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Universities in the early twenty-first century have become captive sites of global capitalism. The role of universities in this neoliberal knowledge system is to produce consumable knowledge for transnational corporations and flexible, knowledge worker-entrepreneurs. It is difficult to see where the university's roles in social justice and equity fit into the current higher education policy environment. While these are global trends in higher education, the focus of this article is on analysing key Australian policy documents from the 1950s to the 2000s. These policy texts contain discursive constructions of universities that both mirrored and produced powerful social imaginaries about higher education. Building upon earlier research, I analyse these policy documents using a form of Foucauldian archaeological analysis that seeks to trace the ways in which discourses define and delimit possible constructions of universities. This article makes an original contribution to contemporary debates about higher education policy because it engages in detailed Foucauldian archaeological analysis that opens up the present to critique, enabling us to trace how constructions of the postmodern university have emerged over time and have come to be normalised. It also offers counter-narratives about how policy futures might be [re]constructed.

In the recent Australian 2021 census, the socio-technical construct of algorithmically driven decision-making processes made LGBTQI+ data as a category of diversity, inclusion and belonging an absent presence. In this paper, we position the notion of 'data justice' in relation to the entrenchment of inequalities and exclusion of LGBTQI+ lives and consider the implications of LGBTQI+ data being missing in action. As we look at the notion of 'data justice', we consider five critical socio-technical imaginaries with different kinds of data to think through the implications of technical democracy, data justice and post-automation. Finally, we consider the imaginary of citizenship when LGBTQI+ data is habitually missing in action from systematic power integrated into forms of governance. This paper positions 'data' not as a static 'object or process' but as a dynamic ecology that carries with it a multi-faceted set of coded meanings requiring constant review and reconsideration.

Drawing upon a long-term study of venture philanthropy and public schools in Australia, this paper focuses on Teach For Australia (TFA) as a major component of a venture philanthropic network, one that builds critical infrastructures and connections between non-government organisations and the state, creating a product pipeline into public schools. Utilising interviews with staff from Teach For Australia and venture philanthropic organisations, comprehensive and rigorous financial data, reviews, reports and website data, the analysis aims to identify the major philanthropic funders, individual actors and private foundations that leverage Teach For Australia, illustrating how this network develops for-profit pathways into public schools. In pushing a deficit framing of public schools, these networks incur privatisation effects, including flows of money, resources and key decision-making. They compromise the democratic principles upon which public schools are ideally based, in that the most disadvantaged public schools are opened up to 'entrepreneurial' and risk-taking corporate behaviour to test out teachers, products and services. By examining streams of revenue, partnerships and networks, we show how the purportedly non-profit Teach For Australia develops for-profit opportunities and business partnerships nested in corporate philanthropy, resulting in a privatisation effect on public schools.

This paper is one of two that bring together a range of education scholars to consider how education might be for democracy in a time of complex challenges facing twenty-first century societies. In this paper, scholars from Australia, Japan and the United Kingdom consider how sites of formal and informal education can respond to multiple unfolding crises, including the COVID-19 global pandemic, catastrophic climate change and ecological collapse, political upheaval, and growing social and economic inequality. What emerges is a wide-ranging set of reflections that engage with these complexities and challenges in a considered and hopeful way.

In this paper, we draw on policy sociology and democratic theory to illustrate how evidence-based practice not only limits teachers' capacities to exercise professional discretion and authority, but also jeopardises the democratic project of schooling more broadly. Using theoretical concepts from Foucault's discipline with Connolly's pluralisation, we argue that evidence-based practice disciplines teachers to comply with a prescribed set of criteria, which constrains their capacity to respond to the evolving and emergent needs of their students and communities. Our argument is built from two projects conducted separately, but concurrently, in Australia and Denmark. The projects involved in-depth interviews with teachers, extensive observations within schools, and the collection and analysis of policy documents and artefacts. Using illustrative excerpts from both studies, we show how teacher participants expressed and embodied inclinations to do (or be) differently, but nonetheless felt the need to adhere to what the evidence established as the right way to do or be. In our view, this points to an increasingly rigid ontological space through which teachers can do, be and become, which raises questions about the extent to which an 'ethos of pluralisation' is possible within these schools.

