Globalization, Structural Adjustment and Contemporary Educational Reforms in Australia: The Politics of Reform, or the Reform of Politics?

Abstract

The key questions posed to contributors to this volume centred on the relationship between economic globalization and educational reforms — how far, if at all, and if so in which ways, were the principles and practices licensed by structural adjustment influential in the reform of education? And to what extent did educational reforms contribute to wider processes of structural adjustment? While it is evident from the international literature in education that structural adjustment has had distinct effects on key questions of educational reform (Amove, 1997; Boron and Torres, 1996; Reimers, 1991; UNESCO, 1996; Welch, 2000a, 2001) and on society more generally, over the last decade or two of the twentieth century, it is equally clear that national contours significantly affect the extent to which such principles and practices are implemented, as also their effects. Not merely is this a question of the extent to which historically contingent practices such as corporatism (see below) can simply be imported into very different national contexts (Beeson, 1997; Katzenstein, 1985; Kreisler and Halevi, 1997), it also throws into relief one of the key debates underlying the globalization thesis: the extent to which the state can and should intervene effectively, to mitigate the effects of what can broadly be termed the structural adjustment process, especially in an era of heightened international competitiveness, global markets, and the enhanced mobility of international capital.