Global Educational Governance Research Articles

Global governance of education: The historical and contemporary entanglements of UNESCO, the OECD and the World Bank

Global governance of education: The historical and contemporary entanglements of UNESCO, the OECD and the World Bank

Global governance and the promissory visions of education: challenges and agendas

ABSTRACT This article – and the special issue it introduces – contributes to the expanding scholarly literature on the global governance of education, with a particular focus on its future-oriented and ‘promissory’ dimension. Inspired by Beckert’s (2020) concept of ‘promissory’ legitimacy, a key contribution of this special issue is to critically analyse past and contemporary promissory narratives of the major international organisations and other global actors concerning the future of education. We focus on three overarching themes that emerge from the contributions to this special issue: Problems of legitimacy in the global governance of education; a shift towards multistakeholderism, which we explore through the lens of ‘the neuro-affective turn’; the use of crisis narratives as an instrument of global governance, and geopolitical shifts and the decline of the liberal world order.

Governance and duty in global refugee education: a Kantian perspective

The broad adoption of the human-rights based approach to refugee education has not only accentuated the link between education provision and the realization of human rights; it has re-framed refugees as right-bearers. This conceptual shift from ‘refugee as victim’ to ‘refugee as right-bearer’ carries with it immense implications also for the way we think of the duty-bearers of refugee education. Once we re-conceptualize refugees as right-bearers, we acknowledge, too, the primacy of duty-bearers and ‘global moral obligations’. In this article, I first consider the history of global governance of refugee education, dating back to the ratification of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. In tracing the shifting role of stakeholders in refugee education, I note, in particular, how the burden of responsibility of education policy and provision has oscillated between local host communities and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Next, I look at how rights and responsibilities are conceptualized in forced displacement context, that is, in the absence of a nation-state—traditionally considered the primary duty-bearer of human rights. Finally, I turn to Kant’s duty-based ethics, and suggest a Kantian perspective can help expand our understanding of duties and duty-bearers in global refugee education.

The OECD’s new discourse of curriculum reform: student agency, competency, colonization, and translation

Abstract The Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) global governance of education has been gradually increasing. Its field of interest is currently expanding from educational evaluation through the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) to curriculum reform through the Education 2030 project. Here, it is interesting to note that the nature of the terms the OECD has been creating reveals a ‘humanistic turn’. This shows up well in the frequent occurrence of terms such as ‘well-being’, ‘attitudes and values’, ‘inclusiveness’, ‘responsibility’, and ‘sustainability’ in the ongoing Education 2030 project. Perhaps this new humanistic discourse increases the likelihood of the smooth adoption of the OECD’s proposed curriculum redesign in more countries. If the OECD’s new discourse captures and transforms contemporary people’s ways of thought and practice about education, then this is related to the problem of colonialism in our era. It is also worth noting that language plays a vital role in colonization. In particular, the need for translation between different languages serves as a useful means for colonization. Conversely, it is also seen as having a potential decolonizing power. In this context, I would like to examine the new language the OECD has adopted, specifically regarding student experience and the nature of knowing. Next, I shall attempt to criticize the underlying educational assumptions in the OECD’s pronouncements. Following this, I shall explore how the OECD’s new discourse has been translated in South Korea, taking this as an example of wider experience in the East Asian context and possibly elsewhere. Finally, I shall conclude by considering the direction of curriculum decolonization in terms of translation.

Performing a global learning crisis: citizen-led assessments, social accountability, and directing democracy

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes how the citizen-led assessment (CLA), which measures and publicises learning levels in education, triggers bottom-up reform. Drawing on science studies and political theory, the paper examines the performative effects of the CLA in Kenya, showing how it (1) produces a crisis by projecting poor learning outcomes, (2) mobilises feelings to spur action, and (3) enacts a global education reform strategy. The paper discusses how the performance of the CLA’s egalitarian politics foregrounds human actors while backgrounding the work of the sociotechnical practices that script their actions. Moreover, the analysis reveals a paradox, highlighting how the CLA projects educational inequality as the pre-political backdrop for egalitarian development, locating efforts to empower citizens within a knowledge-power nexus of global educational governance. The paper calls for closer scrutiny of how social accountability tools choreograph education reforms by protecting the sociotechnical mechanisms that project inequalities, and the manner these practices direct democracy.

