Australia's refugee education policy development occurs within a fragmented and evolving landscape, shaped by competing priorities, historical precedents, and shifting political and economic contexts. While English language acquisition has dominated policy discourse, emphasis on policies for wellbeing and inclusion have gained prominence in recent years. However, significant gaps persist, leaving educators to navigate inconsistent and often ambiguous policy frameworks. Drawing on critical policy analysis and interviews with 12 policymakers in Australia, this study explores the tensions, constraints, and influences shaping policies that affect the education of refugee-background students and highlights the contested nature of policymaking in this area. Utilising the policyscape framework, we identify how policies interact, evolve, and are influenced by broader national and international education and migration discourses, as well as historical and institutionalised practices. Findings reveal that specific refugee education policies in Australia are largely absent or reactive, leaving a refugee education policy vacuum. In this vacuum, local actors work reactively in response to evolving student cohorts, defaulting to historical and institutionalised practice, while education policy development is driven by international trends towards universal rather than targeted approaches. This study calls for a more proactive, research-informed, and equity-driven approach to refugee education and policy development in Australia.
Since the late 1970s, a consistent message has centred on the hope, potential, and promise of local Indigenous Peoples contributing to decision-making with regard to schooling policies and practices. However, this period is also intertwined with the influence of neoliberalism, such as the marketisation and human capital-driven approaches to education. Within this framework, the notion of local decision-making has been deployed by the state to assist with governance processes, serving to further erode decolonising and social justice aspirations. A scenario that has been described thinking with statecraft as 'the local trap'. In this paper, we reflect on the possibilities and promises that the shift towards localism offers in the context of a research project conducted in New South Wales (Australia) between 2020-2024. Titled Culturally Nourishing Schooling, the project aimed to strengthen students' cultural identities, foster a sense of belonging, increase the visibility and respect for Indigenous knowledge and histories, and partner with local families and communities. Central to this ambition were changes in decision-making concerning how, what, and why practices are enacted in classrooms. While the research team remains cautious of concerns about localism, we suggest that schools can become contexts where localised resurgence and co-resistance are within reach.
This paper examines the historical entanglement of autism diagnosis and educational governance in England and Wales. It develops the concept of diagnostic regimes - the assemblage of laws, routines and classificatory infrastructures through which diagnosis functions as a policy instrument. Using autism as a paradigmatic case, the analysis demonstrates how diagnostic categories have become embedded in eligibility rules, funding formulae, tribunal procedures and statistical systems, thereby shaping access to support. Drawing on path dependence, the paper shows how early design choices created self-reinforcing feedbacks that have entrenched diagnostic reliance in England's SEN/EHCP framework. Wales's Additional Learning Needs reforms represent a deliberate attempt to disrupt this trajectory by instituting a needs-based model centred on Individual Development Plans. A documentary - administrative method is used to trace how statutes, codes, appeals and data returns operationalise these instruments. Comparative analysis highlights both lock-in and friction: England illustrates mature convergence around diagnostic proof, while Wales demonstrates the difficulty of decoupling support from diagnosis amid resource pressures and professional routines. The findings offer an analytic vocabulary for understanding governance through diagnosis and argue for redesigning instruments so that needs-based documentation can become actionable, reducing reliance on clinical certification while sustaining equitable entitlements.
At some point during the 2020-21 school year, the majority of U.S. school districts adopted a 'hybrid' instructional model that allowed families to choose whether to send their children to school or keep them at home for remote instruction. Drawing on policy enactment theory, this paper traces how PreK teachers enacted hybrid instruction in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, where PreK is voluntary, controlled by local school districts, and located in both public elementary schools and private child care centers. Drawing on a mixed-methods dataset comprised of a statewide survey of PreK school district administrators and 29 qualitative interviews with PreK teachers in nine school districts, we describe how teachers modified hybrid instructional policies to meet the needs of children and maintain the developmentally appropriate play-based pedagogies that teachers value. Our findings shed new light on crisis policy enactment (Bradbury et al. 2022) by showing how material, professional, external, and situated contexts (Braun et al. 2011) shaped teacher policy enactments across different PreK settings and hybrid instructional models. In particular, we find that PreK teachers experienced COVID-19 as an intensification of the decentralized and multilayered policymaking that often characterizes PreK in the U.S.
Over the past two decades, Spanish-English bilingual education programmes have expanded significantly in the Spanish education system. One of their stated objectives was to democratise the learning of English. This study aims to assess this claim by analysing the equity of access to this type of education policy and focusing on the urban-rural dimension. The distribution of bilingual schools across the urban-rural dimension is analysed throughout Andalusia (Spain). The effect of the 'size of the municipality' on the odds of schools offering a bilingual programme is also examined. We examine the universe of schools offering either primary education (N = 2,543) or compulsory secondary education (N = 1,603) in this region. We analyse geographically referenced data. For the analyses, we combine cartographic analyses with the support of Q-GIS, as well as bivariate and multivariate statistical techniques. The results indicate that bilingual schools are mainly concentrated in larger municipalities. Consequently, children residing in smaller municipalities have far fewer opportunities to attend bilingual schools. The low presence of subsidised private and fully private schools (which are more inclined to offer bilingual education) in these areas, and the lower demand and school supply which result in less school competition, are found to be plausible explanations.
