Drawing on a set of studies conducted over 3 decades, this article provides a reflection on what has been learned by centering equity questions in research on educational reform. These studies reveal the need to explore educators' belief systems, emotions, and agency in relation to reform. They also underscore the co-constructed nature of reform…

Free schools were a flagship policy of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition (2010-15), aligned with the broader academisation programme, yet both consolidating and transcending New Labour's educational narrative between 1997 and 2010. Driven by political 'modernisers' such as Prime Minister David Cameron and his Education Secretary Michael…

This article studies the history of playgrounds in Finland and focuses on the emergence and implementation of the objectives of the international playground movement in the early twentieth century. Specifically, it examines the relations between supervised playgrounds, women's emancipation, child welfare policies, and political discussion on…

It is commonly known that the letter M in the two acronyms HPM and STEM stands for mathematics, and it is natural to regard mathematics as playing a significant role in science education. However, it seems that appropriate attention is not usually accorded to the role of M in the area of STEM where mathematics tends to be marginalized. In fact,…

In South Africa, the scholarship of epistemic justice has taken on an historical gaze with higher education framed as a social institution that might ameliorate the historical traumas of colonialism. Undoing the legacies of colonialism has been framed as the democratisation of the knowledge project. Using the White Paper 3 of 1997 that posits…

This paper considers the distinctive and peculiar place that Presbyterianism and Presbyterian Church schools occupy in New Zealand's education sector. It offers a critical evaluation of the relationship between the church schools and their Presbyterian heritage and the values to which they refer as they seek to define their special character. It…

This article is a quick inquiry into the quest for knowledge. Preliminary steps include the idea of light as it was promulgated during the period of Enlightenment, followed by the relevant role played by education, and then focusing on the passion for knowledge, as it is found in major literary and philosophical works. Curiosity and…

This essay opens with a question about what science teaching would look like in a world where categorical seams of human diversity were not probabilistic determinants of science learning. After revisiting Hewson and Hewson's description of an "appropriate conception of science teaching," I detail the ways in which the field of science…

This paper offers a historical analysis of organizational identity development at a particular Dutch university, the Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam. Our analysis contributes to the discussion on what factors contribute to organizational identity maintenance and evolution. Whereas the literature suggests a rather straightforward development,…

The educational historian Brian Simon is well known for his portrayal of the social and political conflicts surrounding adult working-class education in 19th and early 20th-century England. However, the third and fourth volumes of his classic history of education in Britain, covering the period from 1920 to 1940 and 1940 to 1990 respectively,…

This research note is based on the premise that Paulo Freire is an educator of the present and the future. Contrary to research that has confined him to the past, the author emphasises the construction of Freire's thought-action in five historical periods, noting the timeliness and foresight of his ideas for the 21st century. From his first books…

For decades the American School Counselor Association has recommended that schools employ one counselor for every 250 students, but there is limited evidence the policy promotes student success. This article investigates the origins of the 60-year-old recommendation, examining how and why it has persisted. Drawing on historical documents, it…

In this essay, we explore the concept of path dependence through the example of the long-standing issue of racialized exclusionary school discipline. We argue that historians of education can reduce policy makers' tendency to continue down existing policy paths (especially unhelpful ones), a phenomenon known as "path dependence." We use…

We explore the literature on internationalization in higher education and distinguish between the mainstream and radical approaches to critical scholarship. We argue that the mainstream approach continues to steer internationalization towards socially progressive and equitable aims, while growing concerns have surfaced especially with regard to…

Prescriptive discourse, which favors certain variants over others, like "different from" vs. "different than," has usually been characterized in terms of correctness in spelling, punctuation, word meaning, or grammar. Yet usage guides in the 20th century have added numerous entries that focus more on style considerations than…