Various electronic voting channels have been introduced across a range of countries. In some countries these new channels have proved uncontroversial, while in others, they remain contentious and have even been abandoned. Relatively little is known about whether and why voters have confidence in new and old voting channels. Australia provides a useful case for researching these issues, since it is a mature democracy in which election processes and outcomes are widely accepted. The 2013 Australian Election Study results show that in this context, voters have most confidence in paper-based voting and least in voting via smartphones. Positive political attachments, ease of voting and familiarity with technology are all associated with higher levels of confidence in voting channels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two hundred years ago in 1814 in Australia, Governor Lachlan Macquarie developed a 15 point plan for the provision of education services to Indigenous children. Using the tools of policy ethnography, this paper will examine the administration of Indigenous Education from the establishment of the first Native Institution in NSW in 1814 up to the present policy of "Closing the Gap." Education systems in pluricultural, postcolonial democracies worldwide are grappling with the incommensurability of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People with the colonial legacies embedded within education systems. Comparative analysis of education policies up to the present find striking similarities of colonial thinking embedded in policy formulation, aspects such as infantilization of Indigenous people, the unwillingness of administrators to share power and collaborate equally in the education of Indigenous children, and lack of willingness to bureaucratise the provision of education services for Indigenous children into the mainstream efforts of governments, with key individuals instead holding onto the legacy of executive powers enshrined this work from early colonial times. This paper argues for the need to develop an Indigenist, rights-based approach to the leadership and management of education of Indigenous children and to the education of non-Indigenous children about Indigenous matters, proper cross-cultural training for bureaucrats, proactive support for schools to bring Indigenous people into the governance structures of schools, substantial commitment of funds to teacher professional development in Indigenous matters.

This paper discusses Service-learning within an Australian higher education context as pedagogy to teach about inclusive education. Using Deleuze and Guattari's (1987) model of the rhizome, this study conceptualises pre-service teachers' learning experiences as multiple, hydra and continuous. Data from reflection logs of pre-service teachers highlight how the learning experience allowed them to gain insights in knowledge as socially just, ethical and inclusive. The paper concludes by arguing the need to consider Service-learning as integral to university education for pre-service teachers.

Democratic citizenship education in the information age must concern itself with the goal of nurturing future generations with the capacity to make appropriate use of the changes driven by the advances of ICTs so as to activate political and social democracy. Using Australia and South Korea as case studies, this paper discusses the role that citizenship education can and/or should play in producing democratic citizens in the information age. This paper analyses and compares the recent curricula and educational policy developments in citizenship education in Australian and South Korea. More specifically, the paper attempts to identify what implications the advances of ICTs have and what future tasks they impose for the field of democratic citizenship education. (Contains 6 endnotes.)

As a response to the 2013 special issue of "Discourse" on marketisation and equity in education, this paper suggests it is important to understand how school sectors (independent, Catholic and government) continue to play a significant role in how we constitute education, markets and equity in Australia. The first part of this paper provides a genealogy of school funding in Australia, giving an overview of how Australia has reached the current state of "sector-blind" school funding. We also focus on the shift in Australian schooling from a public good for national collective well-being to a private, positional good for individual advancement. The second part of the paper suggests that the notion of 'sector-blindness' is part of a depoliticisation of educational politics. We work from the premise that education is always and everywhere already a political project. We critique some absences in the special issue around "colour-blindness" and in a coda to the paper, we provide the basis for renewing and politicising the debate about education policy by offering a "debate-redux", that provides some possibilities about forms of democratic politics and education.

This paper will critically examine the changing social relations of responsibility associated with Australia's current regional "experiment" in environmental governance. This experiment centrally involves the transfer of responsibility for natural resource management (NRM) from Federal and State governments to community-based regional bodies. Although governments are promoting democratic NRM planning at the regional level as a more effective means of addressing Australia's environmental problems, we argue that a tension is emerging in association with the simultaneous pursuit of these goals: "effectiveness" has been defined in terms of the accountability of regional communities to central governments for the achievement of short-term results, an approach which is undermining the democratic promise that regional bodies would be responsive to wider community concerns. The notion of "responsibility" provides a means of investigating this tension, as accountability and responsiveness are both elements of the overarching concept of responsibility. The examination of NRM institutions through this theoretical lens indicates that the shared substantive interests required to motivate a sense of shared responsibility amongst regional actors have been sidelined by the procedural demands of accountability. We argue that, if NRM planning is to be genuinely accountable and responsive to substantive public ends, the properly social and dialogical nature of responsibility relationships must be recovered. The paper concludes with a discussion of the social and political relations of responsibility that appear to provide the best opportunities for effective environmental governance, and thus for the achievement of more sustainable NRM outcomes, at the regional level.

