Search

This article considers how neoliberalism has created a reductionist view of lifelong learning in the UK focused on upskilling workers for the labour market. This critical policy analysis uses Marx's theory of labour-power, as conceptualised by Glenn Rikowski, to examine the Skills and Post-16 Education Act, 2022 and to identify its ideological roots, its distribution of power, resources and knowledge, and the potential effect it will have on inequality. Findings indicate that while the Act aims to make it easier for adults to study more flexibly, not all adults will have the labour-power attributes and financial resources to access the higher-level qualifications prioritised for funding. This article argues that the Act represents a general deepening of neoliberalism in lifelong learning that will further stratify adult education and increase inequalities. This article concludes that policy has shifted from widening participation in lifelong learning linked to social enrichment and the development of democratic citizenship, to widening participation in higher levels of education and training aimed at enhancing labour-power for the capitalist labour market.

The idea of translanguaging has disrupted much of the thinking in bilingual education. A common misunderstanding, however, is that translanguaging was intended to be a language teaching strategy. This article seeks to explore what a translanguaging approach to language teaching entails, with specific reference to the education of minoritized and racialized bilingual and multilingual learners in the school systems in English-dominant countries such as the UK. In particular, I highlight the connections with and contributions to the inclusion and social justice agenda that the translanguaging project aims to make. Translanguaging takes one step further from multilingualism in challenging the raciolinguistic ideologies that view bilingual learners as having separate languages and languaging lives. It instead views their racial/ethnic identities and linguistic practices together, that is, their translanguaging being. My main argument here is that to use translanguaging as a pedagogy for inclusion and social justice requires a change of mindset, not just practice -- that is, translanguaging pedagogy rather than pedagogical translanguaging -- which can be achieved through processes of 'co-learning' and 'transpositioning'.

Critical discourses in intercultural communication (IC) scholarship continue to foreground the postcolonial malaise of Southern spaces. Intercultural communication education (ICE) may encounter some pedagogical challenges in its endeavour to reflect the complexity and depth of the discipline and its recent critical turn. This paper seeks to unravel the transformations and the emerging discourses accompanying the 'critical turn' in ICE. The rationale is (a) to engage more deeply with the realisations of this critical turn against a background of unequal power relations and its implications and contextualisations within the Global South and (b) to clarify the possibilities of ICE in disrupting ideological polarities and promoting social justice. The aims are, therefore, (a) to probe into the interrogating and resisting potentials of ICE in the periphery and (b) to discuss the complexities associated with teaching IC from a critical perspective in contexts situated within the lower spectrum of power asymmetries.

This article employs critical discourse analysis of the Spear's Schools Index of 'the best private schools in the world', the first such global ranking of schools, to understand representations of elite education in globalised societies. It argues that the Index is a powerful text that exemplifies a global gaze -- an imagined perspective from which education is judged independent of context. Six assumptions about education inherent in this global gaze are identified, through which schools and parents are subjectified while students are objectified, namely that: good education can be judged independent of context; education is a competition; the best schools are supranational; private and Western schools are best; good parents choose globally; and children are an investment. The article demonstrates the fertility of analysing online sources to examine elite schools [Howard, Adam, and Jane Kenway. 2015. "Canvassing Conversations: Obstinate Issues in Studies of Elites and Elite Education." "International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education" 28 (9): 1005--1032.].

This paper examines the language attitudes of first-wave members of the Ukrainian community in the UK towards the two varieties of Ukrainian present in the community (labelled Diasporic Ukrainian and Contemporary Ukrainian), and considers the language ideologies underpinning these attitudes. Drawing on the analysis of data obtained through semi-structured interviews with second- and third-generation community members, I demonstrate how attitudes towards the two varieties of Ukrainian are mixed, but internally consistent. Positive attitudes towards Diasporic Ukrainian coincide with negative attitudes towards Contemporary Ukrainian, which is considered 'Russified' and 'impure'. A contrasting set of attitudes is also identified, in which informants express negative attitudes towards 'archaic' Diasporic Ukrainian and positive attitudes towards Contemporary Ukrainian. I show that attitudes towards the two varieties of Ukrainian appear to be connected to attitudes towards Russian and are influenced by purist ideologies and interviewees' perceptions of the relationship between Ukrainian language and identity. I consider how the mixed nature of these language attitudes may have a negative impact on future language maintenance efforts in the community, as the choice to teach one variety of Ukrainian over another may prevent attendance at Ukrainian complementary schools, which play a key role in language maintenance in the community.

This paper has as its focus the life and thinking of the educational theorist and schoolmaster J. H. Simpson (1883-1959), who was not only a reforming teacher at Rugby School but was also the first headmaster of the progressive Rendcomb College. His ideas around education were outlined in a number of books. At the heart of his thinking lay concerns around democracy and self-government and the article explores how these were enacted at various points of Simpson's life with a particular focus upon his work until 1932. Attention will be paid to how his thinking evolved, moving from simple democracy in the classroom to wider decision-making within an entire school. Linked to these concerns were a number of curricular initiatives that sought to offer a point of contrast to more traditional public schools. The article will conclude by attempting to offer consideration of the legacy of Simpson's ideas.

