This paper applies Wilkinson’s Islamic critical realism to analyze Iran’s higher education policies concerning the ideal of the “educated person.” Drawing on three key policy documents—the Strategic Transformation Document of Science and Technology , the Comprehensive Scientific Map of the Country , and the Document on the Islamization of Universities —the study identifies two dominant yet fundamentally conflicting orientations: economic and religious. Using the seven thematic elements of Islamic critical realism as an analytic framework, the paper highlights deep tensions between these orientations, as well as further inconsistencies across policy aims. These include mismatches between employment and technology goals, the Islamization of science and market-driven reforms, Islamic social ideals and neoliberal imperatives, and the aspiration for entrepreneurial graduates versus prevailing university conditions. The findings indicate that these unresolved contradictions produce an unstable system that imposes a double burden on students and faculty while generating mission ambiguity for universities. Ultimately, the policies fail to reconcile their divergent aims, undermining the possibility of cultivating an integrated ideal of the educated person as both economically productive and religiously committed.

Collaboration structures across relevant partners in education are associated with the potential to address contextual barriers to all learners’ presence, participation, and achievement. Following these ideas, a newly introduced educational policy in Vienna, the so-called Bildungsgrätzl (educational neighbourhoods), aims to foster long-term cooperative structures between schools and neighbourhood institutions (e.g. leisure facilities and communities). This study explored the perspectives of 14 local stakeholders, school leaders, and informal leaders on policy translation, following the criteria of classical grounded theory. By analysing the problem and solution representations provided by the participants, the study revealed several critical challenges within the educational system. These included structural issues, such as the operation of schools as isolated, closed systems; organizational challenges, such as the lack of effective collaboration among key educational stakeholders; and social factors, such as the underutilization of available opportunities. However, the findings indicate that collaboration is widely perceived as a promising response to the social inequities embedded in these settings, consistent with the initiative’s foundational goals. Furthermore, the results underscore relatively high expectations and assumptions about the role of Bildungsgrätzl in promoting inclusive education, despite the paradox of a highly segregated educational system in Austria that does not fully support these efforts.

The city of Xi’an has developed a comprehensive school market system that encompasses private special education primary schools, non-profit organizations, and private tutoring services, enriching the resources and opportunities for individuals with disabilities. This paper examines the implications of this system on students with disabilities in Xi’an through the lens of complex adaptive systems (CASs) theory. Building on relevant literature and policies, we first map the various actors within the school market system. Through in-depth interviews with 78 stakeholders, including 20 parents, 29 teachers, 12 teaching assistants, and 14 educational administrators from 6 private special education primary schools, 2 special education centers, and 3 private tutors, we analyze the actions and interactions among governments, schools, institutions, educators, and parents within a CAS framework. Our findings reveal positive impacts of the Xi’an school market system on students with disabilities, such as meeting educational needs, fostering individualized learning, enhancing academic achievements, and reducing discrimination. However, challenges like policy volatility, funding instability, and meritocratic tendencies threaten the system’s sustainability. We propose strategic recommendations to refine the school market system and promote the holistic development of students with disabilities.

This article explores how the concept of Universal Design for Learning constructs problems relating to education and how it constructs solutions to these problems. This is done through a five-step critical discourse analysis of the founders’ extensive website. Our analysis shows that the problems of concern relate to a discourse of barriers; ‘barriers to learning that millions of people experience every day’. These barriers are not explicitly defined but further exploration reveals that primarily traditional teaching is at fault, being too rigid and not considering students’ differences. In terms of solutions, the website offers a multitude of recommendations on how to meet students’ differences, materialised through both visual and verbal representations, in a discourse of almightiness. The vast network of actors that is mentioned on the website emphasises the far-reaching ambitions for UDL. However, we suggest that the expectations it places on teachers are unreasonable and sub-optimal for students.

This study provides an in-depth examination of how university English language teaching (ELT) teachers conceptualize research as part of their professional job and discusses the issues of balancing these two roles. The results show ELT teachers, despite having different conceptualization of research and varying levels of research engagement, considered it an integral part of their job that could better inform their teaching performance. Revealing this group’s pressure of being evaluated by both roles on their professional performance, the study charts their research engagement constraints resulting from a lack of academic resources and research community, a mono-research culture in the institution, poor financial reward, and heavy workload. These constraints hold implications for teachers’ identity and autonomy and institutional policy and management. Importantly, the paper suggests a typology demonstrating teachers’ behaviour and attitudes towards the research engagement policy of the institution, and the alignment of their careers with the future direction of the institution.