An investigation into the optimal allocation of resources for China's universities to participate in global education governance based on queuing theory

Abstract Queuing theory is used to classify the regularity of educational resource allocation by hierarchy in this paper. The Poisson distribution is used to label the resource queue interval parameters to obtain the expected value of individual queues. The average delay of each class of packets can be reasonably predicted by concatenating individual resources using the Lagrange multiplier algorithm. The load balancing algorithm in each queueing series calculates the average arrival rate of task requests to achieve an optimal model design. The results show that, under the guidance of queuing theory, the coefficient of variance in the participation of Chinese university students in global education governance is reduced by 0.25% on average, and the average of comprehensive efficiency reaches about 1.01%, which realizes the optimal and reasonable allocation of resources.

Educational Reform and Prospects in the Post-pandemic Era

The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted global education, leading to a surge in online education, a pressing need for global online educational resources, a balanced focus on K12 and higher education, widespread adoption of new technologies in education, and rapid development of specialized education platforms. These changes have posed numerous challenges and triggered multidimensional transformations in educational philosophies, models, assessment methods, teaching resources, and the integration of education with new technologies. Additionally, the formation of an international educational community and the reconstruction of educational ecosystems have become key considerations. To address these challenges, this paper proposes the rapid transformation of educational concepts, from traditional views to a future-oriented perspective that caters to the unique learning needs of each individual, enabling education that is accessible, continuous, and personalized through leveraging advanced technologies like the Internet, big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. The paper also suggests increasing investment in educational resources, enhancing network infrastructure and facilities, improving top-level designs for educational resources, promoting international exchanges and resource sharing, and establishing a comprehensive policy and guarantee system to tackle the structural insufficiency of high-quality educational resources. Furthermore, diversified teaching methods, such as blended learning and flipped classrooms, are proposed to meet the diverse learning needs. The paper emphasizes the importance of enhancing teachers' information technology application capabilities to align with the developmental needs of schools. It also advocates for increased participation of China in global education governance and the promotion and implementation of innovative Chinese educational ideas on a global scale. Initiatives such as leading post-pandemic global education and education informatisation plans are suggested to drive the formulation of relevant standards, international conventions, and the advancement of domestic education governance, thus enhancing China's contributions and influence in global education governance.

Global Salvation Inc.: Sir Michael Barber’s education for the apocalypse and the church of Deliverology®

ABSTRACT Drawing on insights from philosophy and theology, we explore the relationship between religion, data and global education policy through an analysis of the career of Sir Michael Barber, widely regarded as an authority on the reform of public services and an influential policy entrepreneur. The analysis provides a novel perspective which illuminates how secularised salvation narratives and apocalyptic symbolism have become more prominent in his work as he rose to become a global actor. The story is entwined with the turn towards New Public Management (NPM) in education, the rise of international large-scale assessments (ILSAs), and the transition from speculative faith to salvation through the ‘science of delivery’. We follow Barber's role in formalising the faith as a secular political theology, and promoting it globally through Delivery Units and the management doctrine of Deliverology®. The analysis closes by reflecting on the practical implications of the movement, which is now woven into the institutional ideologies and reform strategies of major international organisations, agencies and corporations as part of a wider shift towards New Global Management (NGM) in global education governance.

The G20 and the Think 20 as new global education policy actors? Discursive analysis of roles and policy ideas

PurposeThe Group of Twenty (G20) has substantial influence in global economic policy but has been peripheral in global education governance. There is intensification of education policy-relevant engagement within the Think 20 (T20), the “ideas bank” and official engagement group of the G20. The authors analyse the evolution of education as a policy domain within the T20, the ideas and discursive framing of education and global education policy “solutions” and assumptions about the G20 in education policy engagement.Design/methodology/approachThe authors view the T20 as an external actor that can mobilise policy-relevant ideas to G20 actors responsible for internal policy selection and translation. The analysis covers the period 2018–2021 when education became an explicit T20 policy area. The authors screened all 461 T20 policy briefs across all domains. Of these, 32 briefs and four final T20 Summit communiqués were reviewed using critical discourse analysis. Data were supplemented via organisational websites and tacit professional knowledge.FindingsThree assumptions on the G20 as an actor prevailed: (1) policymaker, (2) policy shaper and (3) knowledge mobiliser. The framing ideas on education were linked to assumptions on drivers of education system reform as intertwined with, or to enable: (1) economic adaptation, (2) technical adaptation and (3) socio-political adaptation of individuals and societies.Originality/valueAccelerated education engagement within the T20 and its direct reach to G20 leaders makes it, and the G20, analytically unique and new unexamined actors of potential influence. The authors conclude that the T20 is positioned as a unique actor, both that can mobilise education policy-relevant ideas to G20 leaders, and legitimised as the actor from which G20 leaders and policymakers should adopt ideas.

