Even though Norway is one of the Nordic countries that has been hesitant when it comes to implementing privatization policies, the influence of market-led reforms has facilitated an educational landscape where private companies increasingly serve public education. In this article, the interrelation between marketization and privatization is…

Marketization of education in South Africa accelerated at the crossroads of the postapartheid democratic transition and global neoliberal turn, reflecting both educational policy impacts of the country's protracted negotiated settlement and transnational trends. A controversial 2018 provincial amendment further entrenched marketization in the…

This paper addresses a particular gap in the further education (FE) literature offering an analysis of Incorporation within a theory of social change developed by Fligstein and McAdam, in their work "A Theory of Fields". The authors argue that FE was subjected to the introduction of a quasi-market in advance of wider neoliberal reforms…

The controversy surrounding Sri Lanka's privatising education system is one of the most pressing social and political issues facing the country today. This paper explores the history of this debate by drawing connections to broader processes of colonialism and neoliberalism. Particularly, this paper traces the shifting sociocultural functions of…

In education decentralization policy may be beneficial in terms of overcoming an overly cumbersome bureaucracy in educational systems. However, it can also have adverse effects in terms of competition, yielding new kinds of inequalities. This is true in Quebec, where the division of educational labor and the emergence of technical work were…

In this article, we examine the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) as an example of a unique node within larger policy networks composed of new policy entrepreneurs (e.g., venture philanthropists, think tanks, private "edubusinesses" and their lobbyists, advocacy organizations, and social entrepreneurs). These new policy…

This paper traces developments across Stephen J. Ball's policy sociology in education "oeuvre" and considers their implications for doing research on education policy today. It begins with an account of his policy sociology trilogy from the 1990s, which outlined his conception of the policy cycle consisting of the contexts of influence,…

Studying community engagement provides another lens for examining how neoliberal universities collaborate with external organizations to move closer to the market, often in the hope of promoting the public good. This study examined the tension between the public and private aspects of university-community partnerships by studying the impact of…

Since the election of the Campbell government in 2001, teachers have experienced heightened conflict with the provincial government. An analysis of the discourse and power relations between the BC Teachers' Federation (BCTF) and government reveals a neo-liberal agenda on the part of government and anti-neo-liberalism on the part of the BCTF.…

This paper addresses the educational implications of the geopolitical changes arising from the associated processes of globalisation and regionalisation for the small island states of the South Pacific. As an educationist whose research field combines analysis of the New Zealand educational reforms undertaken over the last decade within a wider…