This paper examines how the English education system has attempted to react to the financial pressures caused by a rise in diagnoses of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). In particular, it explores how a crisis in funding has led to government financial aid, known as safety valve agreements and this in turn has allowed new managerial processes to become embedded in the system. Through content analysis of 38 such agreements, the research investigates how these interventions are influencing SEND practice across England. The findings reveal that actions within these agreements predominantly focus on financial control mechanisms and service transformation, with an emphasis on reducing Education Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) and specialist provision costs. The study argues that the SEND funding crisis exemplifies how neoliberal approaches perpetuate themselves through cycles where crises lead to further neoliberal solutions rather than fundamental reform. The emphasis on parental voice and choice – a core neoliberal principle – has significantly contributed to financial strain on local authorities (LAs) through increased tribunal cases and specialist provision costs. The research concludes that the failure of current interventions in England is because the crisis has led to solutions based on new managerialism approaches.

The 2023 National Resident Matching Program Applicant Survey revealed that 45% of applicants viewed an institution’s diversity as a factor when selecting a program. In light of Texas Senate Bill 17 (SB-17), which regulates institutions’ DEI efforts, becoming effective January 1st, 2024, we aim to assess the status of DEI-relevant information on residency websites before enactment. The purpose of this cross-sectional study is to assess the current (pre-SB-17) landscape of public-facing residency websites in Texas related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) content and to compare DEI content on websites for specialties with historically low diversity compared to more diverse specialties. A cross-sectional study was conducted to evaluate the presence or absence of 11 DEI elements on residency websites across the five most diverse and five least diverse specialties. All residency program-specific websites in Texas in specialties were included except for military programs and those who did not have at least 8 of 10 of the specialties of interest. Two authors independently extracted data. The overall range of positivity for the 76 evaluated websites was 19.78% (range 0%–90% across specialties). From lowest to highest in average positivity was Orthopedics (15.14%, 0%–36%), Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (18.18%, 0%–70%), Dermatology (19.82%, 0%–54.4%), Radiology (20.80%, 0%–60%), Otolaryngology (20.82%, 0%–45.45%), Plastic Surgery (22.91%, 0%–22.22%), Vascular Surgery (23.72%, 0%–40%), Psychiatry (26.48%, 0%–90%), Family Medicine (29.43%, 9.09%–72.73%), and Obstetrics and Gynecology (30.03%, 0%–90%). Amongst reviewed institutions, the range of overall positivity was 3.14% to 41.89%. Our study found that a majority of residency websites contained limited information on many of the DEI factors we evaluated. There was significant variance in presence of DEI criteria across programs and specialties. Key limitations are that program websites may not reflect all ongoing DEI initiatives, and a lack of DEI efforts on public display may not correlate with program priorities.

The use of Public–Private Partnerships (PPPs) in the education sector to construct and maintain schools’ infrastructure is under-researched by Educational Studies specialists. This article presents an assay of the use of PPP to procure school facilities, notably in developed contexts, where PPP arrangements are typically a product of the neoliberal privatisation of education. PPP arrangements allow governments to contract private sector partners to finance, design and construct school facilities infrastructure in exchange for state payments. The evaluation is complemented by a critical analysis of the WA Schools Public Private Partnership Project and three published Australian-based case studies. This sets the stage for a general critique and reflective discussion that considers the question raised in the title of this article, where it is suggested that PPPs have the potential to undermine the autonomy of schools and to deny their communities a resource critical to the development of a democratic society.

While many historically contingent barriers to individual liberty have been deconstructed, I argue that current education policy continues to maintain a discriminatory educational milieu that constitutes individuals as dis/abled. I describe this current government formulation of educational spaces as Closed Policy. Various contingent environmental barriers, dynamically intersecting with, for example, gender, class, ethnicity, physiology, and neurodiversity; inhibit individuals due to constructed notions of ability and disability. I draw upon the principles of Open Futures, Open Society, piecemeal social engineering, and prioritarianism to call for a deconstruction of Closed Policy and movement towards Open Policy. I argue that current educational policy is unjust and should be deconstructed to free individuals from coercion, prejudice, and harm. I argue for a shift towards Open Policy so that difference can be celebrated and the potential for Open Futures is maximised.

This essay uses a fictional narrative to explore the phenomenon of Pretendians in the contemporary university. Summer, who is one of the protagonists in the fictional dialogue, self-identifies as Indigenous, and is hired as an academic based on this identity, and according to affirmative action policies. Whilst working as an Indigenous academic for several years, suspicions are raised and accusations of pretending to be Indigenous are levelled at her. In each instance, she doubles-down and rejects the accusations until evidence is produced to prove that she was falsely and knowingly passing herself off as Indigenous. We critically discuss and analyse the fictional dialogue as part of our inquiry into Pretendianism, and argue that if an individual pretends to possess one or more protected attributes, and the individual knows that they do not possess said attributes, it is to perpetrate a grave injustice that goes beyond mere identity fraud. We conclude that Pretendian cases bring to our attention how contemporary university policies have the potential to be subverted in ways that are counter-productive to those individual and groups they sought to benefit, particularly if action is not taken to close policy loopholes.