Dean of the School of Education at the University of Queensland, Australia, Allan Luke is the principal investigator of a study for the government of Queensland analyzing the relationship between Australian and Asian inter-ethnic families and school reform.  One of the founders of critical discourse analysis in education,  Professor Luke's research covers the sociology of education and cultural studies in education as well as multiculturalism.  His work on the politics of racial and cultural identity in Australia draws attention to the role globalization plays in constructing and legitimating conservative educational policies.   Two of  Professor Luke's recent publications are The Social Construction of Literacy in the Primary School, 1994 and Constructing Critical Literacies:  Teaching and Learning Textual Practice, 1997.

    Stephen Ball directs the Centre for Public Policy Research at King's College, University of London, UK, where he is a Professor of Sociology.  He writes about education markets, the politics of educational reform and the relationship between class and education.   Drawing on sociological approaches to public policy, analyses of the micro-politics of schooling, post-structural and other critical theoretical traditions, he seeks to explain the causes, processes and effects of culturally conservative educational policies.  Two of Professor Ball's recent publications are  Markets, Choice and Equity in Education, (with Sharon Gewirtz and Richard Bowe), 1995; and Local Educational Governance, Accountability and Democracy (with Hilary Radnor and Carol Vincent), 1996.

    Carlos Torres is Professor of Social Sciences and Comparative Education in the Graduate School of Education  and Information Studies at University of California, Los Angeles, where he is Director of the Latin American Studies Center.  Professor Torres' researches and writes about the socio-political returns of literacy programs and the compensatory and legitimizing role of state policies in education.   His comparative work contrasts the impact of conservative educational policies in Latin America and the United States.  Recent publications by Torres include: Social Theory and Education:  A Critique of Theories of Social and Cultural Reproduction (with Raymond Allan Morrow), 1995;  and Education and Democracy:  Paulo Freire, Social Movements and Educational Reform in Sao Paulo (with Pilar O'Cadiz and Pia Wong), 1998.
Forthcoming (with Raymond Allan Morrow), is Critical Social Theory and Education:  Freire, Habermas and the Dialogical Subject.
 

    Amy Stuart Wells is Professor of Educational Policy in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, at University of California, Los Angeles, where she directs The Charter School Study.  Her research explores the cultural and economic underpinning of conservative educational policies.  Wells also researches the outcomes of conservative educational initiatives such as school choice and the charter school movement, in particular the differential race and class outcomes of such policies.  Two of her  recent publications are Stepping Over the Color Line:  African-American Students in White Suburban Schools (with Robert L. Crain), 1997 and Beyond the Rhetoric of Charter School Reform in California:  A Study of Ten California School Districts, 1998.  Forthcoming this year (with Alejandro Lopez), is "Charter Schools as Postmodern Paradox:  Rethinking Social Stratification in an Age of Deregulated School Choice," in the Harvard Educational Review.

    Cameron  McCarthy is Research Professor and University Scholar at the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.  Focussing on the impact of racialized politics and culture in the U.S. McCarthy's  research interests include racial inequality and urban education, and debates over  multiculturalism and canon formation.  Drawing on postcolonial, multicultural and critical media theories he writes about the interplay between identity politics and conservative educational policies.  Two of McCarthy's recent publications are,  Race, Identity and Representation in Education (with Warren Crichlow), 1993 and The Uses of Culture:  Education and the Limits of Ethnic Affiliation, 1998.  Forthcoming (with Ram Mahalingham), is Social Epistemology and Multiculturalism.