Stewart Riddle is Associate Professor in the School of Education, University of Southern Queensland, Australia. His research examines the democratisation of schooling systems, increasing access and equity in education and how schooling can respond to critical social issues in complex contemporary times.David Bright is Senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education at Monash University in Australia. His research interests include teacher identity, international schooling, and post-qualitative inquiry.Amanda Heffernan is Senior Lecturer at the Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester, UK. Her research brings critical perspectives to educational leadership and policy, and her current projects focus on the attraction, support, and retention of school leaders. She is Co-Editor of the Journal of Educational Administration and History.

• Introduction—Education, policy and democracy: contemporary challenges and possibilities 1. Reflections on contemporary challenges and possibilities for democracy and education 2. Punk rock’s messages for the neoliberal university 3. Evaluation for equity: reclaiming evaluation by striving towards counter-hegemonic democratic practices 4. Relational pedagogy and the policy failure of contemporary Australian schooling: activist teaching and pedagogically driven reform 5. A Freirean analysis of the Escola sem Partido dystopian schooling model: indignation, hope and untested feasibility during pandemic times 6. The contemporary challenge of activism as curriculum work 7. Understanding and celebrating advantaged boys: education that excludes 8. Towards an understanding of curricular justice and democratic schooling 9. Reflections on how education can be for democracy in the twenty-first century

Stewart Riddle is Associate Professor in the School of Education, University of Southern Queensland, Australia. His research examines the democratisation of schooling systems, increasing access and equity in education and how schooling can respond to critical social issues in complex contemporary times.David Bright is Senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education at Monash University in Australia. His research interests include teacher identity, international schooling, and post-qualitative inquiry.Amanda Heffernan is Senior Lecturer at the Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester, UK. Her research brings critical perspectives to educational leadership and policy, and her current projects focus on the attraction, support, and retention of school leaders. She is Co-Editor of the Journal of Educational Administration and History.

• Introduction—Education, policy and democracy: contemporary challenges and possibilities 1. Reflections on contemporary challenges and possibilities for democracy and education 2. Punk rock’s messages for the neoliberal university 3. Evaluation for equity: reclaiming evaluation by striving towards counter-hegemonic democratic practices 4. Relational pedagogy and the policy failure of contemporary Australian schooling: activist teaching and pedagogically driven reform 5. A Freirean analysis of the Escola sem Partido dystopian schooling model: indignation, hope and untested feasibility during pandemic times 6. The contemporary challenge of activism as curriculum work 7. Understanding and celebrating advantaged boys: education that excludes 8. Towards an understanding of curricular justice and democratic schooling 9. Reflections on how education can be for democracy in the twenty-first century