This review tracks the last 50 years of the journey towards the inclusion of disabled students in Higher Education (H.E.). It provides a critical overview of the impact of evolving U.K. policy aimed at widening participation for disabled H.E. students. The overview spotlights the historical, ideological and political influences on policy and practice and illuminates the underlying causes of the social injustices still experienced by disabled H.E. students. Despite a government commitment to inclusive practices, data reveals disabled H.E. students are among those most at risk of withdrawing from university and have lower degree outcomes than non-disabled students (OfS. 2021. Access and Participation Resources: Findings from the Data. https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/media/4dcf0f63-4ff0-4df2-ba52-3b2ef0a8a28d/access-and-participation-data-resources-sector-summary-2021.pdf, 19). The article illustrates how the prevailing models of disability have influenced definitions of disability and inclusion. It highlights tensions between the Government's accountability agenda and inclusive practice ideals. The paper reviews U.K. studies of inclusion of disabled H.E. students. It unearths barriers, particularly concerning stigma, disclosure, and social inclusion, rooted in historical misrepresentations of disability remaining intact in contemporary society. Implications for H.E. institutions and policymakers are highlighted. Recommendations for researchers include research aligned with disabled people's lived experiences and further investigation of barriers relating to attitudes of non-disabled students.

This paper displays a Systemic Functional Linguistic and Critical Discourse Analysis of Boris Johnson's first public speech on COVID-19. COVID-19 is a very dangerous infectious disease caused by the last discovered virus of the Coronavirus strain. This virus began in Wuhan's Chinese city in December 2019. COVID-19 has spread from Wuhan to the rest of the world. It has now turned into a pandemic affecting the whole world. Halliday's (2004) model of systemic functional linguistics (meta-functions), relying on interpersonal and ideational meta-functions, and Van Dijk's ideology and discourse (2000) model depending on the argumentation categories, are the adopted models of analysis. The paper's main objectives are to analyze the speech of Prime Minister Boris critically to uncover the used ideologies to advise, persuade and control the people's beliefs and actions. In addition, this paper aims to identify the interpersonal and ideational meta-functions in the selected speeches of the chosen figure stating their frequencies, then finding out how these features uncover the ideological strategies used to affect all people; Finding the argumentation categories that are used by the prime minister to support the ideas and actions presented. The paper presents a theoretical background of discourse, Critical discourse analysis, dominant, and ideology. Explains the adopted models; Analyzes the speech critically.

The purposes of this paper are to investigate Taiwanese undergraduate students' responses to a selected fictional text, and to propose a critical intercultural pedagogical approach of reading global literature in the EFL educational context based on the insights from the research findings. The authors first critically analysed Xiaolu Guo's third novel, "A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers," in terms of Occidentalism, in order to unpack the ideologies underlying her representation of the British and the Chinese. The analysis of the text was conducted through a qualitative approach of critical content analysis. After that, a semi-structured interview was adopted to scrutinise Taiwanese undergraduate students' perceptions of the ideologies underlying the fiction. The analysis of the text identified three themes of British-Chinese binary opposition together with the juxtaposition of ethnocentric Occidentalism and reverse Occidentalism. The findings obtained from interviews indicated that two of the three dichotomies, i.e. individualism versus collectivism and cosmopolitan versus rooted, underlying the fictional text were commonly perceived by the interviewed undergraduates while they had diverse views on the second dichotomy, sexual freedom versus sexual reticence. Furthermore, some students? responses to the fiction signified a subtle, implicit and delicate form of reverse Occidentalism. Based on the above research findings, the authors configured a critical intercultural pedagogy for raising students' capability of decoding and deconstructing Occidentalist ideologies underlying global literature.

In recent years, there has been increased interest in, and work towards, decolonising the curriculum in higher education institutions in the UK. There are various initiatives to review university syllabuses and identify alternative literature. However, there is an increasing risk of turning 'decolonisation' into a buzz term tied to a trend. We fear that decolonisation within academia is becoming an empty term, diluted and depoliticised, allowing for superficial representations that fail to address racial, political and socio-economic intersectionalities. In this article, we examine several initiatives to decolonise the curriculum with a focus on the field of education as a discipline and medium. Based on our analysis, we engage with three main themes: conceptualisation, positionality and conduct. The article concludes that decolonisation cannot happen in a vacuum, or as an aim disconnected from the rest of the structure of the university, which leads to diluting a wider movement and turns into a box-ticking exercise. We argue that there needs to be a deconstruction of asymmetrical power relationships within academic spaces to allow for meaningful decolonisation in practice. This requires a real political will, a change in the structure, and in the hearts and minds of those in decision-making positions, and a shift in the practices of knowledge production.

In this article, I use arts methods to explore the concept 'intercultural mindfulness' as performed in students' meaning-making about their intercultural experience at a UK university. The findings identify some less discussed qualities for mindfulness such as affective openness, embodied openness, and ethical-oriented openness, generosity, energy/effort, and liberated freedom. The study addresses a critical, theoretical ground for understanding and applying mindfulness in intercultural studies. Moving beyond the common focuses on cognitive skills or competence, it enriches the existing understanding of intercultural mindfulness by being attentive to the humanistic, affective, ethical, and ideological dimensions of mindfulness.

