This study investigates socioeconomic and rural–urban disparities in access to artificial intelligence (AI) among engineering students enrolled following the TVET path in Bangladesh. We further analyse how socioeconomic status (SES) and geographic location affect access to AI tools and their impact on academic performance. Using primary survey data from diploma engineering students, the study applies a probit model to evaluate AI access and a multivariable linear regression model to assess the influence of AI usage on academic outcomes. Results demonstrate that students from higher-SES backgrounds and especially those who come from urban backgrounds achieve academic performance levels 20% higher, likely due to increased access to technology and a more supportive educational environment. Conversely, students from lower-income and rural backgrounds experience restricted access and lower academic achievement. These findings underscore the necessity for targeted policy interventions, including subsidized access and improved rural digital infrastructure, to foster inclusive educational outcomes.
This study explores how institutional closure shapes the subjectivities and identity formation of current and former students at a small-scale Japanese women’s university. Drawing on an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of six participant interviews, we employ Foucauldian readings of governmentality, subjectification, and discourse to understand how closure operates as a form of institutional power. Findings reveal that closure policies produce ‘rational’ subjectivities, characterised by pragmatic individualism, affective disengagement, and entrepreneurial self-governance. More damagingly, however, the accounts of participants in this study suggest that neoliberal governance within this institutional context positioned students as ‘docile’ subjects who navigated institutional precarity primarily through processes of self-responsibilisation. Within this case, institutional closure emerges as a site where market rationalities were enacted, normalised, and internalised through self-management and adaptation. In doing so, our research contributes to understandings of educational policy as a technology of power that shapes not only institutional futures but also the identities and subjectivities of those within closing institutions.
This paper employs Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis to examine how neoliberal rationalities are discursively legitimised within Indian higher education policy. Drawing on Giroux’s critical pedagogy and Foucault’s governmentality framework – used here as an integrated rather than parallel analytic – the study analyses the National Education Policy 2020 and related instruments. The paper argues that Indian higher education marketisation operates through a distinctive mechanism wherein the state simultaneously invokes constitutional social justice commitments toward Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, and Economically Weaker Sections while embedding market structures that undermine those commitments. Textual analysis reveals specific discursive strategies: the substitution of ‘scholarships’ and ‘targeted opportunities’ for the constitutional language of ‘reservation’; the repackaging of market deregulation as ‘autonomy’; and the deployment of equity vocabulary as rhetorical legitimation alongside provisions advancing privatisation. The study extends Giroux’s critical pedagogy by demonstrating that his class-based framework requires supplementation with caste-conscious analysis, and shows how caste-market intersections produce forms of exclusion structurally distinct from Western patterns.
This study investigates the effectiveness of educational support for students with learning disabilities in elementary schools in the Arab community in Israel. Through interviews with ten parents, the research examines three key areas: Individualized Educational Programs (IEPs), family-school communication, and inclusive practices. Findings reveal that schools implement personalized approaches, including in-class assistance, additional teaching hours, and therapeutic interventions. While many parents express satisfaction, some call for more tailored IEPs. Communication between schools and families varies in quality and frequency, with some parents desiring more detailed feedback on their child’s challenges and learning. Inclusive practices and extracurricular involvement are generally positive, though inconsistent across schools. The study concludes that schools are making significant efforts to support students with learning abilities, but there is room for improvement in personalizing IEPs, enhancing communication, and ensuring consistent inclusion. Based on the results, the researcher recommends that schools refine IEPs, improve coordination among service providers, increase specialized support hours, and develop more comprehensive communication strategies. These enhancements aim to create a more effective and supportive learning environment for students with learning disabilities.
Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) professionals in England operate within a system that persistently undermines their status, voice, and agency. This conceptual paper, informed by prior empirical research, introduces a new conceptual framework positioning professional confidence as a driver of change from within the sector. Building on Miller’s analysis of system conditions that constrain professional identity and autonomy (2019; 2021), it reframes confidence not as an individual trait but as a relational, collective force. The conceptual framework identifies five interconnected components – awareness, positive action, skilful advocacy, collective action, and purposeful passion – through which practitioners can exercise meritocratic agency and challenge externally imposed definitions of professionalism. By situating confidence within the broader system architecture, the paper highlights how professional self-definition and sector-led leadership can begin to reshape institutional cultures. It concludes with a call to action for leaders, policymakers, and practitioners to co-create an empowered and self-determining profession.
