This book examines the experiences and perspectives of students and teachers at an alternative music school, which caters for young learners who have been marginalised and disenfranchised from mainstream schooling. The school utilises a rich music-infused curriculum that connects to the lives of its students, alongside a democratic ethos and ethic of care for members of the school community, including the students, teachers, and parents. The combination of personal narratives together with detailed critical discussion, provides a compelling argument for how schools can make a major difference to the lives of young people. The case study presented in this book offers one potential response to the institutionalised social and educational inequities that young people continue to face, and highlights the important lessons from alternative schooling for education more broadly. It will be of particular interest to researchers in the areas of education and sociology, especially those concerned with matters of social justice and equity in education.

This book brings together diverse, international scholarly perspectives on education and democracy in response to contemporary challenges for educational leadership, policy and practice. The contributions meaningfully engage with a range of local and global issues regarding democratic participation and agency, with a particular focus on implications for educational access, engagement and justice. Each chapter considers the complex tensions and interplay between education histories, policies, practices and research to better understand how education can be for democracy in the twenty-first century. There is much work to be done in the field of democratic education, whether it be in the search of a better understanding of education and democracy’s relationship to one another, questions of how education might be for democracy, the importance of teaching young people about democracy, and whether education can be more democratic. This book makes a small, but important, contribution to these struggles for more democratic and socially just futures through education. Education, Policy and Democracy: Contemporary Challenges and Possibilities will be a key resource for academics, researchers, and advanced students of education leadership and policy, educational administration, politics, research methods, and sociology. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Educational Administration and History.

Schooling for Democracy in a Time of Global Crisis combines democratic theory with education practice to address the problem of a schooling that is for democracy, and points to the possibilities, limits and tensions of attempting to re-imagine education in more inclusive, collective and sustainable ways through democratic action. Contemporary liberal-democratic societies are faced with multiple complex global crises, which demand a range of responses, including how education can produce critical and engaged young people with a collective commitment to tackling the effects of the global climate crisis, growing social and economic inequalities, political instability, insecurity, fear and hate. This book examines how more critically democratic educational policies and practices, and the daily actions of learners, educators, leaders, communities and societies can work towards collective well-being, increased civic participation and commitment to an ecologically sustainable engagement with the planet. In addition to being a work of critical scholarly analysis, this book provides a manifesto for the possibilities of contemporary democratic education in a time of global crisis. This book will be of great interest to researchers, postgraduate students and policymakers in education.

New Perspectives on Education for Democracy brings together diverse communities of education research in an innovative way to develop a nuanced understanding of the relationship between education and democracy. This book synthesises a range of theoretical, conceptual, and empirical approaches to address the complex challenges faced by young people and societies in the 21st century. Each chapter provides accounts of local democratic encounters in education, while engaging with global debates and issues, such as de-democratisation and growing social, economic, and educational inequality. This book presents new ways of thinking about democracy, local-global enactments of democracy through teaching and learning, and future thinking for a new era of democracy. This book will be relevant for educators, researchers, and policymakers who are interested in educational sociology, critical pedagogy, and democratic education.

Contemporary education research, policy and practice are complex and challenging. The political struggle over what constitutes curriculum and pedagogy is framed by quasi-markets and technocratic models of education. This has had a significant effect on larger issues of policy. But it has also had profound effects inside educational sites in terms of the economics and politics of what is and is not considered 'legitimate' knowledge, over what should be taught, how it should be taught, and by whom. Re-imagining Education for Democracy takes up the unfinished project of resisting the de-democratisation of education and growing levels of social and educational inequality. Where are the spaces for change and articulating hopeful alternatives? How might we imagine and produce different futures? What are the opportunities for affirmative interference, and how could we produce a more sustainable re-imagining and re-doing of the critical project of education? The work is framed within two complementary sections: the first addresses some key policy, political and philosophical concerns of contemporary educational contexts, while the second provides a series of empirical case studies and other local-global narratives of resisting and reframing dominant discourses in education around the world. The chapters provide a range of empirical, methodological and conceptual focuses, from different educational communities and international contexts, engaging with the proposition of re-imagining education for democracy in multiple and diverse ways. This book will be essential reading for researchers and students of education research, policy and practice.

This book explores the complexities of investigating minorities, majorities, boundaries and borders, and the experiences of researchers who choose to work in these spaces. It engages with issues of ethics, disclosure and representation, and contends with and seeks to contribute to emerging debates around power and the positioning of researchers and participants. Chapters examine epistemologies that shape researchers' beliefs about the forms of research that are valued in educational research and theory, and consider the importance of research that genuinely seeks to explore voice, culture, story, authenticity and identity. Resisting the backdrop of standardisation, performativity and accountability agendas pervading governments and organisations, the book attends to the stories of real people, to understand regional and rural landscapes, to examine culture and the human condition and to give voice to those at the fringes of society who remain largely neglected and unheard. Drawing largely on studies from Australia, the book provides an overview of the many types of research being engaged in, revealing the value of different kinds of research, and gaining insight into how meaning and findings are disseminated in research and educational sectors and back into the contexts where research takes place. Mainstreams, Margins and the Spaces In-between will be of key interest to early career researchers and academics internationally, as well as postgraduate students completing research methods courses in the field of education, and the wider social sciences.