Much of Western media has promoted the idea that we are facing an epidemic of mental illness and psychiatric emergencies in contemporary Western society and worldwide, and that young people are a particularly vulnerable group. Schools have become a prominent site of concern and focus for this discourse as mental health problems are said to start early in life; thus, targeting intervention at people in their early years and greater mental health awareness amongst staff and pupils are perceived as important mental disorder prevention strategies. However, the belief that mental disorders can be classified and investigated using the same tools as physical health has led to a system of knowledge that lacks validity being constructed. This ideology, far from leading to enlightened progress that will prevent and/or ameliorate future mental health problems, inadvertently sets young people on a path towards alienation from, and suspicion of, their emotional lives and a lack of curiosity about, or tolerance of, suffering. This article explores how a lack of understanding about what sort of 'thing' a mental health problem/disorder/diagnosis/illness is leads to confusion about the meaning and consequences of experiencing mental distress and/or mental difference. Interviews with secondary school teachers carried out by one of the authors (ZT) show how awareness of mental health and mental disorder has increased in UK secondary schools over the last decade and how this has led to an expansion in the numbers of students thought to have mental health problems that required professional intervention. As a result, teachers now identify many behaviours and experiences they previously deemed ordinary and/or understandable as likely mental health problems that required professional expertise they lacked. Rather than preventing mental health problems, it is likely that this ideology, and the resulting practices it encourages, are creating them.

This paper examines the relationship between school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic and the ideology of intensive mothering through analysis of posts on lockdown learning in an online mothering community. It is argued that although the school closures seemed to constitute an endorsement and normalisation of intensive mothering ideology [Hays (1996). "The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood." New Haven: Yale University Press] by the machinery of government, and increased the pressure upon many women, some mothers resisted these expectations in this online forum. The online community served as a space in which intensive mothering expectations were articulated [Lehner-Mear (2020). "Good Mother, Bad Mother? Maternal Identities and Cyber-Agency in the Primary School Homework Debate." "Gender and Education" 33 (3): 285-305] but also offered an arena for cyber-agency, enabling women to express negative emotions, and normalising the rejection of expert constructions of mothering.

Motivated by empirical reality of differences in the scope and meaning of school choice and private schooling this article focuses on the public demand for increasing diversity of educational options In Europe and the division of public and private provision in it. We aim to test self-interest and ideology-driven logics of education policy preferences in different educational contexts. We operationalize this variety of contexts by the share of private education spending and between-school inequality. We show that, on average, more resourceful individuals are less pro-private-education and those that are ideologically right-leaning are more so. At the system level, private schooling feeds back positively, and this does not differ across educational or ideological divides. Educational inequality, at the same time, de-legitimizes the support for private schooling and its effect differs -- higher educated and ideologically right-leaning turn to prefer more public schooling the higher the educational inequality. Thus, the more equal the educational provision, independent of public-private mix, the more entrenched pro-private school preferences will become.

The first of Ofsted's research reviews focused on science education. It is broad in scope, including content on school systems, the science curriculum, teaching, learning, assessment and materials -- with implications for practice. However, the review's scope does not provide much detail of the research on which it is based. I agree with many of the implications for practice, which reflect directions of travel in the curriculum and pedagogy over the last 20 years or so. However, there will be tensions in implementing the findings, given the climate of prioritising ideology over evidence in setting the conditions for teachers' practice in schools.

In the field of education, evidence means an objective ground for setting or judging an educational policy, plan or method, as an effective means to attain a given political end or educational objective. Evidence-based education has been regarded as a decisive device to pursue the accountability and improve the quality of education by connecting educational researches to educational practices and policies. Evidence-based education in the UK and the USA, however, has been criticized for distorting the essence of education and the nature of educational practices through its use of evidence-based medicine as a model, and for dismissing the hermeneutical or holistic traditions in educational methodology and the autonomy of the professionals engaged in research or practice. But these criticisms do not seem to be accepted by those who believe in the possibilities of education and believe that its possibilities can be realized by operating evidence-based education rationally. It may be quite difficult to overcome evidence-based education under these circumstances. In this article I consider the above explanation accounting for espousal of evidence-based education to be not so much a variety of truth as the story, which is provided, with some political interests, for those who intend to acquire the competencies or skills to survive in an era of uncertainty. I pay attention to the consequences brought about recursively by the execution of evidence-based education in the historical-social context which has called for evidence-based education itself. In other words, I take notice of the unintended political or ideological functions that the story as an organized system of meaning performs as the result of repeated and reflexive retelling in that context. It is important to notice that the notion of evidence-based education has emerged in association with changing views on education. As the education that I call Education II(modern education) is separated from education I (traditional and fundamental education as an ongoing process of call-and-response with the world) in accordance with the rising of commodity exchange and merchandization, the former turns to education to satisfy learners' needs or desires, which is a prerequisite for evidence-based education. Furthermore, the execution of evidence-based education, under the present conditions of commodification, merchandization and the transformation of scientific research, has gradually reversed the relation between education and evidence. When education is seen as what can be evaluated with evidence, a new type of education emerges, which I call Education III. Education III, which reduces teaching and learning to visible operations, is very adaptable to interdisciplinary research, hybrid business and the globalized society. But when evidence for accountability turns from the grounds for judging the level of achievement into the proofs of having attained the objectives, the purpose of education tends to become the constructing or disguising of evidence necessary therefore, impoverishing education and leaving it vacuous. In conclusion, evidence-based education has changed the nature of education, making the acts of teaching and learning superficial and moving toward depriving education of its substance. Moreover, some branches of educational studies may be absorbed into interdisciplinary ones, and in turn the theories of education may be abandoned. [This article was originally published in Japanese in "The Japanese Journal of Educational Research," v82 n2 2015. It has been translated by Nadezhda Murray.]

The Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 places a specific duty on clearly identified actors to prevent terrorism. This paper adopts a poststructuralist approach to deconstruct the Prevent Duty's ideology and discourse. Using Foucauldian terminology, Prevent is conceptualised as a proactive "dispositif" to manage the risk of extremism in the UK, in that it is an 'ensemble of discourses,' 'regulatory decisions' and 'moral positions' (Foucault, 1980: 194) that constitute a complex system of response to the threat of terrorism. A globalised state of (in)security is posited as a major influence for Prevent's inception. The formulation of the policy text is underpinned by the neoliberal "governmentality" of the Big Society. The paper problematises its implementation in the education sector through the analysis of the 'duty' to promote British values in the classroom and the expectation of 'preventing people from being drawn into terrorism' (HM Government, 2011; 2019). It concludes that the "dispositif" is driven by principles of human rights and proactivity, however, it has been largely misinterpreted due to lack of clarity and the assumption of shared values.

Drawing on a review of international higher education (IHE) policies, priorities, and literature from the USA, Canada, Australia, and the UK over the course of a 16-year period (2000-2016), this article identifies a strong scholarly and policy preoccupation with the urgency of the global knowledge economy and cognate discourses of 'Asia Pacific century', an emerging economic and geopolitical configuration that is considered threatening to the historic and ideological Western superiority in IHE relations. As such, the export commodification and transnationalization of higher education of the last decade is conceptualized as Western responses to an increasingly Asia-driven global economic order. This, we suggest, is an analytical lens which approaches time--as in knowledge economic time--and space--as in the West and Asia--in rather absolute, contained, and hierarchized terms, overlooking how both the West's coming to terms with postcolonial Asia, and the postcolonial Asian states' desire for Western knowledge and modernity re-cast broader transnational inequities established by colonial practices. In contrast, the concept of 'spacetime entanglement' is proposed to develop a necessary analysis as well as a critique of the transnationalization of capitalist colonial relations via discourses and practices of contemporary IHE.

This longitudinal study draws on family language policy (FLP) research to examine a group of Chinese parents' ideological beliefs, practices, and management efforts related to their children's learning of multiple languages, including Chinese, English, and Spanish in an international boarding school in China. Based on data analysis, including interviews, parents' recorded learning journals, and follow-up observations and discussions, the study revealed that the participants value multilingual competence as a critical resource for access to international education, to maintain alternative identities, and to enable their children to pursue aspirational futures globally. These ideological beliefs underpin their varying practices and management efforts associated with different languages. The data suggest that these parents' FLP is largely influenced by the school curriculum and different layers of contradictions associated with their social, educational, and linguistic realities. The study not only generates insights about the intersections of family and broader contexts (e.g. the international school) in terms of FLP research, it also adds a cultural aspect to understanding FLP processes in the Chinese context.

Citizenship education (CE) has become popular with various descriptors at different levels of education. In higher education, it has gained status with the title of global CE (GCE). Although the ways of delivery of GCE vary within and across universities, research suggests that the prevailing ideology of neoliberalism that promotes a notion of de-contextualised and individualistic citizenship seeps into all forms of GCE. Therefore, attempts have been made to strengthen alternative conceptualisations of GCE that challenge inequalities and facilitate the participation of marginalised identities. This study reports on the curriculum development of an alternative form of GCE underpinned by the theories of cosmopolitan citizenship. Empirical evidence (interviews, observation notes, evaluation data and other course materials) is drawn from three iterations of a GCE course taken by 124 students at a Russell Group university in the UK from 2016 to 2018. The study concludes that the prevalence of neoliberal GCE may be effectively challenged by recognising the significance of collective action and integrating a strong practical dimension to the curriculum.

