There is an idiom in German that, translated word for word, says someone is "lying as printed." This expression conveys mistrust toward the new, revolutionary technology of printing and offers compelling parallels to our present situation after the digital revolution. Fake news spreads much faster than it used to, and many people blame…

The transformation of higher education provision by neoliberal values has been well documented. However, recent criticisms and even attacks upon higher education indicate a new politics extending beyond neoliberalism. This article draws on the sociology of conventions to unpick the distinctions at work in these new criticisms of universities. By…

Higher Education (HE) constitutes a space that calls urgently for new understandings in the contemporary political moment. One way of establishing such an understanding of HE is to consider more fully the work of political theorists in relation to questions of power in the modern nation-state, particularly as these impinge upon the key problem of…

This paper investigates the philosophical tensions between secular-liberalism and Islam, and reviews Islamic conceptualisations of knowledge, personhood and education, in order to conceptualise "shakhsiyah Islamiyah" as an authentic and credible form of personal agency within an Islamic worldview. It begins by examining the liberal…

'School league tables' summarising the performance of secondary schools in England have been published annually since 1992. Although now a firmly established feature of the educational landscape, they have attracted criticism from those who point to their unintended negative consequences. These include 'teaching to the test', entering pupils for…

What should U.S. schools teach about U.S. actions abroad when students in the classroom have varied or conflicting memories, ideas, and experiences? Should schools teach the dominant narrative of U.S. benevolence and innocence in world affairs so as to instill patriotism in children? What kind of patriotism are we concerned with here? Or should…

In this Martin Center policy brief, "Scholastic Gag Orders: NDAs, Mandatory Arbitration, and the Legal Threat to Academics," Stephen Baskerville explores how non-disparagement agreements (NDAs) and mandatory arbitration (MA) provide a veil of legally enforced secrecy, shielding administrations from negative publicity, professional…

The construct of critical cultural awareness (CCA) is often regarded as an element pertaining to intercultural communicative competence (Byram, 1997, 2021). In this model, CCA is defined as the ability to "evaluate, critically, and on the basis of a systematic process of reasoning, values in one's own culture and other cultures" (Byram,…

Education policy ambitions or presumptions in most countries are being accused of turning schools into social factories to supply humanpower to produce commodities. This is apparent bureaucratic education policy imposition on school-actors which promotes class division and conflict in sharing resources. Using the Marxist-critical-lenses, this…