The role of UNESCO in the global governance of education

Abstract

The multiple processes of globalization of the 1990s have drastically changed the context in which governance of education takes place, altering the relationship between sovereignty and territoriality in the education policy development, and transforming education policy spaces, content, and the governance processes, actors and structures. Over the past decades, scholars have tried to explore new frameworks through which to examine the current complex field of power relations in education, and specifically to understand better the role of intergovernmental organizations and the United Nations in it. In the context of the historical turn for international cooperation characterized by the efforts of achieving Sustainable Development Goals, this understanding could be instrumental for finding effective solutions to educational challenges, and for re-orienting educational policies in the light of sustainable development. Proposing innovative theoretical and methodological frameworks which required an interdisciplinary approach which draw from international relations theories, political economy, philosophy, pedagogy, sociology, and global education studies, applying the global governance theory to education, the research aims to investigate the complex landscape of the global governance of education, focusing on the role of intergovernmental organizations in it and, in particular, it examines the evolution of priorities of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in the agenda-setting process. By means of a mix methodology of content and discourse analyses, the main political and flagship publications of UNESCO are studied throughout a period that begins in 1990 and extends until 2017, since this timeframe encapsulates the timeline of particular international education agendas (Education for All and Sustainable Development Goals) and is marked by the rise of globalization and its effect on the governance of education. The research identifies the evolution of UNESCO’s role in the global governance of education connecting it with the endogenous and exogenous changes of the period selected; it explains how a specific mechanism of agenda-setting has gained relevance in UNESCO’s global governance role; and it illustrates the dialectic relationships between UNESCO’s priorities and those of the global education agendas that the Organization has helped shape. In so doing, this exercise could be useful as it not only provides a fresh outlook on the ways in which education governance can be analysed in contemporary interconnected world, but it also creates new perspectives for studying the role of intergovernmental organizations in global education policy. The findings of this research are a fresh contribution to the field that could be also utilized by governance actors such as UNESCO in order to reflect on, review and problematise their positioning within global governance.