In the latest two decades, there has been an increasing number of publications in education studies drawing on Actor-Network Theory (ANT). However, the uptake of ANT in education studies was not immediate, and the investigations on educational leadership through ANT have been rare. With the aim of promoting the study of educational leadership…

This paper uses insider research within a Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) framework to examine the lived induction-to-teaching experiences of twelve new academics at a case-study Northern UK university. A CHAT lens foregrounds contradictions as a source for change in the induction-to-teaching process. Data generated through…

Teacher self-efficacy (TSE) of pre-service and in-service teachers plays a significant role in the successful implementation of educational reforms. The purpose of this systematic literature review is to explore the interaction between curriculum and/or assessment reform and TSE. Twenty-nine empirical research studies are analysed to find factors…

Sociologists are engaging in a long-overdue reckoning about the place of the traditional canon in social theory courses and pedagogy. Instructors are revising their syllabi to include a more diverse set of authors while "provincializing" classics that have long been taught as universal. We confront the question of how to teach contested…

The making of digital educational futures raises pressing social justice concerns. Against this background, scholars face the challenge of bridging the tasks of investigation and critical engagement. Inspired by French pragmatic sociology, this article presents the notion of "plural school worlds" as analytical anchor point for dealing…

This article explores how responses to a generic skills framework are materialised in Irish schools, and the main aim is to shed light on multiple dimensions of policy enactment. The Key Skills Framework (KSF) was introduced as part of a curricular reform in Irish lower secondary schools -- a reform that has met substantial resistance locally and…

This article takes up an ANTian sensibility to explore the enactment of a policy for educational collaboration in one region in the South Island of Aotearoa New Zealand (New Zealand). The case offers potential for considering the benefits of a sociology of associations (Latour 2005/2007): a Treaty-based bicultural nation, school atomisation…

In this paper, I argue that power promised to England's teachers by the 2010 'Importance of Teaching' white paper has rather played out as a reformulation of methods of policymaking to more indirect modes of government control. I trace the growth of government control in English schools, promised front-line power in 2010 and a rise in…

Theorizing the role that teachers play in national education systems in a period of rapid globalization has proven challenging for social scientists and comparative education theorists alike. In accounting for the manifold roles and functions of teachers over time, theory must account for both cultural persistence (institutionalization) as well as…

Purpose: This article responds to the topic of 'postcolonial social science education' by exploring strategies for decolonizing the social science 'archive'. Design/methodology/approach: The paper takes a decolonial-critical social science approach to explore the limit and test cases for decolonizing social science education, using two examples: a…

As shown in research and practice digitalization processes are many times limited to implementation of digital technologies without pedagogical and organizational change. In this study it is argued for a broader perspective on the concept of digitalization, viewing it as a process involving change and transformation in different stages and several…

This article explores pedagogic strategies for resisting the racism of contemporary populism and age-old coloniality through challenging secularism in the academy, especially in social theory. Secularism sustains racism and imperialism in the contemporary academy and is inscribed, in part, through the norms of social theory. Post-secular social…

Today's educational leadership candidates are subjects-in-process, as they learn and develop in response to rapidly changing social justice contexts with new potentials and new constraints. To prepare these candidates to lead social justice change, Educational Leadership Programs need to explore instructional approaches that grasp cultural…

This paper describes how critical realism was operationalized to provide an explanatory framework for a small-scale qualitative study in the field of teacher education in a sub-Saharan African context. Critical realism combines a realist ontology (there is something to find out about) with a relativistic epistemology (different people will come to…

This literature review provides an introduction to change management and reviews current approaches, theories and models which can be used to skillfully handle and direct change initiatives within higher education institutions (HEIs) so that the desired outcome is achieved. Planned approaches, psychological and behavourial theories, organisational…