Analyzing the Impact of Anti-Globalization on the Evolution of Higher Education Internationalization in China

The internationalization of higher education, driven by the wave of globalization, has become a crucial pathway for enhancing national competitiveness and fostering cross-cultural understanding. However, in recent years, the rise of anti-globalization sentiment fueled by populism, trade protectionism, and geopolitical tensions has posed new challenges to this process. As a major player in global higher education, China's internationalization efforts have been significantly affected by these developments. In this context, it is important to thoroughly investigate the transformative trends in China's higher education internationalization and their implications for the global educational landscape. To address the challenges brought about by the anti-globalization wave, this study employed a mixed-methods approach, integrating qualitative techniques such as document analysis and interviews with quantitative methods involving measurements of key internationalization indicators. Through this systematic examination, the research comprehensively analyzed the current state, major challenges, and coping strategies adopted by Chinese universities in their internationalization efforts. By conducting in-depth interviews with university administrators and international affairs staff, as well as surveys among international students in China, this study presents a multidimensional portrayal of the transformative trends in China's higher education internationalization. The research findings reveal that in the face of anti-globalization pressures, Chinese universities are undertaking a series of strategic adjustments, including strengthening international partnerships, diversifying student recruitment, and promoting virtual exchanges and collaborations. Simultaneously, the focus of higher education internationalization is shifting towards a "dual circulation" development model, establishing China as a global study destination, and building international university alliances. These transformations not only inject new vitality into China's higher education internationalization, but also open up new avenues for global education governance and talent cultivation. This study sheds light on the complex landscape of China's higher education internationalization amidst the anti-globalization wave, contributing valuable insights and perspectives to promote the high-quality development of higher education internationalization.

White Ignorance in Global Education

In this qualitative research essay, Francine Menashy and Zeena Zakharia advance Charles Mills’s concept of White ignorance for understanding racial power hierarchies in global education governance. They reveal how global education organizations “sanitize racial inequities and silence conversations on race” and how in global education racism has been largely considered a US-based problem, which denies the fact that White supremacy is a global system. The authors argue that White ignorance has inhibited structural change in global education policies and practices. And while the Black Lives Matter movement has called for a global reckoning with entrenched racism and White supremacy, limited attention has been paid to racial inequities in global education circles.

Platforms, profits and PISA for schools: new actors, by-passes and topological spaces in global educational governance

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) PISA for Schools assessment. Our first substantive focus is a descriptive and analytical account of changes and developments in the functioning of this ground-breaking assessment since its creation in 2012. These changes include an expansion of the number and diversity of participating schools and countries, the introduction of a ‘user-pays’ model, the enhanced role of edtech firms and an explicit capacity-building focus, which we argue helps to strengthen an instrument constituency for the broader OECD testing regime. The second focus of the paper is the impact of PISA for Schools on changing modes of educational governance, situated against emerging spatialities of globalisation. Here, we provide an analysis using the concept of ‘by-passes’, which we elaborate as spatial, governance and systemic, to understand the new topological spatialities of globalisation and the global governance effects of these specific by-passes.

Generating and managing legitimacy: how the OECD established its role in monitoring sustainable development goal 4

ABSTRACT This paper identifies and analyses the legitimation strategies used by the OECD as it expanded its role in global educational governance. Whilst the literature recognises the mainly discursive sources of legitimacy which the OECD derives from its testing regime, especially PISA, what remains unexplored is how exactly it has created the legitimacy to monitor SDG 4 – an arena where it has not been previously involved. Drawing on Suchman’s framework for analysing organisational legitimacy, we identify six strategies. We show how these: were used to promote the OECD’s pragmatic, moral, and cognitive legitimacy; progressed over time from low-key passive conformity to active manipulation; and, operated on both an episodic and a continual basis.

The No Child Left Behind Act in the Global Architecture of Educational Accountability

AbstractAlthough chiefly framed in the context of domestic education policy, debates about the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) echoed international education policy debates and the workings of global education governance. As this article demonstrates, both domestic and international efforts were shaped by three key features: tension between centralized goals and historically localized practices and authorities; links between education policy goals and a set of rhetorical arguments centered on human capital; and competitive comparisons among education systems that mixed market rhetoric with prestige dynamics. These common features can be attributed to the development of a “soft governance” layer, in which multilateral surveillance plays a major part. In the US, such development began before NCLB, accelerated during the NCLB era, and remained after NCLB was replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015.

