to obliterate the distinction. A great deal of effort is put in to transform the institutions of the state, including education, making it possible for them to translate populist sentiments into governmental practice. This explains how, when in government, populists are often able to extend their appeal and influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the ways in which administrators, academics and students living under conditions of authoritarianism come to imagine the university's political possibilities and horizons. To this aim, we first consider how alternative imaginaries are constructed and contained at Boğaziçi University, where the parameters of political possibility are pre-figured both by the current ruling regime and the enduring histories of empire that pre-date it. Then, we turn to Aleppo countryside, where we compare Syrian opposition universities to newly established Turkish ones. In doing so, we attempt to trace the ideational lifeline of Syria's revolutionary imaginary as it persists in higher education under conditions of disillusionment and co-optation. When taken together, we argue, these two cases point not to the primacy of belief in creating or sustaining imaginaries, but rather to the constitutive role of violence, coercion and control in shaping notions of who and what the university is for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creating critical mass has become a cornerstorne of science policy on both national and transnational levels. It suggests that once a certain size is reached, exponential growth or accelerated change will occur. In reconstructing theories, policies and practices associated with critical mass, the paper traces the image of critical mass as a size that performs in different dimensions. It takes the German Excellence Initiative, a state programme for the competitive distribution of research funds, as a policy intended to create critical mass. That the Excellence Initiative did not trigger exponential growth but organisational change points to qualitative effects of size. On the basis of case studies, it is reconstructed how Excellence-funded graduate schools and others perform size. They accumulate prestige, build-up research capacity, reproduce 'schools of thought' or provide for research personnel. In doing so, the schools are not a critical mass for exponential growth but normalise sizing practices in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study detailed in this paper examines the role of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) in the transnational policy-making landscape in relation to African fragile and conflict-affected states. Data collection was based on content analysis of a corpus of documents – Education Sector Plans (ESPs)/ Transitional Sector Plans – examining to what extent the main categories identified in the literature concerning global education policy and international development, emerge from the documents. We conclude that certain terms and constructs that emerge from global education discourses recur frequently in the ESPs. The article argues that there is a depoliticisation strategy in the development of the ESPs, making it possible to identify a façade of precision, a façade of rationality and a façade of universality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the rise of authoritarian populism in Brazil following the election in 2018 of Jair Messias Bolsonaro to the Presidency and reflect on the consequences of his far-right-wing politics for education. Our focus is broadly on three historical blocs (with five different presidents of the Republic) which make up the policy trajectory of Brazil over the period 1995–2019. We explore the complex cultural political economy surrounding more than a decade of left-wing government by Lula da Silva (2003–2010) and Dilma Rousseff (2011–2016) of the Workers Party (PT). In what has been described as simultaneously a tragedy, a farce, and a soap opera, Bolsonaro's rise involves the impeachment of Dilma, accusations of corruption, the imprisonment of Lula and the resignation of multiple ministers of the government. The intersections of right-wing conservative discourse, evangelical proselytising and populist discourse in Brazil, coupled with resentment from those whose fortunes had been diminished because of declining economic competitiveness, contributed to the election of Bolsonaro in 2018. A final section focuses on the education policy in Brazil, the ways in which any progressive gains have been erased and what this means for Brazilians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores new nationalisms as part of the conflicting political interactions constituting the post-Cold war governance arrangements in higher education. Drawing on policy documents, archival sources and interviews and against the backdrop of a historical perspective on the university and the EU's role as an education actor, the article investigates the development from internationalisation to national protectionism in Danish higher education policy. The article suggests that current practices concerning the nation-state are reshaping international collaboration and that these new nationalisms are characterised by post-Cold War readjustments and displacements in the relation between the university, the nation-state and international alliances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pedagogical reform is an institutional change that involves revising the rules of the game in practice, the legitimacy of which depends on political and legislative contexts. In the context of Myanmar's experience transitioning into a democratic society, this study discusses the changes in theoretical equilibria concerning pedagogical practices with reference to the changes in the links between the national regime, education policies, and teacher preference about practices. As the country transitioned from a junta to a civilian government, education policies became more democratised. However, the coup d'état of February 2021 could retract these changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how dominant discourses disseminated through quality assurance processes in Greek Higher Education (re)define academic work and language use in a globalised HE field. Drawing on Bernstein's theory of pedagogic discourse, we approach government-led external evaluations of university departments as official policy texts that encode the evaluative criteria of quality institutions and valorise specific forms of knowledge and conduct. Our analysis of empirical material derived from selected HE departments illustrates that performance measurement systems interlink English as a default language with mobility and research activity in a unified discourse of quality constructing a selective understanding of how Higher Education Institutions and academics are expected to attain international visibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study deploys Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to understand how educational standards take shape. To exemplify the inherently collective nature of standards and contingency in the process of standardisation, this study will present a case of the CEFR-J project launched by a group of Japanese university academics to modify the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) for English-language teaching and learning in Japan. Drawing on documentary materials and in-depth interviews, I will describe how the CEFR has become a standard for English-language teaching in Japan while various actors were brought together through the CEFR-J project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article recounts the lived experience of a Rwandan English teacher's journey from his village to international opportunities for scholarship and work, enabled by his agency in navigating the country's changing linguistic landscape. Using the narrative inquiry research method, the study uncovers an insider's perspective on Rwanda's switch from French to English-medium education and offers a unique participant-centred contribution to research on language-in-education policy. The respondent's story is interpreted through the intersecting conceptual themes of linguistic imperialism and