Re-Inventing Public Education:The New Role of Knowledge in Education Policy-Making

This article focuses on the changing role of knowledge in education policy making within the knowledge society. Through an examination of key policy texts, the Scottish case of Integrated Children Services provision is used to exemplify this new trend. We discuss the ways in which knowledge is being used in order to re-configure education as part of a range of public services designed to meet individuals' needs. This, we argue, has led to a 'scientization' of education governance where it is only knowledge, closely intertwined with action (expressed as 'measures') that can reveal problems and shape solutions. The article concludes by highlighting the key role of knowledge policy and governance in orienting education policy making through a re-invention of the public role of education

Latin American Transnational Political Engagement: Steering Civic Movements and Cultural Repertoires from the Global City of Brussels

peer reviewedMigrants are active civic agents participating in transnational social movements. They create, transform, and exploit transnational networks to engage in political movements in both their homeland and the hostland. In this chapter, we demonstrate that migrants accumulate political and cultural knowledge, symbols, emotions of hope, nostalgia, and political practices as a result of their emigration experience. Using empirical examples of Latin American migrants living in Brussels, we argue that social remittances shape the way migrants: (1) develop their political and cultural repertoires of contention; (2) constitute their social identities and networks influencing their political behavior; and (3) embody the ideologies, ideas, and norms of their homeland, while being influenced by the multiple cities in which they have lived. We conclude that Latin American migrants have managed to develop and sustain transnational fields of social and political mobilization to defend their politi-cal struggles and ideals from Brussels itself