The educational system in Ghana has undergone various reforms as a result of colonisation, changes in government and constitutional amendments. These reforms have been accompanied by changes in educational assessment programmes. This paper explored the history of educational assessment in Ghana, understanding how educational reforms, colonisation…

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…

The term "governance" is one of the most widely applied concepts in education policy and research. Yet its meaning has changed over space and time both analytically and normatively. This history is a complicated one marked by both shifts and continuations in the politics of language and the development of unique intellectual histories…

As the story is often told, P4C was established after Matthew Lipman, then a professor of education at Columbia University, observed a deficiency in reasoning skills among his students and colleagues during the student protest of April 1968. Lipman pondered whether there might be a way to enhance the critical thinking skills of individuals through…

Our guiding thesis in this article is that the recent burgeoning discussion of differentiation in the context of education has to do with critiques of the globalization theories that have been popular since 1990. In doing so, however, these critically motivated discussions run the risk of overlooking the historical roots of differentiation, which…

Arthur Seldon (1916-2005) was a significant British neo-liberal economist in the second half of the twentieth century. From 1957 to 1988, as the "engine room" of the Institute of Economic Affairs, Seldon had been advocating the reform of "free" state education. He vigorously argued for education vouchers, by which each parent…

This paper inquires into a practical logic of what can be called socially just education in late modern societies, based on a reexamination of critical pedagogy, and clarifies the boundary-crossing nature of this education and the dilemmas that it inevitably entails. The discussion first addresses and reexamines certain oppositional arguments made…

Brian Simon (1915-2002), an influential Marxist historian and educationist in Britain, had been campaigning for comprehensive education from the late 1940s to the 1960s. In the early 1970s, followed by a rapid expansion of comprehensive schools since the issue of Circular 10/65, comprehensive education was under attack by the Conservative…

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…

Through the cases of Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong, this article explores the status of history of education under different postcolonial conditions. It demonstrates that factors such as lingering imperial influences and their tensions with anti-colonial forces, the extent of the cultural hybridity of colonial and post-colonial elites, the…

There is fierce controversy in the United States over whether parents should be able to choose their children's schools and/or curriculum. To discuss the pedagogical arguments inherent in this question, Todd Alan Price and Ruprecht Mattig begin with the classical concept of "Bildung" as developed by Wilhelm von Humboldt around 1800.…

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…

This study discusses International Baccalaureate schools in Poland from the perspective of their educational function to serve as a resistance to counterbalance trends toward nationalisation in the Polish educational landscape. To address this aim, a review of the relevant legislation has been carried out, accompanied by interviews with teachers…

This article compares the private higher education (HE) systems in Germany and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). We examine the historical, political, and demographic contexts of private universities in both countries, as well as the role of the state in regulating and shaping the private HE sector. We then explore the interrelation of the public…