He is Professor of Political Theory and Education Policy in the Department of Political, International and Policy Studies, in the Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences at the University of Surrey.
He is author, most recently, of Toward A Global Thin Community: Nietzsche, Foucault and the Cosmopolitan Commitment, October 2008, from Paradigm Press, Boulder, United States of America. Also published recently, in 2004, a book with John Codd and Anne-Marie O’Neill of Massey University in New Zealand titled Education Policy: Globalisation, Citizenship, Democracy, (Sage, London); and an edited volume Culture and Learning: Access and Opportunity in the Classroom (IAP Press, New York.)
He was born and educated in Dunedin, New Zealand, he came to England in 2001, and has researched and taught at the University of Surrey since that date.
Olssen, M., Liberalism, Neoliberalism, Social Democracy: Thin Communitarian Perspectives on Political Philosophy and Education., New York: Routledge, 2010
Olssen, M., Toward a Global Thin Community: Nietzsche, Foucault and the cosmopolitan commitment, Paradigm Press, Boulder, Colorado, USA, October 2009 ( See Review)
Olssen, M., Codd, J. and O’Neill, A-M, Education Policy: Globalisation, Citizenship, Democracy, London: Sage, 2004
Articles
Olssen, M (2008) ‘Education Policy’, in Gary McCulloch (ed.), The Routledge International Encyclopaedia of Education. Pp 198—199, London and New York: ISBN 0-415-27747-7.
Olssen, M. ‘Foucault as Complexity Theorist’, in Educational Philosophy and Theory,. 40 (1): 96-117.
Olssen, M. ‘Globalisation, the Third Way and Education Post 9/11: Building Democratic Citizenship, in Michael A. Peters, Alan Britton and Harry Blee (Eds.)Global Citizenship Education: Philosophy, Theory and Pedagogy. Rotterdam/Taipei: Sense Publishers, pp. 261 — 283, April 2008.
Olssen, M. (2007) Invoking Democracy: Foucault’s Conception (with insights from Hobbes). In Michael Peters and Tina Belsey (eds) Why Foucault. New York: Peter Lang, pp. 231—261.
Olssen, M., (2006) ‘Foucault and the Imperatives of Education: Critique and Self Creation in a Non-Foundational World’, Studies in Philosophy and Education, 25 (3), pp. 191—217.
Olssen, M. (2006) Foucault, Educational Research and the Issue of Autonomy. In Paul Smeyers and Michael A. Peters (eds.) Postfoundationalist Themes in the Philosophy of Education. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.