The milestone of twenty years of the Waikato Journal of Education (WJE) is exciting and satisfying for those who have been closely involved in its origins and growth. This special issue is a collection of 23 papers from across the 20 years to celebrate the anniversary.

The 23 papers in this celebratory issue are organised into five themes somewhat arbitrarily arrived at. The main selection criteria were that each paper represents a particular topic that was of educational and political interest at the time of publication; and that each would represent distinctiveness in terms of research approach and methods and style of presentation. There is a range of topics in each theme. Not surprisingly, there is considerable overlap between the themes.