This paper presents data from an Australian high school classroom, investigating how students and their teacher negotiate readings of literature in order to arrive at meanings that are valued by subject English, as well as understood by the students. Subject English acts a vital agent for the transmission of both literacy and literary knowledge in English-speaking countries, and students which do not share the cultural and social orientations valued by the subject and its texts have the potential to be disadvantaged. However, I argue that this clash of socio-cultural perspectives may be positively viewed as an advantage for democratic education, as it allows students' critical understanding of their world to be challenged, for teachers to include student perspectives, and for students to be empowered to participate in institutional discourses. Implications for teacher practice and educational theory are discussed.

Recent critiques of citizenship education have identified the need for curricula that cover not only civil, political, social and cultural aspects of political belonging and responsibility, but that orient students to the realities of global engagement and responsibility. Rather than focussing on national values, histories and political procedures, the argument is that active citizenship, cosmopolitan values and identities, social justice, globally responsible behaviours, and critical self-awareness should be the goals of such education. This paper develops a typology of citizenship education, and then examines the 'Civics and Citizenship' module of the new Australian National Curriculum to understand what type of citizenship is being promoted through the curriculum and the teaching resources. The research finds that despite some opportunities to engage students' thinking more globally, and a positive focus on the rights and contributions of Australia's Indigenous peoples, the main thrust of the curriculum is the promotion and perpetuation of traditional nationalist and proceduralist citizenship, rather than global or cosmopolitan citizenship. Some recommendations for potential improvements are made.

In 2016, data was collected from eighty-one Indigenous young people in Australia through surveys and focus groups, which provide insight into the experiences of citizenship and democracy by young Indigenous Australians. This paper examines the attitudes of these young Indigenous Australians in relation to conventional political, economic and cultural domains of citizenship. Discussion highlights young Indigenous Australians' perceptions of their spheres of influence, as well as their perceptions of the barriers and enablers to influence their worlds. The findings are used to critically interrogate the concept of democratic citizenship through recent scholarly lenses including the following: affective and spatial dimensions of citizenship; resilience and identity; and daily acts of citizenship. Connection to the local community is important to many of the young Indigenous participants in this study. This sends a powerful message to educational practitioners and policy makers: The local is a key site in positively shaping the democratic citizenship of young people, with an opportunity for schools and educational activities in local settings to play a central role.

This paper compares and contrasts pre-service teachers' (PSTs) beliefs about democracy in Argentina and Australia. While there are many important studies of how school students understand democracy and democratic participation, few have studied what teachers, and especially pre-service teachers, think about democracy. This paper uses a mixed methods approach to present quantitative and qualitative responses to the contrasting understandings of democracy from an established and a newly emerging democracy. Determining the linkage between education and democracy is important as it has implications for how our children will relate to democracy both in the classroom and in society as future citizens.

This paper examines the marginalisation of multicultural and multilingual discourses that occurred in Australia in the mid-1990s and that continues to the present day. The contemporary struggle between national and multicultural identities is considered against the background of the re-emergence of nationalist discourses across many Western democracies as a consequence of changing global social and economic forces. This is the new age of "liquid" modernity, as theorised by Bauman, a kind of chaotic continuation of "solid" modernity where risk and uncertainty accentuate the vulnerability of the individual rather than uniting individuals to defend their rights. During this time, Australian governments, both Liberal and Labor, have increasingly supported universalising social inclusion/social cohesion policies to the detriment of multicultural policies. In the concluding section, this paper reflects on current trends and future challenges and provides a perspective on what may be required for a successful programme of accommodation and incorporation of cultural and linguistic diversity in Australia.

This paper explores persuasive writing and what more might be done to help equip young people with the written literacy tools to be effective participants in civic activism. Firstly, we argue from an Australian (and Tasmanian) context that there may be merit in teachers and students re-visiting some of the advice from classical rhetoric around the discovery of arguments. Secondly, we analyse challenges that 14 year old students face in responding to Australia's national literacy tests which include a persuasive writing task--and exemplify this section with evidence drawn from a data source of outstanding student responses. We conclude by critically reviewing and augmenting the literacy strategies suggested in a representative citizenship education teaching text, and suggest a tentative stepped model for supporting high quality persuasive writing in the context of active citizenship and democratic engagement.

