This book explores childhood and schooling in late socialist societies by bringing into dialogue public narratives and personal memories that move beyond imaginaries of Cold War divisions between the East and West. Written by cultural insiders who were brought up and educated on the eastern side of the Iron Curtain - spanning from Central Europe to mainland Asia - the book offers insights into the diverse spaces of socialist childhoods interweaving with broader political, economic, and social life. These evocative memories explore the experiences of children in navigating state expectations to embody "model socialist citizens" and their mixed feelings of attachment, optimism, dullness, and alienation associated with participation in "building" socialist futures. Drawing on the research traditions of autobiography, autoethnography, and collective biography, the authors challenge what is often considered 'normal' and 'natural' in the historical accounts of socialist childhoods, and engage in (re)writing histories that open space for new knowledges and vast webs of interconnections to emerge. This book will be compelling reading for students and researchers working in education, sociology and history, particularly those within the interdisciplinary fields of childhood and area studies. 'The authors of this beautiful book are professional academics and intellectuals who grew up in different socialist countries. Exploring "socialist childhoods" in myriad ways, they draw on memories, and collective history, emotional insider knowledge and the measured perspective of an analyst. What emerges is life that was caught between real optimism and dullness, ethical commitments and ideological absurdities, selfless devotion to children and their treatment as a political resource. Such attention to detail and examination of the paradoxical nature of this time makes this collective effort not only timely but remarkably genuine.' -Alexei Yurchak, University of California, USA

What do we actually do when we research education policy and governance? Why do we tame the messy hinterland of research into smooth accounts and what do we lose in the process? In this volume, distinguished scholars in education policy and governance research discuss how the practice of methods is messy, subjective, and provisional. They approach methodology as riddled with tensions, doubts, troubles, and mundane decisions. Scholarship in this book shifts from recording the methodological hinterland to putting it to productive use as resources for thinking about the researched world and about research itself. This methodological openness helps to examine how research reproduces scholars’ metaphysics, how research is a deeply embodied process encompassing all senses, how scholars’ concerns interfere in the worlds they study, but also how these equally interfere with researchers. By challenging smooth methodological accounts which conceal the complex and provisional nature of research, this book offers new approaches in education policy and governance research that are more generative, insightful, and sincere. Offering new ways of thinking about research methodologies, the book will be of great interest to researchers, academics, and post-graduate students in the fields of education research and education theory, as well as social scientists interested in research methodologies more broadly.

The latest volume in the World Yearbook of Education Series explores the relationship between education and the globally prevalent principle of nationalism. This book identifies the diverse ways in which educational policies, discourses, curricula and pedagogy embed and promote the concept of "the nation" both historically and in the age of globalization. By challenging accounts owed to the discourse of "globalization" which conceal the presence of national epistemologies and interests in education, this book offers important insights into the role of education in making nationalism one of the most enduring and yet easily obscured forces of our time. Organized into four sections, this book looks at the following main issues: Historical (re)production of the nation considers how countries consider and reproduce their national identity and how this is built on their history Hegemonic aspirations and interventions examines how instruction technologies developed during the Cold War have been propagated and disseminated around the world, how the development of educational policy based on the human capital theory emerged, and analyzes the extent to which tech companies are intent on establishing an imperial order of learning Imperial policies and resurgences of nationalisms explores how global or imperial policies have been indulged in different parts of the world and how new forms of nationalism have been emerging Paradoxes, inconsistencies, and a self-reflection focuses on nations acting imperially as sites of domestic injustices, addresses unresolved paradoxes between the global and the national and includes a historically informed critical review of the World Yearbooks of Education Bringing together the voices of researchers from around the globe, The World Yearbook of Education 2022 is ideal reading for anyone interested in learning how nationalism has affected the expansion of education systems and how its imperial aspirations are currently affecting education policy and practice. Chapter 5 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.

The latest volume in the World Yearbook of Education Series explores the relationship between education and the globally prevalent principle of nationalism. This book identifies the diverse ways in which educational policies, discourses, curricula and pedagogy embed and promote the concept of "the nation" both historically and in the age of globalization. By challenging accounts owed to the discourse of "globalization" which conceal the presence of national epistemologies and interests in education, this book offers important insights into the role of education in making nationalism one of the most enduring and yet easily obscured forces of our time. Organized into four sections, this book looks at the following main issues: Historical (re)production of the nation considers how countries consider and reproduce their national identity and how this is built on their history. Hegemonic aspirations and interventions examines how instruction technologies developed during the Cold War have been propagated and disseminated around the world, how the development of educational policy based on the human capital theory emerged, and analyzes the extent to which tech companies are intent on establishing an imperial order of learning. Imperial policies and resurgences of nationalisms explores how global or imperial policies have been indulged in different parts of the world and how new forms of nationalism have been emerging. Paradoxes, inconsistencies, and a self-reflection focuses on nations acting imperially as sites of domestic injustices, addresses unresolved paradoxes between the global and the national and includes a historically informed critical review of the World Yearbooks of Education. Bringing together the voices of researchers from around the globe, The World Yearbook of Education 2022 is ideal reading for anyone interested in learning how nationalism has affected the expansion of education systems and how its imperial aspirations are currently affecting education policy and practice.

What do we actually do when we research education policy and governance? Why do we tame the messy hinterland of research into smooth accounts and what do we lose in the process? In this volume, distinguished scholars in education policy and governance research discuss how the practice of methods is messy, subjective, and provisional. They approach methodology as riddled with tensions, doubts, troubles, and mundane decisions. Scholarship in this book shifts from recording the methodological hinterland to putting it to productive use as resources for thinking about the researched world and about research itself. This methodological openness helps to examine how research reproduces scholars' metaphysics, how research is a deeply embodied process encompassing all senses, how scholars' concerns interfere in the worlds they study, but also how these equally interfere with researchers. By challenging smooth methodological accounts which conceal the complex and provisional nature of research, this book offers new approaches in education policy and governance research that are more generative, insightful, and sincere. Offering new ways of thinking about research methodologies, the book will be of great interest to researchers, academics, and post-graduate students in the fields of education research and education theory, as well as social scientists interested in research methodologies more broadly.

The field of education policy research is a dense, crowded space owing to its complicated relationship to different intellectual histories and the influence of various ontologies or ‘turns’. To aid comprehension and clarity, this book describes the history, contribution and application of over 90 keywords in the field of education policy research. It is designed as a reference, learning and teaching tool to assist students, educators and researchers with: • complex learning and teaching; • wider and background reading and knowledge building; • critical scholarship and research; • interdisciplinary thinking and writing; • theory development and application.

The field of education policy research is a dense, crowded space owing to its complicated relationship to different intellectual histories and the influence of various ontologies or ‘turns’. To aid comprehension and clarity, this book describes the history, contribution and application of over 90 keywords in the field of education policy research. It is designed as a reference, learning and teaching tool to assist students, educators and researchers with: • complex learning and teaching; • wider and background reading and knowledge building; • critical scholarship and research; • interdisciplinary thinking and writing; • theory development and application.