Education

Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

What happens when schools can no longer bind society together?

In an era of growing segregation, this book explores how Swedish schools and municipalities work to counteract inequality and foster civil inclusion. Through detailed case studies of school closures, mergers and new openings, the authors trace how local actors try to achieve “civil repair” – to strengthen equality and rebuild cohesion through education.

Drawing on rich ethnographic research, the book reveals the tensions between policy ideals and on-the-ground realities in a marketised school system. These findings speak not only to Sweden but to broader challenges in education systems across Europe and North America.

Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

Since the UK’s dramatic departure from the European Union, student mobility has become a frontline issue in the reshaping of higher education.

This book investigates how cross-border movement into and out of the UK has been transformed in the wake of Brexit. Drawing on extensive empirical data, the book explores changing mobility patterns, the rise of new infrastructures and the politics surrounding schemes like Turing. It critically examines how government policies and stakeholder responses are redefining international education.

This is vital resource for researchers, policymakers and practitioners navigating the evolving landscape of global student mobility.

This book examines how global humanitarian systems shape partnerships in education in emergencies. Focusing on the Syrian refugee crisis and the education response in Lebanon, it reveals how colonial legacies, structural racism and the marketization of aid enable Global North actors to dictate policies and practices, while marginalizing local voices and knowledge. Yet in moments of crisis, community-led initiatives and smaller partnerships proved to be agile and responsive.

Rather than offering celebratory accounts of “partnership,” the book draws on rigorous research to foreground the structural inequities that constrain them—while also pointing to possibilities for more just, community driven alternatives. A vital resource for scholars, practitioners and policy makers, it offers concrete pathways for reshaping humanitarian practice to support sustainable, responsive education for refugee learners.

Bringing concepts from critical transitional justice and peacebuilding into dialogue with education, this book examines the challenges youth and their teachers face in the post-conflict settings of Bougainville and Solomon Islands.

Youth in these places must reconcile with the violent past of their parents’ generation while also learning how to live with people once on opposing ‘sides'. This book traces how students and their teachers form connections to the past and each other that cut through the forces that might divide them. The findings illustrate novel ways to think about the potential for education to assist post-conflict recovery.

What is the role of a university in society? In this innovative book, Chris Brink offers the timely reminder that it should have social purpose, as well as achieve academic excellence.

The current obsession with rankings and league tables has perpetuated inequality and is preventing social mobility.

This book shows how universities can – and should - respond to societal challenges and promote positive social change.

The university system is no longer fit for purpose. UK higher education was designed for much smaller numbers of students and a very different labour market. Students display worrying levels of mental health issues, exacerbated by unprecedented levels of debt, and the dubious privilege of competing for poorly-paid graduate internships. Meanwhile who goes to university is still too often determined by place of birth, gender, class or ethnicity.

Who are universities for? argues for a large-scale shake up of how we organise higher education, how we combine it with work, and how it fits into our lives. It includes radical proposals for reform of the curriculum and how we admit students to higher education, with part-time study (currently in crisis in England) becoming the norm.

A short, polemical but also deeply practical book, Who are universities for? offers concrete solutions to the problems facing UK higher education and a way forward for universities to become more inclusive and more responsive to local and global challenges.

How can higher education contribute to tackling today’s complex challenges?

In this wide-ranging book, Anke Schwittay argues that, in order to inspire and equip students to generate better responses to global challenges, we need a pedagogy that develops their imagination, creativity, emotional sensibilities and practical capabilities.

Schwittay proposes a critical-creative pedagogy that incorporates design-based activities, experiential teaching, serious play and future-oriented practices. Crucially, she demonstrates the importance of moving beyond analysing limitations to working towards alternatives for more equitable, just and sustainable futures.

Presenting concrete ideas for the reimagination of higher education, this book is an essential read for both educators and students in any field studying global challenges.

How can higher education contribute to tackling today’s complex challenges?

In this wide-ranging book, Anke Schwittay argues that, in order to inspire and equip students to generate better responses to global challenges, we need a pedagogy that develops their imagination, creativity, emotional sensibilities and practical capabilities.

Schwittay proposes a critical-creative pedagogy that incorporates design-based activities, experiential teaching, serious play and future-oriented practices. Crucially, she demonstrates the importance of moving beyond analysing limitations to working towards alternatives for more equitable, just and sustainable futures.

Presenting concrete ideas for the reimagination of higher education, this book is an essential read for both educators and students in any field studying global challenges.

What are the challenges for the current generation of graduate millennials? The role of universities and the changing nature of the graduate labour market are constantly in the news, but less is known about the experiences of those going through it.

This book traces the transition to the graduate labour market of a cohort of middle-class and working-class young people who were tracked through seven years of their undergraduate and post-graduation lives.

Using personal stories and voices, the book provides fascinating insights into the group’s experience of graduate employment and how their life-course transitions are shaped by their social backgrounds and education. Critically evaluating current government and university policies, it shows the attitudes and values of this generation towards their hopes and aspirations on employment, political attitudes and cultural practices.

Bringing together the perspectives of researchers, policy makers, activists, educators and practitioners, this book critically interrogates the Western-centric assumptions underpinning education and development agendas and the colonial legacies of violence they often uphold.

The book considers the crucial connection between the idea of sustainable futures and the demand to decolonize education. Containing an innovative mixture of text, stories and poetry, it explores how decolonized futures can be conceived and enacted, offering theoretical and practical examples, including from practice in educational and cultural organizations. In doing so, the book highlights education’s potential role in facilitating processes of reparative justice that can contribute to decolonized futures.