In the following interview, Meira Levinson (Harvard Graduate School) discusses the field of educational ethics and how it can enhance justifiable youth activism to enact citizenship education and recover democracy. She introduces readers to her philosophical approach for developing normative case studies that aim to be inclusive of divergent views on knowledge and value in schooling. Professor Levinson visited the School of Education at the University of Newcastle, Australia, in August 2018, to advise the Educational Ethics: Dilemmas of Diversity Network project team. During her visit she discussed with local teachers and school leaders about how educational practices can ethically address differences, diversities and decision-making in pluralist democracies.

Recent surveys have indicated a worryingly low level of support for democracy among Australian youth and around the world. For example, in the 2017 Lowy Institute Poll, 36% of Australians indicated that, in some circumstances, a nondemocratic government is preferable. Such concerns, while hardly new, have triggered calls for more civic education and civic involvement. Linked to these concerns are discussions about the way new media (including mobile accessibility, the internet, and social media) is reshaping our understandings of public participation in democracy, especially the way that we conceive of the public sphere. Schools are often seen as important sites for the development of civic values in democratic countries. Having the skills and knowledge to navigate the public sphere in a critical way as well as contribute to it meaningfully is an important part of any activist approach to citizenship education. This paper presents one such example of radical citizenship education, Justice Citizens, and presents a framework that fellow critical educators might use to encourage young people to contribute to the public sphere not as citizens-in-waiting but as justice-oriented citizens.

Australia's policy imperatives for improved student performance have again put the spotlight on the pervasive disengagement of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Rather than finding more evidence about how schooling "does not work" for some young people and how background impacts on that, this paper argues for contributions to a different kind of knowledge by turning to these same young people about what "does work" to engage them in their learning at school. Consequently, the view put forward here is for an approach that turns the focus" from" disengagement "to" engagement and "from" youth as the problem "to" youth as part of the solution. Accordingly, this paper provides a synthesis of literature that privileges democratic youth participation through a strength-based approach to youth investigating educational engagement.

Purpose: The paper seeks to apply the theory of the democratic deficit to school-based management with an emphasis on Australia. This theory was developed to examine managerial restructuring of the Australian Public Service in the 1990s. Given similarities between the use of managerial practices in the public service and government schools, the authors draw on recent literature about school-based management in Australia and apply the democratic deficit theory to it. Design/methodology/approach: This paper is conceptual in focus. The authors analyse literature in terms of the three components of the democratic deficit--i.e. the weakening of accountability, the denial of the roles and values of public employees, and the emergence of a "hollow state"--and in relation to the application of this theory to the Australian Public Service. Findings: A trend towards the three components of the democratic deficit is evident in Australia although, to date, its emergence has not been as extensive as in the UK. The authors argue that the democratic principles on which public schooling in Australia was founded are being eroded by managerial and market practices. Practical implications: These findings provide policy makers and practitioners with another way of examining managerial and market understandings of school-based management and its impact on teachers and on students. It offers suggestions to reorient practices away from those that are exclusively managerial-based towards those that are public-sector based. Originality/value: The value of this paper is that it applies the theory of the democratic deficit to current understandings of school-based management. (Contains 5 notes.)

This paper documents and analyses a range of literature and policy statements that identifies issues and looks at the role which adult education plays in building communities and peace in post-conflict states. This paper explores and documents these developments in countries in close proximity to Australia which have been viewed by the former Australian government as constituting an "arc of instability". This is a term which will be critically discussed in the paper for the way in which it positions the nations of the Pacific and Australia's foreign policy as well as its aid and development policy. This paper reviews existing orthodox approaches to the region and development and discusses the criticisms that have been levelled at the status quo. (Contains 1 table.)

This paper presents a historical perspective to the development of community music in Australia. Finding political support in Australia's progressive arts policies of the late 1970s, community music is discussed as embracing the principles of access and equity and supporting the development of musical skills in the context of social change and cultural democracy. In conclusion the paper suggests that the base of community music is broadening alongside changing education policies.

