The author engages critical media education and norm-critical pedagogy to map out possible methods of critical engagement of students during interpretation of the pedagogical facets of "The Boxtrolls" (film--2014). The paper discusses rich analytical material that may be explored by employing "The Boxtrolls" story. The paper…

The article analyses the Slovak preschool education sector using Bourdieu's field theory. It describes stable and volatile points in the evolution of preschool education in terms of the power games occurring within the specific social field of power relations shaped during these games. It explores the groups of powerful players that represent the…

In this short essay, I explore in a narrative style the following question: do narrative analyses of sport and exercise need to engage more fully with social theory in order to become more forceful in their arguments? More specifically, to have real impact, and to achieve what we are especially trained to do as qualitative social scientists,…

This article argues that theories of "decoloniality" provide valuable insights into the social relations of "Model C" schools that have been brought into visibility in particular ways by the wave of student protests during and after 2016. Our starting point is to provide a brief outline of the central arguments made by a…

Developments in the field of gender theory as applied to education since the 1970s are briefly reviewed in order to highlight key challenges and debates around gender categorisation and identification in gender and education. We argue that conundrums of categorisation have haunted, and continue to haunt, the field of gender theory, and empirical…

For those engaged in educational "improvement," it is important to pause from time to time to ask the question: what is improving? If Bourdieu's thesis is correct, namely that education is a key site of social reproduction, does school improvement, and/or improvement of mathematics education, also enhance that capacity for the social…

It is typically understood that friendship is define as "a close and informal relationship of mutual trust and intimacy" (Oxford English Dictionary). On a basic level, friends care about each other. They spend time interacting in ways that are mutually beneficial. Friendships usually take a period of time to develop--people typically do…

Daring to challenge the status quo impacts innovation. Yet, successful outcomes depend on individual risk-taking and choice to influence others to support new ideas. This "Challenging the Status Quo" exercise illustrates how leaders use power and influencing tactics to challenge norms by analyzing Donald Trump's journey as the 45th U.S.…

The social structures within coach education have been largely unexplored, undiscussed, and treated as unproblematic in contributing to coach learning, both in research and practice. The study used semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 11 elite cricket coaches to gather their perceptions of an elite coach education programme. In particular,…

This article presents a vision for fostering multilingualism in schools that extends the notion of translanguaging to include the realm of multilingual curriculum theorizing. We locate our analysis at the intersection of multicultural education, multilingual education, and curriculum studies in order to conceptualize language, culture, and…

Critical peace education literature has focused attention on how programmes that promise to teach peace contribute to and contest existing power relations. However, using social theory to work out the relationship between peace education programmes and their context is only beginning. This paper uses a document review and interviews with experts…

Researchers have shown that mentoring has a positive impact on student teachers' professional learning during their practicum, but it can also be highly problematic due to the inherent power roles in mentor-mentee relationships. Via this study, I offer new insights by examining how we can leverage information technology to address the tensions…

International Baccalaureate (IB) Directors of international schools command a paradoxical space of progressive futures, cloaking injustice and whiteness. This is enacted daily through policy, recruitment, teaching and remuneration which privileges the empowered, exploits the marginalised and thereby delivers a critical education of questionable…

As critical perspectives in language studies have gained legitimacy and even mainstream status in applied linguistics, it is necessary to re-examine the meaning of criticality in language studies and to re-envision criticality for further development. The authors explore criticality from several theoretical perspectives as well as from the notion…

Using auto-ethnography, I write my story as Mexican international student in the role of pre-service teacher in Australia. I focus on exploring my socio-political status and its relationship to assuming a position to respond to education policies about working with students from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds, and teaching…