This book explores the complexities of investigating minorities, majorities, boundaries and borders and the experiences of researchers who choose to work in these spaces. It examines epistemologies that appear to shape researchers beliefs about the forms of research that are valued in educational research and theory. It also considers the researched and notions of privilege, voice, agency, authority and authenticity. "Researching Mainstreams, Margins and Spaces In-Between" engages with issues of ethics, disclosure, and representation and contends with and seeks to contribute to emerging debates around power and the positioning of researchers and participants. It also considers the motivations that researchers bring in relation to participant transformation and empowerment, and the importance of research that genuinely seeks to explore voice, culture, story and identity.

Resisting the backdrop of standardisation, performativity and accountability agendas pervading governments and organisations, this book attends to the stories of real people, to understand regional and rural landscapes, to examine culture and the human condition, and to give voice to those at the fringes of society who remain largely neglected and unheard. This text therefore provides an overview of the many types of research being engaged in, revealing the value of different kinds of research, and gaining insight into how meaning and findings are disseminated in research and educational sectors, and back into the contexts where research takes place.

The book will interest early career researchers and academics internationally. It will also appeal to postgraduate students completing research methods courses in the field of education, and the wider social sciences."

Schooling for Democracy in a Time of Global Crisis combines democratic theory with education practice to address the problem of a schooling that is for democracy, and points to the possibilities, limits and tensions of attempting to re-imagine education in more inclusive, collective and sustainable ways through democratic action. Contemporary liberal-democratic societies are faced with multiple complex global crises, which demand a range of responses, including how education can produce critical and engaged young people with a collective commitment to tackling the effects of the global climate crisis, growing social and economic inequalities, political instability, insecurity, fear and hate. This book examines how more critically democratic educational policies and practices, and the daily actions of learners, educators, leaders, communities and societies can work towards collective well-being, increased civic participation and commitment to an ecologically sustainable engagement with the planet. In addition to being a work of critical scholarly analysis, this book provides a manifesto for the possibilities of contemporary democratic education in a time of global crisis. This book will be of great interest to researchers, postgraduate students and policymakers in education.

New Perspectives on Education for Democracy brings together diverse communities of education research in an innovative way to develop a nuanced understanding of the relationship between education and democracy. This book synthesises a range of theoretical, conceptual, and empirical approaches to address the complex challenges faced by young people and societies in the 21st century. Each chapter provides accounts of local democratic encounters in education, while engaging with global debates and issues, such as de-democratisation and growing social, economic, and educational inequality. This book presents new ways of thinking about democracy, local-global enactments of democracy through teaching and learning, and future thinking for a new era of democracy. This book will be relevant for educators, researchers, and policymakers who are interested in educational sociology, critical pedagogy, and democratic education.

Contemporary education research, policy and practice are complex and challenging. The political struggle over what constitutes curriculum and pedagogy is framed by quasi-markets and technocratic models of education. This has had a significant effect on larger issues of policy. But it has also had profound effects inside educational sites in terms of the economics and politics of what is and is not considered 'legitimate' knowledge, over what should be taught, how it should be taught, and by whom. Re-imagining Education for Democracy takes up the unfinished project of resisting the de-democratisation of education and growing levels of social and educational inequality. Where are the spaces for change and articulating hopeful alternatives? How might we imagine and produce different futures? What are the opportunities for affirmative interference, and how could we produce a more sustainable re-imagining and re-doing of the critical project of education? The work is framed within two complementary sections: the first addresses some key policy, political and philosophical concerns of contemporary educational contexts, while the second provides a series of empirical case studies and other local-global narratives of resisting and reframing dominant discourses in education around the world. The chapters provide a range of empirical, methodological and conceptual focuses, from different educational communities and international contexts, engaging with the proposition of re-imagining education for democracy in multiple and diverse ways. This book will be essential reading for researchers and students of education research, policy and practice.

Universities around the world now actively encourage academics to engage in public scholarship, publishing in traditional and new media - newspapers, television, radio, blogs and social media. Education Research and the Media addresses this situation, using empirical and reflexive accounts, to interrogate and advance the ways in which this shift is usually discussed. Drawing on Australian and international scholars and contexts, this edited collection probes the effects of these engagements. Taken together, the book offers new conceptualisations of the junctures and disjunctures of local, national and transnational mediascapes in education research, working across both traditional media and social media platforms. The book takes as its starting point that traditional national media, while still significant, are now embedded in practices and discourses that transcend geographic and spatial boundaries. Global media logics challenge the profitability and operations of media corporations, as the production of news and information is paradoxically both democratised and fragmented. There is a limited body of research about how this mediatised landscape impacts on public scholarship. This is the first book in the field of education to systematically investigate this landscape, using empirical examples and analysis, as well as a range of theoretical and conceptual approaches.

Universities around the world now actively encourage academics to engage in public scholarship, publishing in traditional and new media - newspapers, television, radio, blogs and social media. Education Research and the Media addresses this situation, using empirical and reflexive accounts, to interrogate and advance the ways in which this shift is usually discussed. Drawing on Australian and international scholars and contexts, this edited collection probes the effects of these engagements. Taken together, the book offers new conceptualisations of the junctures and disjunctures of local, national and transnational mediascapes in education research, working across both traditional media and social media platforms. The book takes as its starting point that traditional national media, while still significant, are now embedded in practices and discourses that transcend geographic and spatial boundaries. Global media logics challenge the profitability and operations of media corporations, as the production of news and information is paradoxically both democratised and fragmented. There is a limited body of research about how this mediatised landscape impacts on public scholarship. This is the first book in the field of education to systematically investigate this landscape, using empirical examples and analysis, as well as a range of theoretical and conceptual approaches.