In "Mansfield Park," Jane Austen has exhibited the English identity lies on property earned by the slave trade in Caribbean Islands. If we go deep inside of the history of Britain we could able to see their awareness and concern over a national identity, and consider American colonies a poor reflection on Britain. The traits of British colonization always stretched their dominating wings soar above in the sky of ruling. The tyrannical rule on the Caribbean Islands and other places, where they have set the subjugation upon the destitute subjects. Such as West Indies, Jamaica, Haiti, Indian subcontinent and many more countries which they consider inferior in front of them. This was the ideology of English people and their smug of English identity. In the first part of my research paper, I am suppose to depict that, how the English superiority discern its voice through the narrative of the 19th century English novels. The great example of English superiority proved by the reading of "Mansfield Park," and this novel will also explore the deepest meaning of coveted Englishness. Jane Austen's "Mansfield Park," which has written based on English identity earned by slave trade and also the English people who are very much obsessed with property, money, status, elite class attitudes and heedless towards their subordinate people. On the other hands, Kazi Nazrul Islam upholds the position of anti colonial writer. He was very much against the British rule and their despotic rulers. Therefore, Kazi Nazrul Islam has established the notion of anti British ideology and activities through his writings and showed the world about his rebellious nature.

Purpose: This paper is a critical reflection on the linguistic conservatism as found within current curriculum policies and assessment regimes in the UK, arguing that they represents a form of linguicism which serves to entrench linguistic social injustices. This paper aims to trace the "trajectory" of policy across different levels, discourses and settings, with a particular focus on how linguicism is conceptualised, defended and resisted by teachers. The author draws connections between language ideologies within policy discourse, language tests and teacher interviews. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopts a critical approach to examining educational language policies and assessments. It begins with the assumption that policies and tests are powerful political and ideological tools, which can steer teachers into making certain decisions in the classroom, some of which they may not believe in or agree with. Data are drawn from policy documents, test questions and teacher interviews, with a focus on how teachers talk about language and pedagogies in their classrooms. In total, 22 teachers were interviewed, with this data being transcribed and thematically indexed. Findings: The findings reveal how linguicism is embedded within UK education policy, and how this comes to be replicated within teachers' discourse and practice. There are three main findings: that teachers can come to operate under a form of "pedagogical coercion", whereby language policies and tests have a powerful hold on their practice; that teachers see current policy as championing standard English at the expense of non-standardised varieties, and that teachers often see and talk about language as a proxy for other social factors such as education and employability. Research limitations/implications: This study provides a critical perspective on language education policies in the UK, arguing for greater awareness about the nature and dangers of linguicism across all levels of policy. Data generated from classroom interaction would be a useful avenue for future work. Originality/value: This paper offers an original, discursively critical examination of language education policy in the UK, with a particular focus on the current curriculum and using original data generated from teacher interviews and associated policy documents.

The concept of rurality is at the centre of complex geopolitical, geosocial and cultural debates and research which foregrounds the concept of rurality is scarce. This paper seeks alternative perspectives on rurality through a secondary analysis of international doctoral theses contained in the EThOS repository of the British Library, an online collection of half a million doctoral theses completed in UK universities. The doctoral research focusing on rurality and also ethnicity in higher education in a range of countries was explored and twelve theses were focused on. The narratives presented in these twelve theses present alternative constructions of rurality and also raise issues of ideology and politics; deficit and minoritisation of rural students; the importance of intersectionality and the need for universities, including rural institutions, to rethink their agency in engaging with their marginalised communities.

This study investigated the impact that the experience of living and teaching in the United Kingdom (UK) had on the belief development of three native Chinese language teachers. The study used a multifaceted approach to analyse the teachers as social beings and their belief development beyond the confines of the classroom. The analysis is based on data derived from an innovative methodological tool, a metaphorical drawing task, combined with narrative inquiry and interviews to elicit implicit beliefs. The findings show that the teachers' various social roles as parents, members of clubs, participants in professional communities and observers of the broader social-political system in the UK, as well as the classroom environment, all contributed to changes in their beliefs about the nature of knowledge and learning. Implications for classroom practice and teacher development are discussed.

Current debates on e-cigarette policy in the UK are highly acrimonious and are framed in terms of evidence-based policymaking. Aims and objectives: The article aims to understand the use of evidence in policymaking in the context of both political controversy and limited policy-relevant evidence via a case study of UK e-cigarette debates. Methods: The study draws on a series of semi-structured interviews with policy actors to examine their positions on e-cigarette policy process and their use of evidence to support this. Findings: Policy actors articulate a strong commitment to evidence-based policymaking and claim that their positions are evidence-based. Some actors also claim emerging consensus around their positon as a rhetorical tool in the debate. Respondents argued that actors adopting opposing policy positions fail to follow the evidence base. This is attributed to a lack of understanding or disregard for the relevant evidence for political or ideological reasons. Discussion: Respondents adhere to a rationalist understanding of policymaking in which policy disputes can be settled by recourse to 'the evidence'. Interpretative policy analysis suggests that multiple legitimate framings of policy issues, supported by different bodies of evidence, are possible. Policy differences are thus not due to bad faith but to policy actors framing the issue at stake in different terms and thus advocating different policy responses. Conclusions: Process of 'frame reflection' may help to overcome the acrimony of current policy leading to more effective engagement by public health actors in the e-cigarettes policy debates.