The education Sustainable Development Goal and the generative power of failing metrics

Abstract The article traces the development of the epistemic infrastructure of the education sustainable development goal (SDG) in order to examine the ways that the incremental buildup of the discourse, technical expertise, and necessary—although always fragile—alliances facilitated a paradigmatic policy shift in the field of education: This is the move from the measurement of schooling to the measurement of learning. Through an analytical lens that examines the entanglement of the material, semiotic, and political and temporal/spatial elements of the infrastructure, the article shows how the sustainable development goal 4 (SDG4) as an epistemic infrastructure enabled a fundamental reorientation in the field of global education governance. The article discusses the ways that quantification, despite—and often thanks to—its failings, folded contested discourses, decision-making, politics, and ideas into its processes. Thus, the paper argues that the making of the SDG4 represents a paradigmatic policy shift; one that is not only to be traced in the move from schooling to the policy prioritization of learning outcomes but also in the very production of global public policy through the work of the SDGs as epistemic infrastructures.

New philanthropy and policy networks in global education governance: the case of OECD's netFWD

Based on network ethnography and social network analysis, this paper takes the Network of Foundations Working for Development (netFWD), created by the OECD in 2012, as an example of an emergent transnational network of global policy actors. By convening some of the world's most important private philanthropy providers, the network is pursuing a new philanthropy rationale in global education governance, more engaged on results, networking, skill development, and evaluation based on standardised data. The results show the OECD's central role in the network, acting as a place of knowledge production and social order, and that netFWD can provide an opportunity to expand new forms of political influence and enactment by international organisations and non-state actors in the global education governance.

Educating for the future? Mapping the emerging lines of precision education governance

Managing the future has become one of the major focuses of global governance in education. In its current mode, education seems unable to answer the needs and interests of the market and future megatrends, such as globalisation and digitalisation. Calls for precision education to introduce the usage of digital platforms, artificial intelligence in education, and knowledge from the behavioural and life sciences are getting a foothold in widening powerful networks of strengthening global governance and EdTech business. By bringing together some of the emerging changes in education governance, in this article we argue for a new constitution of governance, precision education governance. Precision education governance combines three overlapping and strengthening lines of governance: (i) global governance of education, (ii) marketisation, privatisation and digitalisation, and (iii) behavioural and life sciences as the basis for managing the future education. In the article, we highlight the importance in bringing these so far separately studied lines together to understand how they shape the aims and outcomes of education, knowledge and understanding of human subjectivity more thoroughly than before.

CCSS 개혁이 미국의 체육교과 교육과정에 미친 영향 : 교육과정 표준화 동향

This paper describes the development of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) that has emerged in the backdrop of global educational governance, examining how CCSS influenced the school-based physical education (PE) curriculum in the United States (US). Since the new millennium, states have adopted CCSS as part of standards-based reform with the aim of offering local entities both educational flexibility and consistency. After the implementation of CCSS, however, the school curriculum in the US tends to be standardized focusing on the CCSS system due to an increased influence of the federal government. In this national context, the profession of PE has made multifaceted efforts to address this nationwide reform movement by establishing national standards and summative teacher guidelines, grade-level outcomes, and assessment systems, thereby building a unified common foundation in the field. Such system-wide change, however, does not necessarily signal total standardization for PE curricula. Expansive discourses and debates among professionals in the field have exerted significant limits on curriculum standardization. This implies that although policies for K-12 PE have been assembled focusing on the CCSS movement, the implementation in local programs remains distinct in form and scope due to multiple unique features of each program.

Global Education Governance in the Context of COVID-19: Tensions and Threats to Education as a Public Good.

This article discusses the failure of global governance to defend and reinforce education as a public good and its public provision and regulation. Challenging the framing of states and the private sector as being equally important for the achievement of the SDGs, it calls for a reimagination of the role of global governance and an accountability structure that places the economic, social and environmental consequences of policy and financing modalities at the centre.

‘In numbers we trust’: Statistical data as governing technologies in the era of student achievement and school accountability

This study examines the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), one of the most influential tools of global education reform discourses in the 21st century. The study focuses on the governing role of statistical data in the discourse constructed by the international comparative assessment, referring to the global educational governance of the OECD. Disturbingly, the systematic collection and distribution of data does not merely quantify student achievement. Rather, students and participating countries are also qualified and classified. Here, OECD’s PISA statistics act as a governing technology enabling the comparisons; through PISA’s statistics, the OECD has largely fostered the test-driven education reform trends worldwide. In this study, statistical data are examined as political instruments visualizing intangible concepts, constructing definitions of good practice and improvement, and fabricating the individuals whose knowledge and skills are normalized. In conclusion, it is necessary to rethink the new sociopolitical instrument – PISA’s statistics – not as a master rationale to reform the educational system of each country, but as a mere reference point based on the system’s distinctiveness.