Ofsted's 2019 Education Inspection Framework (EIF), which functioned as the accountability framework for state-funded schools in England between 2019 and 2024, was heavily criticized by teachers and education unions. To better understand the discontent surrounding this recently demised inspection framework, we utilized a corpus-assisted discourse analysis to compare 390 school reports published under the EIF, with 390 school reports published under the previous, 2015 'Common Inspection Framework' (CIF). Our analysis evidences two significant issues which extend current knowledge on the diachronic development of Ofsted's accountability regime. First, analysis indicates an increased focus on the process of inspection within 2019 EIF inspection reports, which we argue has the effect of heightening the visibility of teachers and leaders. Second, we highlight the increased discursive complexity and ambiguity evidenced in reports published under the 2019 EIF, with potential workload implications for teachers. Our findings provide empirical data which further explains the dissatisfaction expressed by teachers towards the 2019 framework, and evidences both panoptic and (post)panoptic practices at work within the language of Ofsted school inspection reports.
The integration of immigrants has become an increasingly salient challenge in Chile, particularly for immigrant students who must navigate a rigid and highly segregated educational system. This article examines the extent of immigrant students' segregation from their Chilean peers at both the school and classroom levels by analysing the concentration of immigrant students across schools, as well as classroom policies and practices. A mixed-method research design was employed, combining quantitative analysis of large national databases at the school level with in-depth analysis of seven high schools in the Metropolitan Region of Chile. Data were obtained from 75 in-depth interviews with students and school staff, as well as from 46 classroom observations. Overall, the results show that immigrant students are spatially segregated from their Chilean peers both between and within schools. At the school level, immigrant students experienced declining exposure to Chilean students between 2015 and 2020, especially in public institutions. At the classroom level, the data reveal processes of segregation, wherein classroom-level structures - such as seating arrangements and grouping practices - perpetuate the physical separation of immigrant students from their Chilean peers.
Educational outcomes for children in care in England are significantly below national averages and addressing this is a high social justice and policy priority. One facet is this group's higher-than-average school absence rates and this paper begins by exploring data between geographical areas, highlighting important correlations with special educational needs and disabilities, exclusions and housing arrangements. We then draw on focus group discussions among 26 Virtual School Headteachers; senior leaders in local authorities with statutory responsibility for supporting the education of children in care through advocacy and engagement with local schools. These illuminate the reasons why children in care are disproportionately absent from school. First, there is widespread resistance to admitting children in care, with some schools also being quick to exclude. Second, limited capacity leads to administrative delays in resourcing support for special educational needs and disabilities. Third, there are shortages in high-quality specialist provision for young people with complex needs. We discuss these empirical findings as an issue of procedural justice in the wider policy context, highlighting the tensions between government discourses around inclusive education and a high-stakes accountability environment, where the majority of schools now have significant autonomy over admissions and behaviour policies with little democratic oversight.
This article is offered as a postscript to and move beyond the arguments presented in the book Against School. That book dismantles the carceral logic and exclusionary architecture of modern schooling and proposes a 'different' education. This postscript connects the school's 'epistemological infrastructure' to broader processes of extractivism and the development of modern capitalism within the global structures of European colonialism and environmental degradation. It moves beyond the trope of reversal and refusal to a more overtly contested posthuman critique. Sylvia Wynter's notion of genres of man, framing the school as a sociogenic apparatus, serves to highlight the historical ontology of the school, placing it within the longue dur & eacute;e of imperial epistemologies of liberal humanism. The claim is that schooling is deeply imbricated, geo-physically and ideologically in the climate emergency and climate injustices. A 'different' future is discussed.
This paper adopts a critical perspective that treats public participation in policy design not as a democratic ideal nor as a hollow ritual, but as a technology of governance: a set of tools, practices, and socio-technical arrangements through which governments structure reform, legitimise authority, and define policy possibilities. Drawing on governmentality and critical design studies, we develop the concept of 'technologies of participation' to describe how governments curate the terms of public engagement and set the discursive and material boundaries of reform. Using Australia's 'Review to Inform a Better and Fairer Education System' as a case study, we show how participatory tools and design choices constrained public influence while building consensus around predetermined reforms. Through analysis of four technologies of participation - Terms of Reference, Expert Panel practices, a national survey, and the public release of the final report - we illustrate how participation functions to design consensus, manage dissent, and narrow spaces for contestation. The paper invites broader reflection on how the mechanics of public participation are inseparable from the politics of governance and demonstrates how the consultative spaces common in education reform are sites where power is carefully structured, contested, and continually negotiated.