Action learning has evolved over a period of time when managerialism and performativity, which are aspects of neoliberalism, have become stronger and this explains, in part, the emergence of Critical Action Learning (CAL). Performativity, in particular, has increasingly become internalised by people at work. CAL seems to be limited to power relations within and between organisations and thus tends to ignore the dominant ideology of the day -- neoliberalism. The paper asserts that action learning is antithetical to a neoliberal worldview and there are therefore practical implications for action learning practitioners.

This paper suggests that advocates of the 'knowledge turn' have been united in their opposition to Young and Muller's (2010) Future 2, but that this 'union' has masked very different views of the relations between Young and Muller's Future 1 and Future 3. Whereas some who subscribe to the 'turn' see a 'weak boundary' between Futures 1 and 3 (and therefore consider them similar), others construe these Futures as very different and strongly bounded. We argue that these positions are often underpinned by irreconcilable political persuasions and conceptions of education, society and the curriculum. In order to illustrate the argument, we discuss the political project of the UK-based Academy of Ideas, many of whose members have been involved in advocating implicitly or explicitly for a weak boundary between Futures 1 and 3. This position is then contrasted with those in the UK who are more strongly committed to exploring a distinctive Future 3, and the situation in South Africa, where the tensions between different educational Futures are acutely visible due to the social, cultural and political context and academic and policy debates around the curriculum. We conclude with some implications of our arguments for the Future 3 principles of disciplinarity and sociality.

Contemporary changes in the domain of knowledge production are usually seen as posing significant challenges to 'the University'. This paper argues against the framing of the university as an ideal-type, and considers epistemic gains from treating universities as assemblages (e.g. DeLanda, M. 2016. "Assemblage Theory." Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press) of different functions, actors and relations. It contrasts this with the concept of 'unbundling', using two recent cases of controversies around academics' engagement on social media to show how, rather than having clearly delineated limits, social entities become 'territorialised' through boundary disputes. The conclusion extends this discussion to the production of knowledge about social objects in general.

This article reveals the Foucauldian docile body manufactured within the Department for Education's special educational needs and disability code of practice 2014 through employment of a theoretical lens of embodiment and an analytical focus on only three words. In problematizing the concepts of support, employment and independence, we seek to upend this docile body juxtaposing such against the active 'non-productive' disabled body. We conclude that the Code is riven with ideological assumptions which act as a constraint to the location, form and function of the body. Everybody's body is sorted and graded according to its ability to fulfil a Conservative work ethic and contribute positively to a society in which bodies are not equally valued. The authors suggest that critical discourse analysis, informed by the outlined conceptualisation of embodiment, could be usefully applied in the critiquing of many policy and guidance documents.

In this article, I offer a model of practice called Operations of Dialogue. Operations of Dialogue (OoD) is a performative structure for a public event. Enacted dialogues relating to an ethical or political theme or issue form part of a public performance that concludes in an open debate. I argue that OoD positions its participants in a critical relation to neoliberal subjectivity, with the potential to usefully inform our modes of teaching and learning. In doing so, I draw upon Jürgen Habermas' theory of communicative action to offer an account of inefficiency in performance and dialogic practice.

Security and intelligence agency concerns with universities range from the commissioning and protection of security-sensitive research, the ongoing recruitment of staff and students for covert security and intelligence work, as well as prominent counter-terrorist concerns. This is an ethically charged terrain of moral ambiguity which raises issues not only of academic freedom and freedom of speech but a less explored, cross-disciplinary complex of intelligence-led interactions from protection of campus property and personnel to ideological battles at the heart of the Academy itself. Current-day counterterrorism on campus agendas is, then, only an intensified aspect of an historical but ongoing and likely future interface between universities and security and intelligence agencies. Drawing on exemplars from the Kent State University shootings on 4 May 1970 at the height of the Vietnam War to the present era of globalised counter-terrorism, the article uses securitisation theory to conceptualise the historical, contemporary and future parameters of university engagements with the security and intelligence agencies as 'Incidental', 'Incendiary', and 'Inevitable'.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, British punk and reggae artists united to fight racism throughout society. Young people embraced the ideology of these musical forms, and many wrote about and published their experiences with racism and the police, and their desire to change society. Children's and young adults' highly politicized writing contrasted with that of adults who wrote about punk and reggae during the 1970s and 1980s. Adult authors divorced the music from its political meaning by focusing solely on punk and reggae style, yet left the threat of police oppression to thoroughly remove any appeal to young readers. The rejection of punk and reggae ideology by mainstream adult authority was so successful that later incarnations of punk and reggae children's books either allied the music with the authorities or turned it into commodified nostalgia.

Entrepreneurship skills have become a naturalised part of many curricula in higher education, especially in arts contexts. But what does the term actually mean? By investigating entrepreneurship research, and connecting it with political philosophy, we explore the ways in which the elusive figure of the entrepreneur, both in the academy and in society more generally, is far from being natural or inevitable, and is actually an elaborate type of construction with contradictory features.

Some liberal societies continue to require their schools to offer non-directive but, specifically, religious education as part of the curriculum. This article challenges that practice. It does so by articulating and defending the moral requirement that education policy must be regulated by principles that are acceptable to reasonable people. Thereafter, we argue that the leading arguments for prioritizing the study of religion in schools--arguments that claim that religion is special or that assert that the majority or parents are morally permitted to prioritize religion in schooling--are incompatible with the acceptability requirement.

