As state legislatures increasingly turn their gaze to education and school policy, one intervention that is particularly concerning is the proposal to arm civilian school personnel. Under the guise of school safety, these policies suggest that allowing teachers, who often have little if any training, to carry weapons on school grounds may deter a…

In recent years, a number of controversies related to climate change, racism and Black Lives Matter, and gender and sexual diversity have characterised public debate in Australia about politically charged content in schools. This paper explores one jurisdiction's "Controversial Issues in Schools" policy through three broad areas of…

While schools often are framed as places of neutrality and fairness, many American schools have harmed Black children or been silent in the face of their struggles, under-education, and mistreatment. While there are undoubtedly adults in these spaces who support Black children, many others ignore Black families, minimize students' concerns, and…

In the last few decades, the word 'safety' has become silently but increasingly pervasive in educational policies and debates, gaining a new momentum with the pandemic. Our intention in this article is to problematise what is done in schools in the name of safety by delving into the safety policy discourses of a New Zealand school and the…

While the educational exclusion of students who wear hairstyles linked to people of African descent has garnered significant media attention, there has been little scholarly investigation of this phenomenon. Drawing on content analysis of dress codes in Texas public schools, this article addresses this gap in knowledge by conceptually and…

This study of the University of Texas (UT) at Austin surveys the most influential policies enacted on campus in the name of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). This report compiles and examines the university's DEI plans, its progress updates, and all of the publicly accessible DEI plans and updates published by the university's various…

Higher education demographics continue to shift, with students from various minoritized identities increasing in enrollment. Yet, retention, completion, and success rates remain scarce for these students. Current metrics uphold homophobic and transphobic binaries in the categorization of gender and sexualities prohibiting higher education…

This article focuses on the role of modern-day culture centers in higher education. An interview of 26 staff members from campuses across the country found that culture centers took on a significant role in coalition building between Asian American and Black communities during the COVID-19 pandemic and the current time of racial reckoning. The…

Immigration from Mexico and Central America to the United States has resulted in dramatic demographic changes in communities across the country since the early 1990s. Newcomers and longstanding residents make sense of and construct their shared society and the rules and norms by which they live alongside one another, and this construction of…