The Handbook of Critical Approaches to Politics and Policy of Education provides a broad overview of educational policy and politics from critical perspectives engaging with both foundational and cutting edge topics. In critical perspectives, educational policy debates and programs for reform are about more than narrow questions of efficacy say to raise test scores or for simply more educational inclusion, fairer school spending, or even cultural responsiveness. Rather, policy and reform debates represent contested visions for schools and society by social groups vying for hegemony. Critical approaches to educational policy and politics see schooling and education more broadly as contested terrain in which competing visions for education are imbricated with the material and symbolic interests and cultural ideologies of different classes and cultural groups. Chapters in this volume are organized into five sections. The first three sections provide a foundational overview to educational policy and politics, covering culture and politics of education, political economy of education, and subjectivity and education. These chapters address longstanding and current policy and political debates as well as foundational theoretical debates. The last two sections are organized around two themes that address some of the most significant recent directions of educational politics and policy: disaster politics and technology.

The Handbook of Critical Approaches to Politics and Policy of Education provides a broad overview of educational policy and politics from critical perspectives engaging with both foundational and cutting-edge topics. In critical perspectives, educational policy debates and programs for reform are about more than narrow questions of efficacy say to raise test scores or for simply more educational inclusion, fairer school spending, or even cultural responsiveness. Rather, policy and reform debates represent contested visions for schools and society by social groups vying for hegemony. Critical approaches to educational policy and politics see schooling and education more broadly as contested terrain in which competing visions for education are imbricated with the material and symbolic interests and cultural ideologies of different classes and cultural groups. Chapters in this volume are organized into five sections. The first three sections provide a foundational overview to educational policy and politics, covering culture and politics of education, political economy of education, and subjectivity and education. These chapters address longstanding and current policy and political debates as well as foundational theoretical debates. The last two sections are organized around two themes that address some of the most significant recent directions of educational politics and policy: disaster politics and technology.

The Handbook of Critical Theoretical Research Methods in Education approaches theory as a method for doing research, rather than as a background framework. Educational research often reduces theory to a framework used only to analyze empirically collected data. In this view theories are not considered methods, and studies that apply them as such are not given credence. This misunderstanding is primarily due to an empiricist stance of educational research, one that lacks understanding of how theories operate methodologically and presumes positivism is the only valid form of research. This limited perspective has serious consequences on essential academic activities: publication, tenure and promotion, grants, and academic awards. Expanding what constitutes methods in critical theoretical educational research, this edited book details 21 educationally just theories and demonstrates how theories are applied as method to various subfields in education. From critical race hermeneutics to Bakhtin’s dialogism, each chapter explicates the ideological roots of said theory while teaching us how to apply the theory as method. This edited book is the first of its kind in educational research. To date, no other book details educationally just theories and clearly explicates how those theories can be applied as methods. With contributions from scholars in the fields of education and qualitative research worldwide, the book will appeal to researchers and graduate students.

Critical theory, characteristically linked with the politics of theoretical engagement, covers the manifold of the connections between theory and praxis. This thought-provoking Research Handbook captures the broad range of those connections as far as legal thought is concerned and retains an emphasis both on the politics of theory, and on the notion of theoretical engagement. The first part examines the question of definition and tracks the origins and development of critical legal theory along its European and North American trajectories. The second part looks at the thematic connections between the development of legal theory and other currents of critical thought such as; Feminism, Marxism, Critical Race Theory, varieties of post-modernism, as well as the various ‘turns’ (ethical, aesthetic, political) of critical legal theory. The third and final part explores particular fields of law, addressing the question how the field has been shaped by critical legal theory, or what critical approaches reveal about the field, with the clear focus on opportunities for social transformation.

Co-published by Routledge for the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Educational policy continues to be of major concern. Policy debates about economic growth and national competitiveness, for example, commonly focus on the importance of human capital and a highly educated workforce. Defining the theoretical boundaries and methodological approaches of education policy research are the two primary themes of this comprehensive, AERA-sponsored Handbook. Organized into seven sections, the Handbook focuses on (1) disciplinary foundations of educational policy, (2) methodological perspectives, (3) the policy process, (4) resources, management, and organization, (5) teaching and learning policy, (6) actors and institutions, and (7) education access and differentiation. Drawing from multiple disciplines, the Handbook’s over one hundred authors address three central questions: What policy issues and questions have oriented current policy research? What research strategies and methods have proven most fruitful? And what issues, questions, and methods will drive future policy research? Topics such as early childhood education, school choice, access to higher education, teacher accountability, and testing and measurement cut across the 63 chapters in the volume. The politics surrounding these and other issues are objectively analyzed by authors and commentators. Each of the seven sections concludes with two commentaries by leading scholars in the field. The first considers the current state of policy design, and the second addresses the current state of policy research. This book is appropriate for scholars and graduate students working in the field of education policy and for the growing number of academic, government, and think-tank researchers engaged in policy research. For more information on the American Educational Research Association, please visit: http://www.aera.net/.

This title provides a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between power, knowledge, education, and schooling.

This volume informs the growing number of educational policy scholars on the use of critical theoretical frameworks in their analyses. It offers insights on which theories are appropriate within the area of critical educational policy research and how theory and method interact and are applied in critical policy analyses. Highlighting how different critical theoretical frameworks are used in educational policy research to reshape and redefine the way scholars approach the field, the volume offers work by emerging and senior scholars in the field of educational policy who apply critical frameworks to their research. The chapters examine a wide range of current educational policy topics through different critical theoretical lenses, including critical race theory, critical discourse analysis, postmodernism, feminist poststructuralism, critical theories related to LGBTQ issues, and advocacy approaches.

Horizons of the Future: Science Fiction, Utopian Imagination, and the Politics of Education examines the relationship between science fiction, education, and social change in the 21st century. Global capitalism is ecologically unsustainable and ethically indefensible; time is running out to alter the course of history if humanity is to have hope of a livable future beyond the next century. However, alternatives are possible, offering much more equality, care, justice, joy, and hope than the established order. Popular culture and schools are key sites of struggles to imagine such alternatives. Drawing on critical theory, cultural studies, and sociology, Slater articulates the promising connection between science fiction and the future of education. He offers cutting-edge engagement with themes, perspectives, and modes of imagination in science fiction that can be mobilized politically and pedagogically to envision and enact critical forms of education that cultivate new utopian ways of relating to self, society, and the future. This thought-provoking book will be of interest to scholars and students in the social sciences and education.

Oxford Handbooks of Political Science are the essential guide to the state of political science today. With engaging contributions from 51 major international scholars, the Oxford Handbook of Political Theory provides the key point of reference for anyone working in political theory and beyond.

With a focus on providing concrete teaching strategies for scholars, the Handbook on Teaching and Learning in Political Science and International Relations blends both theory and practice in an accessible and clear manner. In an effort to help faculty