When the future of mankind is at stake the question of Bildung has to be brought to the fore. Because Bildung, a term which has no equivalent in English is dealing with the foundations of emancipation and liberation in both meanings an individual and a societal one.

Education is a contested topic, and not just politically. For years scholars have approached it from two different points of view: one empirical, focused on explanations for student and school success and failure, and the other philosophical, focused on education’s value and purpose within the larger society. Rarely have these separate approaches been brought into the same conversation. Education, Justice, and Democracy does just that, offering an intensive discussion by highly respected scholars across empirical and philosophical disciplines. The contributors explore how the institutions and practices of education can support democracy, by creating the conditions for equal citizenship and egalitarian empowerment, and how they can advance justice, by securing social mobility and cultivating the talents and interests of every individual. Then the authors evaluate constraints on achieving the goals of democracy and justice in the educational arena and identify strategies that we can employ to work through or around those constraints. More than a thorough compendium on a timely and contested topic, Education, Justice, and Democracy exhibits an entirely new, more deeply composed way of thinking about education as a whole and its importance to a good society.

Policy and the Political Life of Music Education is the first book of its kind in the field of Music Education. It offers a far-reaching and innovative outlook, bringing together expert voices who provide a multifaceted and global set of insights into a critical arena for action today: policy. On one hand, the book helps the novice to make sense of what policy is, how it functions, and how it is discussed in various parts of the world; while on the other, it offers the experienced educator a set of critically written analyses that outline the state of the play of music education policy thinking. As policy participation remains largely underexplored in music education, the book helps to clarify to teachers how policy thinking does shape educational action and directly influences the nature, extent, and impact of our programs. The goal is to help readers understand the complexities of policy and to become better skilled in how to think, speak, and act in policy terms. The book provides new ways to understand and therefore imagine policy, approximating it to the lives of educators and highlighting its importance and impact. This is an essential read for anyone interested in change and how to better understand decision-making within music and education. Finally, this book, while aimed at the growth of music educators' knowledge-base regarding policy, also fosters 'open thinking' regarding policy as subject, helping educators straddling arts and education to recognize that policy thinking can offer creative designs for educational change.

This book and its contributors - all of whom view literacy research as explicitly political and potentially transformative - provide images and approaches that show how work with/in the local can and must be connected to global issues in order to effect political action. Researchers and educators are urged to take activist stances that directly affect and address the needs of all people across lines of race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender. The book is organized into three parts, each focusing on different aspects of literacy research for political action. These include theoretical considerations and methodological approaches that support this work; a reconsideration of the roles of participants as collaborators in this kind of literacy research; and finally, examples of projects specifically aimed at addressing global issues through local research for political action.

This book explores to what extent transnational influences change national/local values and practices in the Nordic educational systems. It provides country cases and thematic chapters that give nuanced insights into the influence of transnational agencies on national governance and discourses. It describes how national discourses and regulation influences school leadership values, culture and practice, in competition with traditional values. The transnational and global discourse on educational leadership is mostly formed according to Anglo-American thinking and tradition. Pivotal foundations of this discourse are strong hierarchical societies/class societies with liberal democracies, and clearly streamed education systems. The Nordic discourse, however, builds on a more equal society and flat hierarchies with participatory democracy, and on comprehensive schooling with strong local community roots. Leadership thinking and practices are formed by the culture and context they are part of: they are primarily shaped by the national/local values, traditions and practices, and only partially shaped by politics, discourses and literature. Due to the fact that a great deal of the literature that is being used in the Nordic contexts is of Anglo-American origin and many of the research projects have Anglo-American foundations, it is difficult to distinguish the sources for leadership thinking and practice. This book distinguishes the Nordic from the Anglo-American thinking and presents important findings and arguments for leadership practitioners inside as well as outside the Nordic countries.​

Written by leading scholars and activists from Canada, Germany, Malta, Norway, Turkey and the USA, this book offers international perspectives on critical pedagogy during the Covid-19 pandemic. It examines the social and political impact of the pandemic on education, and explores how the creation of digital communities has become indispensable in maintaining connectivity and building networks. Including contributions from Michael W. Apple, Antonia Darder, Henry A. Giroux, Peter Mayo, Peter McLaren, Wayne Ross and Ira Shor, this volume examines critical issues, controversies of education, and social and political problems that have been exacerbated by the pandemic. The chapters call for constructive critical consciousness and a commitment to social justice, addressing current issues, including Black Lives Matter, racism, poverty, social and gender inequality, women's rights and teachers' isolation during the pandemic. In part I, the authors address these issues through the lenses of neoliberalism, neo-conservatism, rightist ideology and capitalism. Parts II and III of the volume offer inclusive perspectives, personal accounts and regional outlooks on these issues, and assess their influence on society and education during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This book explores the problematic relationship between education, social justice and the State, against the background of comparative education research. The book critiques the status quo of stratified school systems, and the unequal distribution of cultural capital and value added schooling. The authors address one of today’s most pressing questions: Are social, economic and cultural divisions between the nations, between school sectors, between schools and between students growing or declining?