Rooted in an international political economy theoretical framework, this book provides unique insights into the global forces and local responses that are shaping education systems in Central America and the Latin Caribbean (CALC).

The book covers all Spanish-speaking countries of the CALC region and examines the effects of macro-economic pressures, geopolitical intervention, neo-colonial relationships, global pandemics, transnational gang networks, and the influence of international organizations. Chapters analyse the challenges and opportunities these global forces present to education systems in the region as well as highlighting the local efforts to address, mitigate, and counteract them. In doing so, the book illuminates how education can contribute to either maintaining or challenging inequalities and exclusion in the face of pressures from the global to local levels.

What are the challenges for the current generation of graduate millennials? The role of universities and the changing nature of the graduate labour market are constantly in the news, but less is known about the experiences of those going through it.

This book traces the transition to the graduate labour market of a cohort of middle-class and working-class young people who were tracked through seven years of their undergraduate and post-graduation lives.

Using personal stories and voices, the book provides fascinating insights into the group’s experience of graduate employment and how their life-course transitions are shaped by their social backgrounds and education. Critically evaluating current government and university policies, it shows the attitudes and values of this generation towards their hopes and aspirations on employment, political attitudes and cultural practices.

This collection pinpoints the intersecting concerns of higher education studies and island studies. It argues for the value of the small island for exploring research and practice in

higher education. Presenting analysis of higher education provision in a range of island contexts from across the globe, the book explores the challenges and opportunities of small island higher education and sheds light on the practices and experiences of those involved. It also demonstrates how the small island offers a valuable context from which to explore the scalar dynamics of higher education provision more widely and how these contexts can disrupt normative discourses, understandings and practices in education policy, curricula and experiences.

This book combines assemblage theory and policy mobilities to inform the study of comparative and international education (CIE), focusing on education policy and how such policy moves are enacted.

These approaches challenge taken-for granted and universalizing concepts in policy research and policy work in CIE – such as the nation-state, policy making/policy enactment, global/local, Global North/Global South – and highlight how policy is contingent on emerging through complex relations between people and places.

Using illustrative cases drawn from research and practice in CIE and education development, the book demonstrates how these ideas can be used in the analysis of policy and the application of this approach in real life.

Bringing together the perspectives of researchers, policy makers, activists, educators and practitioners, this book critically interrogates the Western-centric assumptions underpinning education and development agendas and the colonial legacies of violence they often uphold.

The book considers the crucial connection between the idea of sustainable futures and the demand to decolonize education. Containing an innovative mixture of text, stories and poetry, it explores how decolonized futures can be conceived and enacted, offering theoretical and practical examples, including from practice in educational and cultural organizations. In doing so, the book highlights education’s potential role in facilitating processes of reparative justice that can contribute to decolonized futures.

This book traces the process of producing testimonio with the children of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), an insurgent group during Peru’s internal war (1980–2000). It examines how the group navigates post-war struggles over memory while dealing with the ‘children of terrorists’ stigma.

Drawing on a cycles of inquiry approach, the book theorizes three movements for memory work: a realist presentation of testimonial narratives, a ‘politics of memory’ engaging with the conditions of production and a ‘poetics of memory’ that troubles memory, voice and representation for qualitative inquiry in post-war contexts.

Challenging the notion of war-torn countries as pure devastation, the author invites readers to see them as sites of knowledge and creativity, with much to offer for education, peace studies and social justice research.

Bringing concepts from critical transitional justice and peacebuilding into dialogue with education, this book examines the challenges youth and their teachers face in the post-conflict settings of Bougainville and Solomon Islands.

Youth in these places must reconcile with the violent past of their parents’ generation while also learning how to live with people once on opposing ‘sides'. This book traces how students and their teachers form connections to the past and each other that cut through the forces that might divide them. The findings illustrate novel ways to think about the potential for education to assist post-conflict recovery.

Rooted in an international political economy theoretical framework, this book provides unique insights into the global forces and local responses that are shaping education systems in Central America and the Latin Caribbean (CALC).

The book covers all Spanish-speaking countries of the CALC region and examines the effects of macro-economic pressures, geopolitical intervention, neo-colonial relationships, global pandemics, transnational gang networks, and the influence of international organizations. Chapters analyse the challenges and opportunities these global forces present to education systems in the region as well as highlighting the local efforts to address, mitigate, and counteract them. In doing so, the book illuminates how education can contribute to either maintaining or challenging inequalities and exclusion in the face of pressures from the global to local levels.

This book provides an important lens for understanding how interlocking humanitarian crises caused by armed conflict, natural disasters, forced displacement and, more recently, a global health pandemic have adversely impacted teaching and learning.

It brings together evidence from multiple, diverse research-practice partnerships in seven countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Niger, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. The authors provide a clear account of the key academic, policy and practice questions on education in crisis contexts and consider our capacity to develop just and resilient education systems.

Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

This book explores the transformative potential of education in achieving Sustainable Development Goals 13 (climate action), 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions) and 10 (reduced inequalities).

Examining case studies of secondary schooling in Nepal, Peru and Uganda, it critiques the established assumption of linear progress from education to social change. Instead, it argues for just-driven education and introduces an integrated justice framework encompassing environmental, epistemic, transitional and social justice. The authors reveal how connecting education to local contexts empowers young people to critically engage with justice and drive systemic reform, offering a visionary blueprint for sustainable development worldwide.