Studies have shown how school professionals deal with large quantities of student test data and accountability policies in different ways. However, the subtle ways in which school leaders and teachers use their time, their power and their talk when dealing with external policy demands in daily practice is understudied. Using data from interviews…

In this critical, political discourse analysis, we trace how two concepts, equity and quality, became discursively linked and contested in the administration of postsecondary education policy over time (1968-1994) -- a developmental process we refer to as (e)quality politics. By engaging in a historical analysis, we investigate (a) the racialized…

This study explores how to recognize and understand the education power, what indicators to characterize and monitor the education power, what ways to build education power. Based on the theory of evidence-based education research, this study uses the comprehensive integration method to carry out a systematic analysis. A strong country in…

In this theoretical article, we respond to a common education policy discourse that represents community participation in educational policy-making as an essentially rational solution to policy problems and as inherently progressive and democratic. We propose that conceptualising participatory politics as 'publics' challenges this discourse and…

This article investigates how the International Baccalaureate's 'global dream' for education interacts with the national priorities of governments. In mainland China, a thriving international school market has been met with tightened government control. We draw on the analytical lens of 'cosmopolitan nationalism' to demonstrate how a cosmopolitan…

Education policies are typically anchored in official texts that provide a foundation for their enactment in schools. What are the implications of an "invisible" policy not anchored in any official text due to political motives? This study explores the enactment of an invisible education policy that regulates religious enclave schools.…

Research on teacher well-being that works from a localized socioeconomic perspective tends to neglect the nestedness of teacher well-being within wider systems. Randomized controlled trials are illustrative of such decontextualized ontological and epistemological foundations. In this article, we demonstrate the benefits of a system dynamics…

Educational psychology is embracing the call to engage in more policy-oriented research. This special issue focuses on some of the key scholars in the field that are taking up this charge. Building upon their work, I aim to push the field to go even further, providing suggestions for how to engage in policy-oriented activism research within…

Conflict over the curriculum is nothing new in American public education, which has never been insulated from the culture wars. In the past few years, conflict over the teaching of race has torn through history and social studies classrooms, inciting the most serious fight over America's past since the last "history war" in the 1990s. At…

Despite increasing attention to citizenship education since the turn of the 21st century, the recent spread of authoritarian populism worldwide has raised relatively little attention in educational policy and research. As a result, the possibilities and limitations that national curricula offer to educators to deal with this phenomenon are still…

The "Memorandum on Lifelong Learning" was launched in October 2000 by the European Commission and has been debated ever since in all member states of the European Union, leading to the publication of a follow-up document in 2001 which promoted a "European area of lifelong learning". The "Memorandum" was a unique…

The current anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) movement is best understood as the latest incarnation of a historical pattern of political backlash to civil rights reforms in higher education. In this article, the authors demonstrate how the current anti-DEI movement relies on a playbook developed during the 1960s through 1980s: one that…

What opportunities and challenges occur in reclaiming Indigenous languages within state institutions? This article considers the case of intercultural bilingual education in Ecuador. The school system is remarkable as a national-level initiative run by and for Indigenous "pueblos" and nationalities. Based primarily on two years of…

Inspired by the New Zealand Association for Research in Education (NZARE) Conference 2022, entitled 'The Mighty Triangle: The strength of the research-policy-practice triangle for addressing local, national, and global challenges' (https://www.nzare.org.nz/events/te-aonui-the-mighty-triangle/), this article examines some of the relational…

Conflicts over education and education policy continue, and now new, diversified actors push for change while technologies expand the terrain where conflicts unfold. Conflict theories would seem best suited to address these conflicts. However, despite conflict theories' substantive contributions, they are infrequently used in the US context and…