The Situational Action Theory of crime submits that law-related morality, the ability to exercise self-control, and exposure to criminogenic settings are key predictors of both regular criminality and violent extremism. Indeed, morality and self-control were found to be significantly correlated with violent extremism, and especially right-wing inspired violence. However, while the effect of criminogenic exposure on crime has been established, its effect on violent extremism remains to be examined. Moreover, it is unclear whether morality, self-control and exposure can predict not only violent, but also non-violent extremism. The current study addresses the recent call to differentiate extremism from violent extremism, by examining how morality, self-control and criminogenic exposure affect both outcomes. To do so, we utilize a random sample of 684 young adults (age 19, 50.1% female) in Peterborough, UK. We find that exposure to criminogenic settings is a key factor in understanding the potential for violent extremism, and suggest pathways for further investigation.

In countries with all-volunteer force (AVF) militaries, most citizens do not learn about the military through first-hand experience. For instance, 90,000 people serve in the Canadian Armed Forces (Government of Canada n.d.) out of an adult working-age population (20-70 years old) of 23,202,523 people (StatsCan 2013), which comes to 0.39% of the population. In the United States, military members comprise less than 1% of the population (NPR 2011). Although some people may learn about service from military family members or friends, few are immersed in military culture. Instead, they are exposed to particular representations of military life through popular culture representations in the form of film, television programs, radio, novels, and memoirs. In this article, focusing on military women's war memoirs, Nancy Taber discusses her theoretical framework of public pedagogies, details her methodological exploration of the autobiographical "I," outlines the memoirs in her analysis, and explores how each author positions herself as an ideological "I" with respect to the institution of the military, the experience of war, and gender. The findings add to existing work by using an adult education lens to examine military women's war memoirs as a unique way to examine learning, gender, militarism, public pedagogies, and the memoir genre.

In this content analysis, we explored how students address instructor ideology in the university classroom through the social media platform Twitter. We employed Boolean search operators through Salesforce Marketing Cloud Radian6 software to gather tweets and identified English language tweets by how students referenced their instructor's ideology. Tweets originated in the United States (U.S.), the United Kingdom (U.K.), and Australia. Using qualitative coding procedures, we identified seven themes in the data that described how students wrote about instructor ideology on Twitter: "venting regarding instructor's ideology," "sharing classroom anecdote," "affirming instructor's beliefs/actions," "expressing grade concern," "articulating an opposing view," "reporting conflict," and "indicating confusion." Across categories, Twitter was employed primarily as a back-stage means to communicate expressive dissent regarding instructor ideology and also to demonstrate students' identity. We identified differences between categories based on the perceived ideology of the students' instructors as well as differences in the number of tweets per capita originating in each country.

I argue that political philosopher Charles W. Mills' twin concepts of 'the epistemology of ignorance' and 'white ignorance' are useful tools for thinking through racial injustice in the British education system. While anti-racist work in British education has a long history, racism persists in British primary, secondary and tertiary education. For Mills, the production and reproduction of racism relies crucially on cognitive and epistemological processes that produce ignorance, and which promote various ways of ignoring the histories and legacies of European colonialism and imperialism, as well as the testimonies and scholarship of those who experience racism in their everyday lives. I survey these concepts within Mills' work then marshal evidence in support of my claim that 'the epistemology of ignorance' and 'white ignorance' provide a useful framework for thinking through problems of racial injustice in British education.

In an interview with a postgraduate student about her intercultural experience of recently arriving for study abroad, it was found that the two researchers and the student were engaged in a mutual exploration of cultural identity. The interview events became conversational and took the form of small culture formation on the go in which each participant employed diverse narratives to project, make sense of and negotiate expression of cultural identity. The student shifted between personal narratives drawn from her particular cultural trajectories and splintered from grand narratives of nation and global positioning, between non-essentialist threads and essentialist blocks. The researchers learned from her and intervened to facilitate shifts to non-essentialist threads, drawing on narratives from their own personal cultural trajectories, but sometimes also falling into essentialist blocks splintered from grand narratives. The roles of ideology and competing essentialist and non-essentialist discourses of culture were implicit in these negotiations, as were the personal agency of the student as she responded to the constraining conflicts, structures and hierarchies encountered through the events she spoke about. Rather than providing a picture of intercultural assimilation and integration, interculturality is revealed as a hesitant and searching negotiation, sometimes of vulnerability, wrong-footedness and occasional assault on identity.

Using content analysis, this study investigated the coverage of the Trojan Horse news story aiming to ascertain whether its representation by the British press emphasized "Islamist extremism" over "poor school governance". The sample coverage was extracted from five national newspapers and ranged from 9 June (the date of release of the "Ofsted Advice Note") to 26 June 2014. Our analysis shows that the coverage reported evidence of Islamist ideology much more frequently (61.5%) than evidence of poor governance (38.5%). This suggests that the Trojan Horse news story was predominantly represented as a case of Islamist extremism and therefore covered in an unbalanced manner. Such a partial coverage relied on ideological dualisms and negative stereotypes to represent Islam and Muslims, and on the textual strategy of selecting some features (extremism) whilst omitting others (governors' professional misconduct). This bias has arguably diverted attention away from systemic problems within the national school system whilst reinforcing Islamophobic discourses.