Collaborating with universities in Hong Kong, Finland, the United Kingdom and Australia the research project outlined in this paper takes up one of the key initial findings related to the importance of children's online spaces away from school. The project brings together complementary strengths from each partner nation to assist our mutual need to understand the worlds of our young "netizens"--the new public citizens of cyberspace. Differing in social and cultural context, each setting is recognised as a strong contributor to understanding the competencies of young people's digital expertise. We work from the shared view that the arrival of Web 2.0 and 3.0 social networking tools is educationally challenging and demands futuristic thinking for sustainable education and social connectivity globally. Our research aim is to use a common research design to discover how young people are behaving in the new online spaces; what guides their decision-making; and what, if any, common values appear to emerge when results between countries are compared. Locally derived knowledge gained from samples of 12-year-olds will be subjected to cross-cultural comparisons and validation. In doing so, we make some assumptions about the homogenising process that shared global networks may be fostering. Bringing together these contributions will strengthen the decision-making process and provide new knowledge about meaning making, agency and citizenship for the twenty-first-century e-democracy. This paper reports on the conceptual process underlying the research and the research design. (Contains 2 figures and 4 notes.)

In this paper I argue that values of democracy and social justice in education would seem to have been displaced in recent decades by managerialist norms that are linked to the presumed needs of business and the economy of the nation. I am concerned that conceptualizations of the nature and purpose of education, and of the roles of teachers, are restricted in this neoliberal climate and policy framework. I argue that there is an urgent need to restore notions of educational and social responsibility to the forefront of educational policy making. In particular, I argue, if educational success for all students is to be a key aim of education (and surely most commentators would claim it should be), then schools will have to ensure that they reach out to all students and their communities, welcome them, and engage them in learning that is relevant and meaningful to their lives within their particular social, cultural and economic circumstances. (Contains 2 notes.)

Citizenship education in established democracies is challenged by declining youth participation in democracy. Youth disenchantment and disengagement in democracy is primarily evident in formal political behaviour, especially through voting, declining membership of political parties, assisting at elections, contacting politicians, and the like. If citizenship education is to play a major role in addressing these concerns it will need to review the impact it is making on young people in schools. This paper reviews a major national project on youth participation in democracy in Australia set in the context of a national citizenship education programme. The Youth Electoral Study found that citizenship education in Australian schools has at best been marginally successful and substantially more is required to raise levels of democratic engagement. The paper explores many opportunities available to education systems and schools to address these issues through reconceptualising aspects of the formal and the informal curriculum.

The research question for this paper is: How can we mobilise robust hope in the analysis of teacher education policy? Specifically, this paper asks how a robust hope framework might speak to the "Top of the Class," a report into teacher education by the Australian House of Representatives Standing Committee on Education and Vocational Training.

In 2002, people with disabilities in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) expressed their vision "that all people with disabilities are valued as full and equal members of the ACT community" (Australian Capital Territory Government, 2004). Despite the ACT being regarded as a very fortunate and prosperous place to live, some Canberrans with disabilities remain vulnerable and excluded from participating in the full life of their community. Education is about improving society. By improving educational environments and systems, we achieve improved outcomes, in the long run, for all people. Fundamental to this, and particularly crucial for students with disabilities, is the need for us to develop a respectful inclusive culture in every school--one that delivers equity of access and participation for all students. Not just the best, not just the brightest, and not just the easiest to manage, but all students. That is what democracy, equal opportunity, meeting personal aspirations and social cohesion is all about. In this speech, presented at the Australian Association of Special Education 2006 National Conference, Canberra, the author reflects on how we need to go about achieving a truly inclusive society, and proposes that in order to move forward, we need a new kind of motivation and commitment to making a difference for all students. What is needed is to develop, in important decisionmakers, an understanding of what "moral purpose" means to us and the students and parents we represent. We need to articulate to them what it means in practice.

Most Australian universities have a policy that stipulates responsibilities and protocol for situations when children are on campus. In recent times children have begun to be seen as possessing rights to participation in society. Ideas of children as citizens, that is, as active members of the public sphere, have been theorised, discussed and investigated. University campuses have also been defined as sites of citizenship (e.g. Harkavy, 2006). This paper examines the positioning of children as citizens on university campuses through analysis of how children are defined in children on campus policies from three Australian universities. Poststructuralist readings make visible irony at play, and a case is argued for the reworking of children on campus policies to be built on language that positions children as welcome participants of universities as democratic sites.