cosmopolitanism, which emerge from the narrative. The decolonisation of English-medium education is envisioned through supportive, multilingual pedagogies and a rooted cosmopolitanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results have become synonymous with quality benchmarking, determining standards and comparing performance among 15-year-old students in countries around the globe. Concern, however, exists with the utility and consequential validity of the newest measure to the suite of the OECD's PISA tests: its global competence measure. This study continues our examination of the global competence measure by deconstructing how the OECD frames it within the first global competence rankings, which are based on PISA 2018 data. Our study uses Derrida's technique of deconstructing texts to critique the five specific claims that the OECD used to underpin the importance of its measures in PISA- policy orientation, innovative concept of literacy, relevance to lifelong learning, regularity, and breadth of coverage. Our analysis exposes the measure's silences, unquestioned assumptions and inconsistencies. The aporia evident in the text is of concern for educational policy makers around the globe as it perpetuates global messaging that reinforces dominant discourses and continues to ignore contextual differences. We call for continued critique of the global competence measure and recommend that hyperbole be replaced by contextualisation of any differences it might detect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Culture is increasingly mentioned as an influence on sexuality education amongst scholars, policymakers, and sexuality education practitioners. Yet there are conflicting and sometimes unclear conceptualisations of how exactly culture affects sexuality education. Based on a systematic literature review of articles on culture and sexuality education in settings around the world, this article uncovers five narratives on how culture and sexuality education are commonly linked together. Discussing culture as a cliché, a source of conflict, an opportunity, its authority, and the politics of culture, this article highlights the multi-faceted nature of culture and its influence on sexuality education. It also outlines some implications of these narratives for scholarly work, policy and practical developments in the field of sexuality education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introducing the special issue on the 'New Geopolitics of Higher Education', this article promotes a renewed understanding of geopolitics as it pertains to higher education. To frame the special issue, which explores how higher education practices and policies are being shaped by shifting geopolitical dynamics, a state of the art review of the literature links geopolitics to higher education, identifying its current edges and delineating key categories into which these studies tend to fall. A new conceptual framework to investigate how higher education is affected by prevailing geopolitical currents is then introduced. The Scales, Agents, Interests and Opportunity Structures (SAIOS) framework accounts for the multifaceted ways in which the new geopolitics interact with higher education policy decisions and actions, offering a flexible tool applicable to current and future inquiries. Finally, the article calls for different and more critical approaches to study the new geopolitics of higher education that engage with the critical geopolitics literature. By making more explicit connections between higher education studies and critical geopolitics, this article elevates the dialogue between these two bodies of scholarship and advances the prospect for a subfield of higher education studies, one concerned with geopolitics as an underlying theme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking the migration-higher education nexus as an analytical entry point, we address the question: How can we account for different internationalisation outcomes? We focus on three actors involved in the global race to internationalise higher education activities: higher education institutions (HEIs), states, and migrants. We argue that the migration-higher education nexus enables us to begin describing and explaining differences in internationalisation outcomes (i.e. greater, limited, or none) by focussing our empirical attention on the interaction between HEI internationalisation strategies, state policies, and migrant agency to move/stay. We delineate various configurations of these interactions and how they determine internationalisation outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores how geopolitics and 'Neo-tributary' relations influence the distribution of TNHE partnerships in China. Specifically, this research situates China's TNHE cooperation in policy reforms and designs since 2010, and explores how geopolitics influences the regional practice of re-organisation of the joint programmes between 2018 and 2020. The findings show that, on one hand, China's central government prioritises the TNHE partnerships in China's local regions: East China, Central China and West China; and on the other hand, alongside the traditional partner countries, such as the UK and the US, the emerging BRI region enjoys more new Sino-foreign HE partnerships than other foreign partners. This research develops the discussion based on the categories of trade and diplomacy linkages; cultural assimilation; and image building (Pan, Su-Yan, and Joe Tin-Yau Lo. 2017. "Re-Conceptualizing China's Rise as a Global Power: A Neo-Tributary Perspective." The Pacific Review 30 (1): 1–25.), and concludes with some of the implications of these trends on the 'new' geopolitics of knowledge in a Neo-tributary system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Methodological nationalism (MN) pervades higher education scholarship and practice, particularly in the arena of globalisation of higher education (HE) (Shahjahan and Kezar 2013). MN refers to the assumption that national boundaries define the natural category or unit of analysis for society. Drawing on affect theories, this conceptual article aims to problematise how the 'nation state' as a natural category (or container) pervades global HE practices and policies. Affect refers to emotions, responses, reactions and feelings that are relational and transpersonal, and an object's (e.g., nation-state) continuous emergence and unfolding in a world driven by intensities and feelings. Based on three real-life examples in/about South Asian HE, we demonstrate how the 'nation-state' category comes into being (and becomes 'sticky') through the experienced and imagined encounters among: (a) individuals, (b) national policy and (c) transnational actors. We show how, through imaginaries and practices, the 'global' manifested through using the 'nation-state', indicating a strong and evolving relationship between the two categories, informed by emotional and imaginative futures. We argue that an affect lens illuminates how MN is perpetuated as the nation-state becomes a naturalised container for (potential) encounters in the enactments of HE globalisation and moving beyond MN requires an ontological shift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How are children to prepare for an era in which work can be outsourced anywhere in the world, university graduates compete with computers and robots for jobs, and in which any number of other, unforeseeable social and economic trends may transpire? Popular discourses on educational reform talk of the need for schools and colleges to produce more flexible, creative, and analytic learners through 'forward-looking' diversification of the curriculum and technology use. In this article I argue that schools should in effect do less: Fundamental competences such as literacy and numeracy, and engagement with history, ideas, and the arts ought to be the goals of primary and secondary education. Elective classes in high school should offer more specialised, elective courses. A sufficiently motivated and capable minority can pursue such interests in higher education, but for the majority there should be no shame in departing formal education for the 'real' world much sooner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]