This paper argues that Young and Muller's 'powerful knowledge' requires a more extensive conceptualization of the relation between knowledge and practice. However, rather than focus on the 'practice turn' in social theory as Carlgren has suggested, it is argued that what Rouse terms a 'normative practice' can help explicate the specialized…

This conceptual article critiques a popular account of education grounded in Bourdieu's social theories. Specifically, the article shows how Bourdieu overplays competition and underplays ethics, or people's diverse ways of imagining, debating, and living out the good. On a Bourdieusian view of education, it is difficult to see how educators and…

How might we teach more successfully towards better relations between and among social groups? Recognizing factors that limit rapprochement with those with divergent worldviews has been a perennial concern for education research. However, more research is needed to understand how feelings of conflict arise, and thus this paper discusses terror…

In this study, the author reports on the professional learning of three primary teachers who engaged in three cycles of collaborative action research over a three-year period from 2013 to 2016. Case study was chosen as a methodology to gain insight into the context of the teachers' work as they interacted with others and adopted multiple tools.…

In this paper I consider the notion of 'visible pedagogy' in refining a conceptualization of 'socially-just pedagogy' in the mathematics classroom. I explore reasons why the recent focus on promoting formative assessment and metacognition, embodied in Hattie's 'visible learning', has failed to bring about the fundamental shift in pedagogic…

This contribution to the symposium on Michael Young's article "Overcoming the crisis in curriculum theory: a knowledge based approach", supports his contention that curriculum theory has lost sight of its object--"what is taught and learned in schools", and argues that this has particularly deleterious consequences for…

This manuscript contributes to a discussion of how to meaningfully engage issues of sexuality in the curriculum. Noting the struggle to create social change through the inclusion of LGBQ people and events, the manuscript is premised on what we might learn about equity and change by locating the study of inequity in how it is etched into and…

In the past, philosophers discussed cosmopolitanism as a normative ideal of allegiance to humanity as a whole. A debate among social theorists, however, has examined cosmopolitanism as an incipient empirical phenomenon: an orientation of openness to foreign others and cultures. This paper introduces actor-network theory to elaborate the…

The author's initial argument concludes that parents should refrain from inculcating norms and dispositions suitable for peacetime when ruthless enemies seek to kill or imprison their children. Drawing on recent interpreters of Kant, this paper argues that teaching children to deceive pursuers is consistent with Kantian arguments against lying.…

At the current historical juncture in which differences and inequalities are surfacing greater than ever in the world, societies, and schools, the main goal of this essay is to revisit the aspects of structuralism that can potentially contribute productively to understanding the invisible structures and forces that everyone carries (mostly…

The linguistic turn has helped to create new methods within social and educational theory. This study draws attention to the constitutive force of political language and the performative dynamics of one essentially contested concept--equivalence--in Swedish educational policy at both the national and the local level. It illustrates the way in…

Sociocultural theory is increasingly popular as a paradigm for research in education. A recent member in this family of theories is introduced--cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT)--that shows much promise to complement and invigorate the field of educational change, a large, multi-faceted, and persistent problematic. In particular,…

Education is thought to provide a certain outcome--a "promise". I argue that a promise that education will counteract cultural and social disintegration involves a risk of engendering narrow social and cultural incorporation. On what reasonable basis could education contribute to civic life, when contemporary Western society is…

This paper discusses the reciprocal relationships among globalization, information and communication technologies (ICT), and the prospect of a "global village". The current metaphor of a "global village" (regardless of physical access to ICT) is problematic, and can be interpreted as a form of electronic colonization. However, through such…

This paper explores the concept of needs as a basis for curriculum development through the deliberations of the US educators associated with the Progressive Education Association's Commission on the Secondary School Curriculum of the Eight-Year Study (1933-1941). Noting how divergent views of "needs" influenced American educational…