ABSTRACT

The ‘mobile turn’ in human geography, sociology and cultural studies has resulted in a hitherto unparalleled focus on the critical role that mobility plays in conserving and regenerating society and culture. In this instance, ‘mobility’ refers not just to the physical movement of goods and peoples, ideas and symbols; it can also be analytically applied to the technologies used to facilitate their movement.

One such technology is education, which has yet to fall the under the purview of the mobility lens – something that this collection endeavours to redress. Its contributing authors, drawn from Canada, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, explore salient issues relating to education and mobility. These include studies of the career implications for academics of moving across borders; the impact of university study on prison populations; policy mobility and the charter school movement; affect theory and policy development in Canada; educational advertising on Sydney trains and stations; and the employment mobile approaches to track policy development and implementation.

One notable feature of the mobility turn is the willingness of its adoptees to explore innovative research methods. Variously demonstrating the efficacy and cogency of autoethnography, affect theory, textual ethnography and human geography for a mobility-empowered education analytics, this collection is no exception. This book was originally published as a special issue of Critical Studies in Education.

chapter |6 pages

Introduction

Making moves: theorizations of education and mobility

chapter |18 pages

The prison is another country

incarcerated students and (im)mobility in Australian prisons

chapter |19 pages

Market mobilities/immobilities

mutation, path-dependency, and the spread of charter school policies in the United States

chapter |18 pages

Affect theory and policy mobility

challenges and possibilities for critical policy research

chapter |19 pages

Education on the rails

a textual ethnography of university advertising in mobile contexts

chapter |19 pages

Policy mobilities and methodology

a proposition for inventive methods in education policy studies