Jurgen Schriewer - Böcker

Written by scholars and professionals from such organizations as the Council of Europe and the European Community, this volume provides a comprehensive examination of education throughout Europe. The particularities of national educational systems are of necessity within its purview, but overall organization of the volume reflects such thematic and regional concerns as the impact of social and economic integration on education, the modification of educational structures and curricula following the demise of communism in Eastern Europe, degree equivalency, the financing of educational change, privatization, the impact of migration and immigration, national concerns, intercultural education, and multiculturalism.The volume's experts discuss European education's common heritage and the distinct national traditions it preserves. They deal with the interpretations of European education systems put forward in the shape of educational theories or reform-oriented programs, policies, and ideologies, as well as with the social actors, forces, and movements that have fuelled reform. The book's chapters also address the challenges European education has to face as a consequence of processes of change occurring at multiple levels: at the levels of cultural values, socio-political reconstruction, intercultural migration, supra-national integration, and ongoing global interconnection.

Impressive strands of research have shown the emergent reality of increasing world-level interconnection in almost every field of social action. As a consequence, theories and models have been developed which are aimed at conceptualising this new reality along the lines of an ‘institutionalised’ World Culture. This offers a new understanding of the worldwide diffusion of specifically modern – i.e. mainly Western – rules, ideologies and organisational patterns, and of attendant harmonisation and standardisation of fields of social action. World Culture theories have not gone unchallenged. Rather, cross-cultural studies have revealed much more complex processes of regional fragmentation and (re-)diversification; of the refraction, appropriation, and hybridisation, through distinct socio-cultural conditioning, of world-level models and ideas; and of the ongoing effectiveness both of structural path-dependencies and of specifically cultural aspects such as collective memories, social meanings, and religious (or ideological) belief systems. Comparative research has thus highlighted an intricate simultaneity of contrary currents: of the increasing world-level interconnection of communication and exchange relations on the one hand, and, on the other, the persistence of context-specific interpretations, translations, and deviation-generating re-contextualisations of world-level forces and challenges.This research provides the theoretical problematique that animates this volume. The chapters explore the conceptual tools and explanatory power of theories and models which do not just oppose or reject World Culture theory, but are instead suited to complementing and differentiating it. The volume offers an enlightening conceptualisation of the intricate interaction of global processes with local agency, and of world-level forces with the self-evolutionary potentials inherent in specific contexts, socio-cultural structures, and distinctive meanings constellations. This book was originally published as a special issue of Comparative Education.

This volume explores the reception of John Dewey’s ideas in various historical and geographical settings such as Japan, China, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Spain, Russia, and Germany, analyzing how and why Dewey’s thought was interpreted in various ways according to mediating local discursive and ideological configurations and formations.

This volume explores the reception of John Dewey’s ideas in various historical and geographical settings such as Japan, China, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Spain, Russia, and Germany, analyzing how and why Dewey’s thought was interpreted in various ways according to mediating local discursive and ideological configurations and formations.

Impressive strands of research have shown the emergent reality of increasing world-level interconnection in almost every field of social action. As a consequence, theories and models have been developed which are aimed at conceptualising this new reality along the lines of an ‘institutionalised’ World Culture. This offers a new understanding of the worldwide diffusion of specifically modern – i.e. mainly Western – rules, ideologies and organisational patterns, and of attendant harmonisation and standardisation of fields of social action. World Culture theories have not gone unchallenged. Rather, cross-cultural studies have revealed much more complex processes of regional fragmentation and (re-)diversification; of the refraction, appropriation, and hybridisation, through distinct socio-cultural conditioning, of world-level models and ideas; and of the ongoing effectiveness both of structural path-dependencies and of specifically cultural aspects such as collective memories, social meanings, and religious (or ideological) belief systems. Comparative research has thus highlighted an intricate simultaneity of contrary currents: of the increasing world-level interconnection of communication and exchange relations on the one hand, and, on the other, the persistence of context-specific interpretations, translations, and deviation-generating re-contextualisations of world-level forces and challenges.This research provides the theoretical problematique that animates this volume. The chapters explore the conceptual tools and explanatory power of theories and models which do not just oppose or reject World Culture theory, but are instead suited to complementing and differentiating it. The volume offers an enlightening conceptualisation of the intricate interaction of global processes with local agency, and of world-level forces with the self-evolutionary potentials inherent in specific contexts, socio-cultural structures, and distinctive meanings constellations. This book was originally published as a special issue of Comparative Education.

However important the school may be as a vehicle to institutionalize and perpetuate democracy, it has been largely ignored by contemporary scholars of democratization especially in developing and former socialist countries. This book draws on new research as well as established classics in helping to fill the gap and map out useful directions for comparative inquiry on the role of education in democratization and transitions from centralized authority.

By analysing the proposals for teacher education drawn up by UNESCO, the World Bank and OECD, this book shows that even though each of these organizations has different views about education, their proposals are based on a similar set of assumptions about the future, and about how educational systems should be reformed to adapt to this future. In order to explore the effects of these proposals in different contexts, the book examines the educational reforms implemented in Argentina and Brazil in the 1990s, revealing how the discourse of international agencies was transformed as it met with local assumptions about what constitutes good education for teachers. The findings of this research are discussed within a broader theoretical model which makes it possible, thus, to map the circulation of discourse in the global educational field.

In the face of accelerated economic globalisation, many of the industries in economically less developed countries have become more technology-intensive. Skill formation processes, both inside and outside firms, are therefore changing. This study scrutinises such transformations by comparing – from the perspective of historical institutionalism – the skill formation regimes of the garment industries in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. It sheds light on the differences between the trajectories of the in-firm skill formation regimes of the two countries, and reveals the important part that varying paths of educational development in both countries have played in shaping these trajectories. At the same time, the study shows how, in both countries, state-led skill formation regimes have been transformed not only by market forces and the growing importance of corporate business interests, but also by the social demand for educational credentials.

As education becomes increasingly global, the processes and politics of transfer have become a central focus of research. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of contemporary theoretical and analytical work aimed at exploring international educational reform and reveals the myriad ways that globalization is now fundamentally altering our dominant conceptions. It illustrates how transfer has emerged to play a central part in policy formation processes worldwide, but also reveals critical differences between developed countries and aid-dependent developing states. This substantial breadth, combined with a level of empirical depth absent from current research, opens up new vistas through which to understand globalization, educational policy formation, and the modalities of transfer. In doing so, the book pushes for a reevaluation of several core assumptions of transfer and educational research more generally.

This book looks at the backstage of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development’s (OECD) educational agendas. By explaining the rise and fall of its first educational agenda – Recurrent Education – it explores the organisation’s institutional structures and functioning, as well as its decision-making processes. The volume brings together theoretical approaches and empirical findings to expound on the organisation’s three overlapping constitutive dimensions of actor, arena, and instrument. The study shows the significance of intertwined institutional and conceptual changes for educational agenda-setting and knowledge production within the organization. The author turns the focus from the diffusion/reception of international policies to their production, and analyses a large volume of internal documents across time (1960s–1980s).