This paper critically examines the Australian Capital Territory's Literacy and Numeracy Education Expert Panel Final Report and its implementation through the Strong Foundations reform package. Using Bacchi's (2009) What's the Problem Represented to be? (WPR) framework, we show how the Report constructs inequity as a problem of system inconsistency, variability and teacher inadequacy, while silencing the social and structural determinants of student outcomes. Drawing on discourse and citation analysis, we demonstrate how institutional actors such as the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) and Australian Council of Education Research (ACER), together with the language of 'evidence' and 'what works,' reinforce a closed circuit of authority privileging neuroscientific and technocratic solutions. These representations depoliticise inequality, legitimise recentralisation and position teachers and schools as deficient actors in need of reform. We argue that appeals to curriculum 'consistency' and 'coherence' operate as governing technologies that advance surface-level consistency while risking the entrenchment of deeper socio-economic and cultural inequities. Although grounded in a sub-national Australian context, the analysis speaks to broader international debates on evidence-based reform, intermediary influence and the politics of education governance. WPR offers a valuable lens for exposing these dynamics and interrogating the politics of evidence in contemporary education policy.
This article provides preliminary insights into how a particular data technology platform was introduced into one school site in a large Australian state and how it served as a 'policy instrument'. The research draws upon critical data studies, and notions of risk, to develop the metaphor of 'tracking' in relation to students' learning; such tracking helps to elaborate the myriad ways in which data were understood in the context of this platform. Interviews were undertaken with leading school administrators and teachers who were instrumental in disseminating information about the initiative. The research reveals: how this new platform was construed as helping 'keep track' of data in a more timely fashion than was the case with the existing data management system; a greater level of detail/granularity in relation to how students' learning was 'tracked', and; how more personalised conversations were able to be generated in relation to students' work, providing greater 'traction' on their learning. While the article reveals how educators can take a more active stance in relation to their students' learning, it also shows how such actions were framed within what can be understood as increasing risk mitigation which policy support for data platforms enable.
This study examines the arguments and justifications produced by central actors in the inception phase of national qualifications frameworks (NQFs), illustrated through two case examples, Ethiopia and Austria. Employing actor-centered institutionalism and Toulmin's model of argumentation, a large language model (LLM) was used to analyze a corpus of policy documents and interview transcripts to uncover the arguments used to advocate for NQF implementation within different actor constellations. A plurality of perspectives behind the apparent consensus on NQFs are revealed, with stakeholders emphasizing different aspects, benefits, and challenges based on their institutional roles and interests. There are notable differences in the completeness of argumentation structures and balance between explicit and implicit arguments. The study shows that the formation of educational policy is a complex process based on dynamic tensions generated by the actions of social actors and the constraints imposed by institutions. It enriches understanding of NQF policy processes and offers a nuanced perspective on their underlying rationales.
Global student migration is a prominent issue in educational policy; one problematised by rising nationalist and anti-immigration rhetoric. UK higher education operates within a politically and economically precarious environment. International students - who pay higher fees than domestic students - have become vital to the financial stability of universities and the broader UK economy. However, their growing numbers have also sparked criticism, particularly in relation to immigration concerns and perceived impacts on education quality. This study uses discourse network analysis to examine UK parliamentary debates from 2020 to 2023, a period shaped by Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic. It identifies six key discursive categories in political debates on international students: (1) economic, (2) higher education culture, (3) quality, (4) UK reputation, (5) resources, and (6) a nexus of international students and broader migration issues. We analyse the actors and coalitions involved in these debates and how their positions evolved over time. Despite ongoing political tensions around migration and hostile government policies, we paradoxically find broad cross-party consensus on the positive role of international students in the UK. By mapping these shifting dynamics, this paper contributes to understanding the evolution of government policy and debates surrounding international students in post-Brexit Britain.
Processes of institutionalization shape whether and how innovative pedagogical models become durably embedded within education policy systems. This study examines how grassroots educational initiatives negotiate legitimacy within diverse governance and cultural contexts, using Forest School (FS), a global outdoor education movement, as a comparative case to explore how such initiatives become recognized, supported, and regulated within national education systems. Drawing on neo-institutional theory, the study uses qualitative data from 38 teacher trainers across 15 countries to analyze cross-national variation in the degree and configuration of institutionalization. Two questions guide the analysis: (1) What similarities and differences do trainers perceive in the degree of FS institutionalization across countries? (2) How do trainers perceive the factors shaping policy recognition, professional support, and regulatory arrangements for FS within education systems? The findings show that institutionalization is uneven and context-dependent, emerging through distinct configurations of grassroots initiative, professional mediation, and state involvement rather than governance structure alone. Middle-out actors, particularly trainers, play a critical role in translating local practices into policy-relevant frameworks. By tracing variation in institutionalization, the study advances debates on how grassroots educational innovations navigate formal systems while offering practical insights for policymakers and advocates.
