Education and the Politics of Time

Education and the politics of time: temporal governance in teaching and learning explores how time—its organization, regulation, and lived experience—structures education across diverse contexts. Organized into four thematic sections, the book’s 17 chapters offer critical analyses and vivid empirical accounts that expose the politics of time in education. The first section, the national and transnational politics of time, shows how reforms and policy agendas impose particular temporal logics on education systems. The second, the politics of institutional time, investigates how preschools, schools, and universities govern everyday life through calendars, timetables, and institutional rhythms. The third, the politics of teachers’ time, examines how temporal pressures shape professional work, identity, and wellbeing. The fourth, the politics of students’ time, traces how temporal expectations regulate students’ learning trajectories, aspirations, and everyday experiences. Taken together, these chapters reveal how the politics of time shape educational practices in contested ways and toward different ends. With contributions from scholars based in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Australia, Kenya, Chile, and the USA, the volume situates local cases within wider global dynamics. Rather than treating time as neutral, the book insists on its political character, showing how temporal norms structure identities, possibilities, and inequalities—and how they might be reimagined.

Ronni Laursen is an assistant professor at Aalborg University's Department of Culture and Learning, Denmark. His research interests encompass the analysis of the relationships between governance, leadership and practice. Miriam Madsen is an associate professor at Aarhus University, Danish School of Education, Denmark. Her research interests include educational policy, governance and administration, particularly in relation to issues of temporality and spatiality.

Chapter 1: Introduction: Teaching and learning time as axes of optimization (Ronni Laursen & Miriam Madsen).- Section 1: The organization of teaching and learning through scheduling.- Chapter 2: Temporal Discipline: The Role of Intensive Time Management in Preschools (Ronni Laursen).- Chapter 3: A vote on the temporal order of schools: The 1959 referendum among pupils on the five-day school week (Joakim Landahl).- Chapter 4: The politics of ‘inclusion time’ alongside ‘normal time’ in elementary schools: Exploring educational governance through multimodal time constructs (Bea Møller Schmidt and Mie Plotnikof).- Chapter 5: Time for Reconsideration: Shifting time allocation policy in Swedish compulsory schooling (Linda Rönnberg, Mikaela Nyroos and Lisbeth Lundahl).- Chapter 6: The quality economy of time in higher education (Miriam Madsen).- Section 2: Rhythms of life in educational institutions.- Chapter 7: To watch or not to watch the clock: defining lecturer work temporally in UK higher education (Sara Black).- Chapter 8: Habit: A form of educational governance through time, through the body (Sarah Gerth v.d. Berg and Nancy Lesko).- Chapter 9: Haunted teaching time (Maddie Neufeld and Nancy Lesko).- Section 3: The role of timeliness in educational governance.- Chapter 10: Time as the Organizing Principle of Education Governance: A critical study of temporal dimensions in the OECD’ Future of Education and Skills 2030 project (Christian Ydesen).- Chapter 11: Interplay between institutional governance and accreditation time frames: The case of a teaching programme at a Chilean university (Yenny Hinostroza-Paredes).- Section 4: Pedagogical ideals.- Chapter 12: Enchanting Education Futures: Governing through Alluring Educational Materials and Toys (Jette Sandager and Mie Plotnikof).- Chapter 13: Temporal Governance in Early Childhood Education: Abjection and Developmentalism in Kenya’s Reform (Meredith Whye and Thomas Popkewitz).- Section 5: Time scarcity and negotiations over time.- Chapter 14: Time poverty and teacher’s work (Anna Hogan and Greg Thompson).- Chapter 15: Between Time and Money? Temporal Justice, Demographic Change and School Transport Policy in Finland (Saija Volmari and Tommi Wallenius).- Chapter 16: Temporal Tides: Navigating the Flux in Academic Identities and Roles (Daniel Sundberg).- Chapter 17: Critical storying: Returning time and agency to teachers in neoliberal workplaces (Bianca Licata and Nancy Lesko).