Existing GCSE and A-level syllabuses include modules on religion and the media, but these have not been widely or well studied for a variety of reasons. The modules may be considered difficult to teach well, and teachers have few good resources to use in comparison with more popular topics such as medical or environmental ethics. The newly launched specifications for RS GCSE and A-level examinations have eliminated, almost entirely, any study of religion and the media. The absence of this theme is troubling. There is a strong case to be made that critical appreciation of the ways media depicts religion is especially important for forming responsible, educated citizens in modern Britain, many of whom will not participate directly in religious communities but will see much depiction of such communities and their ideologies in the media. We propose key principles and questions that might help equip teachers to tackle critically and intelligently issues about religion in the media as they arise. We illustrate this approach by considering media responses to the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris.

This article inquires into the "calculative practices" that are used to regulate quality in higher education. After providing a historical snapshot of the antecedents of quality regimes, I discuss university ranking systems (league tables) and the UK's Research Assessment Exercise. I ask two questions: first, what do the visibilities of quality conceal, and second, what possible effects are quality regimes having on notions of "proper" academic identity? That the quality agenda in higher education is tied to a collective national and institutional aspiration to be internationally competitive is generally recognised as an outcome of neoliberalisation. I argue that there is a need to go beyond considering neoliberalism as an ideology imposed from above. Rather, the techniques aimed at building a competitive, dynamic and accountable higher education system in countries like Australia and the UK are premised on creating flexible identities for academic professionals, using their powers of freedom to further their individual desires, self-interest and self-advancement. This has consequences for the knowledge cultures fostered by higher education institutions.

A dominant narrative on many British campuses is "Prevent," which is part of the government's counter-terror policy, an ideology based on fear. Muslims, in particular, are considered to be at risk of radicalisation on campus, and being under suspicion makes them self-censor. Additionally, the no-platforming student lobby creates a utopian, idealised atmosphere that seeks to reduce dissent. Self-censorship and no-platforming are reducing the diversity of opinions expressed at universities, yet there is no evidence of illegality on campus. Spinoza, JS Mill and Hannah Arendt demanded various forms of free speech for a healthy society, and the free speech issue is the key to "Prevent" which suppresses opinions that are different from the dominant government narratives. The challenge now, in the tide of BREXIT and Trump, is how to free speech, even a little, from the pincer grip of establishment ideology and student utopia. Between the extremes of ideology and utopia is a vacuum that must be filled; if we do not fill it with free speech and discussion, others can colonise it with stories that inspire fear and suspicion. Similarly, a vacuum exists naturally between laws (that set norms) and state guidance on laws (application). If we do not use debate to negotiate the contents of this vacuum, it will be filled with the bureaucracy of fear and even a state of exception. A vacuum demands to be filled. In both cases, we need to actively reclaim each "vacuum" for discussion, debate and questioning in order to try and understand our current cultural imagination and develop a better one.

This article explores the ideological function of the derogatory label of "pushy parent", which, since the 1980s, has been used considerably in journalistic, popular, political and academic discourses in the UK and the USA. "Pushy parent" is not a descriptive term, but a conceptually vague label implying the existence of antagonistic agents intent on optimising their children's educational attainment. This label, it is argued here, masks structural inequalities in educational opportunities and outcomes by making those inequalities imputable to individual practices. The article first explores the distinction "pushy parenting" sets up between "fake" and "real" intelligence, and "deserved" and "undeserved" educational achievement. However, it is difficult to draw clear boundaries between the behaviours covered by "pushy parenting", and those covered by the "ideal" parenting of neoliberal educational policy. To conclude, the function of the "pushy parent" label as inoculation is explored, as well as its implications for the cultural politics of education.

Realizing there is a global policy convergence that emphasizes the standardized key qualities of and expectations for "successful" school leaders, this article provides an in-depth analysis on the initiation of the "Professional Standards for Compulsory Schools Principals" (Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China 2013) in China. Using policy borrowing as an analytical framework, this study sheds light on critical questions concerning why this standards-based leadership policy is borrowed, and how this policy document responds to local Chinese contexts. In alignment with an understanding of national policy across the local-global nexus, which is derived from critical policy analysis, this study uncovers the influences of global leadership discourses on its formation. It also focuses on the ways in which neoliberal ideology and Chinese sociocultural contexts have intertwined, and how this negotiates and shapes this policy. Finally, this article concludes that the introduction of this initiative suggests China's efforts in its quest for a world-class education system, through the standardization of school leaders' practices, which is both locally and internationally situated. It argues that while understanding the contested positions on standards-based policies around the globe, China did not blindly borrow this policy from "the West," but rather employs it as a strategy for legislation, to reposition itself in the global order and gain broader international recognition.