This paper will discuss the concepts of Bildung, subalternity, and physics- and engineering education and where these topics intersect and interact with one another. A central part of the concept of Bildung is educating citizens--active participators in society. At the same time, a central characteristic of subaltern groups is that their voices…

The structure of US public education is changing. Rather than exclusive district management of schools with standardized programs, new types of systems have emerged. In the case of "portfolio" systems, advocates argue that choice, performance-based accountability, and autonomy challenge traditional schooling and foster a diversity of…

Vocational education and training (VET) is linked to many social and economic goals. Yet despite the high policy ambitions, it often remains a sector with a low(er) social standing. This paper is based on empirical data collected through interviews and focus groups with over 250 young women and men aged 16-18 in 34 VET schools in Romania. It aims…

Parental access to useful information about schools continues to be a structural barrier that limits the equity potential of school choice programs. While "information interventions" or simplified and readable knowledge resources show promise for counteracting information disparities between families, this line of research has provided…

We test Foster's enduring assertion that "the best vocational education is an academic degree" by examining a case study of Israeli Bedouin women and men, young professionals who shared with us their personal stories of their parents taking them out of their local separate but equal schools and moving them to the majority schooling…

Education policy in recent years has dramatically repositioned the role and status of teachers, trainee teachers and teacher education in the UK and beyond. This paper focuses specifically on education policy in England; however, it has broader significance for those interested in education and teacher education in international policy contexts.…

In this article, Jennifer L. McCarthy Foubert draws attention to Black parents' collective school engagement. Applying critical race theory's critique of liberalism as a theoretical frame, she argues that Black parents who participated in her qualitative multicase study resisted white supremacy as they engaged for the collective in everyday school…

In the academic year of 2004-2005, the Spanish region of Madrid began to implement a bilingual educational programme (MBP hereinafter) in state schools. One of the objectives of this programme was to make the study of a foreign language (English) accessible to students from economically disadvantaged families who cannot afford private foreign…

This paper uses Anderson's notion of 'imagined community' to argue that how people think about the publicness of their school system provides insight into the functioning and flourishing of communities, societies and nations. We focus on the privatisation of public schooling in Alberta, Canada and Northern England to highlight tensions between the…

Research in sociology demonstrates the way social connections shape access to information about job opportunities. In education, we understand less about how social networks impact the job process for marginalized teachers and teachers in nontraditional labor markets. This study examines how teachers in New Orleans and Detroit, cities with high…

Safety remains a key concern for parents and education policy makers. Homeschooling opponents argue that child abusers use homeschooling to isolate and harm their children while public school teachers and administrators, as mandatory reporters, reduce child maltreatment. Supporters of homeschooling argue that public schools expose children to…

Considerable published research explores drivers of parent choice for in-person schools, but few studies have addressed reasons for attending full-time cyber schools, and how student characteristics affect those reasons; hence, this study's unique contribution. Here we use a large national dataset (n= 95,259) to test whether students with…

I use the definition of "populism as a discursive frame" to consider the extent to which the politics of school choice in the United States have been populist. This analysis offers a novel way to understand how political actors have forged coalitions to support school choice and suggests how they may remake their positions in an evolving…

In 2019, the right-wing Government of Chile was expected to implement a substantial reform regarding student assignment to schools that had been passed by the previous administration (the School Inclusion Law). While implementing this policy, in 2019, the former minister of education directed a populist campaign aiming to change policy directions…

The COVID-19 pandemic has renewed concerns about how shocks may affect religious and other private schools in low-income countries, especially when they do not benefit from state support. By reducing parental incomes, shocks -- not only epidemics but also natural disasters and conflicts, reduce overall enrollment in school. But they may also lead…