Recent moves for local government reform in several states of Australia have focused in part on a perceived need for more effective civic leadership, and in particular the role of mayors. Proposed legislation in New South Wales and Victoria would expand the responsibilities of mayors in several areas, such as community engagement, partnerships with key stakeholders, strategic planning and providing guidance to the chief executive officer. In 2012 the Australian Centre of Excellence for Local Government (ACELG) published a discussion paper that canvassed these issues as well as the way in which mayors are elected. That paper elicited a strongly adverse critique by Grant, Dollery and Kortt, now published as an article in this issue of Local Government Studies. Regrettably their critique failed to offer a constructive contribution to the debate sought by ACELG, and the article contains a number of significant errors and misleading statements that demand a response. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper analyses pre-service education student perceptions and perspectives related to education for democracy in Australia. Using a critical pedagogical framework datum from an online survey, it presents both quantitative and qualitative responses of contrasting understandings of democracy. It begins by outlining the concepts of thick and thin democracy and why this is important in relation to contemporary debates about the state of civics and citizenship education, and then explains the conceptual framework of critical pedagogy and methodology. The datum analysed is discussed in relation to neoliberalism and indicates that the pre-service teachers in this study view democracy in a narrow or thin way that may impact on their classroom practice where they would be teaching about but not for democracy. A more critical and thicker understanding of democracy is suggested as essential if we desire our students to become active and transformative citizens.

That parties fulfil their pre‐election pledges once they are in government is a fundamental idea of many democracy models. This paper addresses the question of whether the government/opposition status of their party affects how much citizens want governments to fulfil their promises. We hypothesize that interest‐driven, rational voters are more likely to prefer their own party to keep its promises and investigate whether this rationale is impacted by public opinion and expert views. The analysis is based on a survey experiment conducted in Australia and Austria. It finds that voters broadly adhere to the democratic principle of expecting pledge fulfilment but, at the same time, some take a rational approach to government promises. The opinions of the public and experts mitigate but do not change this effect. Another key finding is the significant difference in the preference for promise keeping versus promise breaking between government and opposition voters in the Austrian case, the country with the more heterogeneous and polarized political system. This paper contributes to the literature on voters' attitudes on democracy and pledge fulfilment by showing that voters are normatively driven but a significant number of voters deviate and instead follow the rational voter logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on a broader qualitative study of professional learning in schools of the Peoples of the Book (Christians, Jews and Muslims) in post-colonial Australia, addressing the role that the growing number of Australian faith-based schools play in shaping a just and inclusive Australian society. By reviewing material in the public domain, we consider in their projection to the public the stated and implied commitment of six Australian faith-based schools of the Peoples of the Book to a transformative, liberatory education. Drawing on Habermas' understanding of a religiously pluralistic democracy, we argue that faith-based schools should articulate their purpose and values to the wider secular society, recognizing that this task also calls upon the secular society to engage with the faith traditions, to strengthen mutual respect and tolerance. Although we find little consideration in the literature of the distinctive professional learning needs in faith-based schools, we examine Australian faith-based schooling through the thinking of Freire and the role of conscientization in transformative education. We argue that it is through the professional learning program of the school that critical awareness and indeed conscientization of teachers can be developed.

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The issue of limited engagement with science for young people from Indigenous, minority and lower socio-economic groups in Australia appears to have been sidelined from the mainstream debate around falling rates of engagement with science at the secondary schooling level. The "closing the gap" mantra of education policy in Australia has seen an extraordinary focus on improving literacy and numeracy outcomes for Indigenous students, which, while valuable, has subsumed the importance of other key learning areas including science. Teachers are soon to be expected to incorporate Indigenous Perspectives within the science subjects of the new Australian National Curriculum yet appear to be under-resourced to meet this challenge to traditional approaches to science teaching. The purpose of this paper is to explore the pedagogy of a teacher working at an alternative secondary schooling site in North Queensland Australia who volunteered to modify his teaching of science to explicitly incorporate Indigenous Perspectives. The qualitative data collected through classroom observation and teacher interviews demonstrates the complex and multi-faceted nature of the science education experience when traditional pedagogical boundaries are dismantled to allow for a drawing upon of the lived experiences of diverse young people. The teacher's ability to embrace this broader vision of science is linked to the inclusive culture of the alternative school environment that is brought into being through a "common ground" philosophy of mutual respect and democratic relations.

