Inclusion is constantly referenced in educational institutions' mission and values statements. Despite their purpose of guiding the institution, these brief paragraphs usually create more questions than answers regarding the who, what, and how of inclusion work. This article applies a queered critical discourse studies lens to a manifest content…

The focus of this paper is on the contestations and dilemmas emergent in the higher education curriculum in a context of increasing processes of unbundling, digitisation and marketisation. The paper explores the notion of contestation through the theoretical lens of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory. It points to illustrative examples of this…

In UNESCO's 2021 report, "Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education," futures emerge as a key orientation for establishing not just improved educational systems but for creating liberatory worlds for everyone. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, social and economic instability, and the climate crisis, the future of…

Foucauldian critical studies are cornucopian in illustrating how policy as discourse normalizes and yields human beings into made subjects in modern societies. However, Foucault's own slide from the 'terminal stage of discourse' pays little attention to the linguistic elements, and thus weakens the theory's potency in explaining the reality.…

This essay offers a new interpretation of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's landmark work of critical social theory "Empire." It develops an account of the politics of exile by situating this political strategy in terms of Hardt and Negri's claim that it is no longer feasible to confront capitalist power head-on. It attends closely to…

This article presents an attempt to examine my own service-learning practices through the use of the conceptual tools of Michel Foucault, in particular his notions of governmentality and power. The article views the development of service-learning in South Africa and our current practices as operating within a regime of truth, and it considers…

Using positioning theory as a framework, this study examined two adult learners' participatory opportunities in small group interactions when they were learning English as a second language in an American university. The study finds that control over access to participatory opportunities mainly lies in how learners manage to position themselves…

Participation in collaborative learning environments has demonstrated significant learning advantages due to opportunities for group members to contribute to shared problem-solving processes, shared goals, and co-elaboration of knowledge. Furthermore, research has shown that higher levels of social perceptiveness are positively correlated with…

Implementing teaching enhancement is especially challenging when undertaken on a large-scale and with a range of participating institutions and stakeholders. This study sought to advance understanding of this under-researched area through cultural-historical activity theory, investigating four government-funded, cross-institutional teaching…

Inspired by Audrey Osler's call for the development of novel approaches to intersectionality in human rights education praxis, this article presents an undergraduate module on Children's Rights, examining processes of teaching and learning about rights through the topic of Relationships and Sex Education (RSE). The module, designed for future…

Purpose: This paper aims to understand why higher education institutions (HEIs) struggle to become sustainable institutions themselves despite providing relevant teaching and research on sustainability. Design/methodology/approach: Using 17 open-ended, semistructured interviews to determine common themes (codes) regarding sustainability, the…

Critical Discourse Analysis is a theory describing how texts are exercised in social phenomena related to discourse and interests in it. In the theory, language and teacher power are two important components to learn because they are areas of discourse learning. However, the topic of language and power is still rarely discussed, especially in EFL…

The structure of higher education in China is characterized by a high degree of hierarchy as well as strong homogeneity, differing from not only American higher education, which features a high degree of both hierarchy and heterogeneity, but also higher education in continental Europe, which exhibits a low degree of hierarchy. Previous studies…

This article extends the authors' earlier work (Young & Muller 2013) exploring the concept of 'powerful knowledge'. It first examines some of the origins of the concept and goes on to a brief consideration of how sociology, political theory and economics have traditionally represented 'power' and 'knowledge'. Two key senses of power are…

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) identity has become a popular lens in science education research. However, few studies have looked at how using the interpersonal, structural, cultural, and disciplinary domains of power sheds light on how women of color differently navigate the various cultures of formal and informal…