Dynamics in Education Politics: Understanding and Explaining the Finnish Case introduces a new theoretical framework characterised as Comparative Analytics of Dynamics in Education Politics (CADEP). Albeit the topicality of comparative research is obvious in the current era of global large-scale assessment, with its concomitant media visibility and political effects, comparative education is still suffering from certain methodological deficits and is in need of robust theorisation. Focusing on relational dynamics between policy threads, actors and institutions in education politics CADEP seriously considers the phenomena of complexity, contingency and trans-nationality in late-modern societies. In this book CADEP is applied and validated in analysing the "Finnish Educational Miracle" that has been attracting attention in the educational world ever since they rocketed to fame following the PISA studies during the 2000s. This book will open up opportunities for mutual understanding and learning rather than just celebrating the exceptional circumstances or sustainable leadership. Areas covered include: The analytics of dynamics in education politics The dynamics of policy making and governance The dynamics of educational family strategies The dynamics of classroom culture It is vital for humankind to be able to learn from each other’s successes and failures, and this applies in education, too. This book is thus a valuable read for anyone interested in the education system and wanting to shape the learning environment.

This book aims to enhance understanding of school choice as a supra-national travelling policy, explored in two strikingly different societies: Latin American Chile and North European Finland. Chile was among the first countries to implement school choice as a policy, which it did comprehensively in the early 1980s through the creation of a market environment. Finland introduced parental choice of a school on a very moderate scale and without the market elements in the mid-1990s. Predominant aspects of Chilean basic schooling include provision by for-profit and non-profit private and municipal organisations, voucher system, parental co-payment and ranking lists. Finland persists in keeping education under public-authority governance and free-of-charge, and in prohibiting profit making and rankings. The wide range of sociologists of education contributing to this book offer novel analyses and perspectives on the operation of school choice in Chile, the trailblazer, and Finland, the 'European PISA leader'. Agnes van Zanten's description of how school choice operates as a major dimension of social reproduction sets the scene. After that, Chilean and Finnish authors explore how the policy is displayed and used explicitly for very different societal purposes, although implicitly following similar patterns in the two countries with their histories, politics and cultures. Empirically the focus is on how families view and act on school choice. The research material includes large surveys, interviews and ethnographic data gathered in urban Chile and Finland. Capitalising on the concept of dynamics, the book concludes with some insights into how this globally travelling education policy has materialised in two apparently dissimilar societies and their localities."

Lance D. Fusarelli examines the relationship between the charter school and voucher issues: To what degree does political support for charter schools - from a coalition of teacher associations, school board groups, superintendents, and voucher advocates - slow or even stop the forces for vouchers? Or, do these coalitions, which successfully pushed charter school legislation through the legislature, actually fuel the fires of privatization? Charter schools legislation has enjoyed bipartisan support precisely because the threat of vouchers is so great. And, contrary to the strategy of voucher opponents, the spread of charter school increases, rather than alleviates, the push for vouchers.

Texts record the meanings we make: in words, pictures and deeds, and politics chronicles our uses of power in shaping social relationships large and small. Textual politics is about meaning - the meaning we make with words and with the symbolic values of every object and action.; The book begins with an introduction which discusses the relationship between Discourse And The Notions Of Power And Ideology. These Concepts Are Then applied to major issues: the social construction of class, gender and individuality; the rhetoric of polarizing social controversies religious fundamentalism vs. gay rights; and the abuse of technical language in policy arguments educational research vs. conservative politics. The book ends with chapters which extend the theory to processes of large- scale social change and apply it to the challenges facing education and political action in the new global information century.

WINNER 2016 Grawemeyer Award in Education Helping students develop their ability to deliberate political questions is an essential component of democratic education, but introducing political issues into the classroom is pedagogically challenging and raises ethical dilemmas for teachers. Diana E. Hess and Paula McAvoy argue that teachers will make better professional judgments about these issues if they aim toward creating "political classrooms," which engage students in deliberations about questions that ask, "How should we live together?" Based on the findings from a large, mixed-method study about discussions of political issues within high school classrooms, The Political Classroom presents in-depth and engaging cases of teacher practice. Paying particular attention to how political polarization and social inequality affect classroom dynamics, Hess and McAvoy promote a coherent plan for providing students with a nonpartisan political education and for improving the quality of classroom deliberations.

This book aims to enhance understanding of school choice as a supra-national travelling policy, explored in two strikingly different societies: Latin American Chile and North European Finland. Chile was among the first countries to implement school choice as a policy, which it did comprehensively in the early 1980s through the creation of a market environment. Finland introduced parental choice of a school on a very moderate scale and without the market elements in the mid-1990s. Predominant aspects of Chilean basic schooling include provision by for-profit and non-profit private and municipal organisations, voucher system, parental co-payment and ranking lists. Finland persists in keeping education under public-authority governance and free-of-charge, and in prohibiting profit making and rankings.