This article critiques guidance approaches to discipline, that are employed in early childhood environments with an aim to create democratic environments for children, and as part of "good" practices. Advocates of guidance claim that this is a more humane or democratic approach to discipline that empowers children, and therefore, power in the classroom appears as more equalized or distributed. The author adopts a particular perspective in the field of educational psychology by using Foucault's conceptualization of power and confession (1981). This analytical context opens up avenues to problematize guidance's claims about the nature of teacher-child power relations, and children's autonomy. Guidance is then re-read as a subtle, often invisible way of regulation, that sheds new light on a particular kind of autonomy children are allowed. The article concludes with an emphasis on the necessity to be vigilant with guidance. Vigilance is needed to keep in sight that guidance is a discourse that positions subjects in power relations and its quest for democracy is a part of its discourse with power implications rather than its ultimate goal. (Contains 1 note.)

A few years ago, in a tutorial in an advanced level undergraduate subject that she teaches--"Emotions, Culture and Community"--the author was a witness and participant in a pedagogical event that moved and provoked the class: It incited response-ability. This article is about that event, the meaning of response-ability, and the window that it opens onto the larger question of what it means to teach into a cultural studies program in an Australian university today. With the increasing corporatization of universities, and the associated emphasis on measurable outcomes, one may too easily lose sight of the immeasurable value of cultural studies and its place in advancing the immeasurable qualities of university study. The pedagogical event illustrates a movement toward, and dwelling with, immeasurability. This article begins with a discussion of responsibility and some of the different ways that the concept is understood and utilized in debates about democracy, difference, and social justice. Here responsibility is closely aligned with responsiveness and disconnected from personal culpability. Each definition issues specific pedagogical challenges for those interested in enhancing responsibility, responsiveness to others and social justice. It is on this issue that the author turns to the work of Kelly Oliver (2001) and the concept of response-ability to raise some questions about teaching, responsibility, and responsiveness. After outlining the meaning of response-ability, she draws on it to analyze the pedagogical event in her subject. The article concludes with an argument for the immeasurable value of the pedagogical incitement of response-ability.

We review our involvement in social justice movements and projects over the past half-century that led to our understanding of importance of democracy. We contrast our understanding based on our extensive involvement in schools, our record of accomplishments from national and state legislation. e.g., "New Careers" projects, task forces in Australian state schools, to successful inclusion of the excluded into higher education, e.g.,. Upward Bound and HEP with Critical Pedagogy which at least from its most prominent advocates is mostly talk, little action. We contrast our testable democratic theory with clearly articulated principles with Critical Pedagogy efforts to impose "truth." (Contains 1 footnote.)

Governments, international organizations and academics have, in recent decades, expressed a sense of crisis in the practice of democracy based largely upon increasing levels of disengagement by citizens from even the most basic elements of civic life. One response has been to devise civics and citizenship education curricula for schools with the concomitant expectations of enhanced civic practice. Our examination of citizenship education programs has revealed considerable variation from country to country in the degree of success achieved in the design, development and implementation of programs. This paper examines recent developments in citizenship education in four leading Western democracies--Australia, Canada, England and the USA; each one with its own particular successes and shortcomings. It identifies several factors associated with the successful building of curriculum capacity for citizenship education and argues that these are fundamental for countries wishing to move beyond rhetoric and toward substance in citizenship education. (Contains 1 table.)

Young people's relationship with contemporary politics is complex and often problematized. They are often chastised as the apolitical harbingers of an incipient "crisis of democracy" while simultaneously heralded as the authors of sophisticated new forms of politics, most notably within electronic realms. Previous literature examining young people's political participation falls into either extreme of this binary; either a disengaged paradigm--which sees young people as passive and devoid of political interest--or engaged paradigm--which sees young people as actively political in new forms. Both models are limited because they fail to comprehensively explain youthful political participation. Instead, this paper argues that a more helpful conceptualization requires moving beyond the claim that young people are either politically engaged or disengaged, to acknowledge that both engagement and disengagement are simultaneously occurring. Reframing young people's political participation this way would empower young people's aversion to politics without condemnation--it would see them as radically unpolitical. The current response to the "problem of youth participation"--which typically entails enticing and assimilating young people into stale political processes and/or translating these stale processes into interactive websites - is inadequate for unpolitical young people. Rather a change in the very substance of the political agenda, its spheres and forms, is required. This article explores the disengaged and engaged paradigm and the policy responses, and explores the proposed radically unpolitical model. (Contains 1 figure, 1 table and 1 note.)