What do you need to know to live in the world? Global educational reform and the democratisation of knowledge

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper is an interpretive study of a Global Educational Reform Movement marshalling Global Education, Global Citizenship Education, Global Competence and twenty-first Century Skills in response to the problems caused by capitalist globalisation and a technological society. What kind of knowledge is being endorsed by this educational reform movement? Using Critical Discourse Analysis this paper shows that Interpretivist methodological capability is part of what GERM actors think you need to know to live in the world. This raises a puzzle: why are technocratic organisations engaged in metrological politics endorsing interpretive methodological capability? GERM is content driven and despite many well founded critiques, needs to be theorised under the rubric of Global Knowledge Politics. I employ the concept ‘knowledge monopolies’ from Canadian Political Economist Harold Innis as a way of theorising the complexities of GERM. My study points to the necessity for a conversation about the democratisation of knowledge.