Education in Global Context – serie

Drawing on scholarship from the field of internationalisation in higher education and other theoretical influences in education policy, comparative education and sociology of education, this edited collection offers a much-needed extension of discussion and research into the compulsory schooling context. In this book, established and emerging scholars provide an authoritative set of conceptual tools for researchers in the field of internationalisation of compulsory schooling. It provides an overview of the current knowledge base and ways in which future research could engage with gaps in understandings. Through detailed case studies of the multiple forms of internationalisation present within schools and schooling systems, the volume considers why and how processes of internationalisation are shaping compulsory schooling today. This book will offer scholars and educators a clearer, more coherent set of conceptual frameworks within which to position their work in sociology of education, and international and comparative education, helping to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the many ways compulsory schooling is being internationalised, and with what consequences.

Globalizing Educational Accountabilities analyzes the influence that international and national testing and accountability regimes have on educational policy reform efforts in schooling systems around the world. Tracing the evolution of those regimes, with an emphasis on the OECD’s PISA, it reveals the multiple effects of policy as numbers in countries with different types of government and different education systems. From the effect of Shanghai’s PISA success on nations trying to compete economically to the perverse effects of linking funding to performance targets in Australia, the analysis links testing and accountability to new modes of network governance, new spatialities, and the significance of data infrastructures. This highly illustrative text offers scholars and policy makers a critical policy sociology framework for doing education policy analysis today.

This book fills a gap in the literature by focusing on globalization with regard to the rescaling of educational accountabilities, linked to international and national testing regimes and their impact. In particular, this book examines the impact and effects of this global framework in two illustrative nations: Australia and Canada. The focus on these two nations, which have very different forms of federalism, allows for consideration of the rescaling of politics and policies in the context of globalization and for an analysis of the complex rescaling of educational accountabilities. It is the first book to document and analyse the multi-scalar, relational and differentiated effects in national schooling systems of this rescaling of educational accountability. The authors also consider the ways in which these accountability regimes have rearticulated social justice and equity policies within nations in reductive ways. It offers scholars and policy makers both a methodology and an epistemological framework grounded in critical policy sociology for doing education policy analysis in a time of neo-liberal globalization.

China’s investment in U.S. higher education has raised considerable debate, but little research has been directed to the manner in which this investment unfolds and takes shape on the ground in local contexts. Confucius and Crisis in American Universities fills this gap by closely investigating how Chinese-funded U.S. programs are understood and configured in the modern American university. Drawing on interviews with Chinese teachers and their American students, as well as conversations with university administrators, this book argues that Chinese investment in American higher education serves as a broad form of global policy, harnessing the power of intercultural exchange as a means of managing international diplomatic relations through the experiences of university students. A transnational study, Confucius and Crisis in American Universities questions and reframes conventional notions of economic globalization and flexible citizenship, demonstrating how Chinese investment in U.S. education advances the lives of the already-privileged by creating access to overseas labor and markets, but to the exclusion of middle- and working-class students. A valuable and timely resource for scholars of education and anthropology, this book will also be useful to anyone interested in education policy or international affairs.

Social Class and Education: Global Perspectives is the first empirically grounded volume to explore the intersections of class, social structure, opportunity, and education on a truly global scale. Fifteen essays from contributors representing the US, Europe, China, Latin America and other regions offer an unparralleled examination of how social class differences are made and experienced through schooling. By underscoring the consequences of our new global reality, this volume takes seriously the transnational migration of commerce, capital and peoples and the ramifications of such for education and social structure. Moving beyond national confines, internationally recognized scholars, Lois Weis and Nadine Dolby, offer a set of emblematic essays that break new theoretical and empirical ground on the ways class is produced and maintained through education around the world.

Social Class and Education: Global Perspectives is the first empirically grounded volume to explore the intersections of class, social structure, opportunity, and education on a truly global scale. Fifteen essays from contributors representing the US, Europe, China, Latin America and other regions offer an unparralleled examination of how social class differences are made and experienced through schooling. By underscoring the consequences of our new global reality, this volume takes seriously the transnational migration of commerce, capital and peoples and the ramifications of such for education and social structure. Moving beyond national confines, internationally recognized scholars, Lois Weis and Nadine Dolby, offer a set of emblematic essays that break new theoretical and empirical ground on the ways class is produced and maintained through education around the world.

Drawing on scholarship from the field of internationalisation in higher education and other theoretical influences in education policy, comparative education and sociology of education, this edited collection offers a much-needed extension of discussion and research into the compulsory schooling context. In this book, established and emerging scholars provide an authoritative set of conceptual tools for researchers in the field of internationalisation of compulsory schooling. It provides an overview of the current knowledge base and ways in which future research could engage with gaps in understandings. Through detailed case studies of the multiple forms of internationalisation present within schools and schooling systems, the volume considers why and how processes of internationalisation are shaping compulsory schooling today. This book will offer scholars and educators a clearer, more coherent set of conceptual frameworks within which to position their work in sociology of education, and international and comparative education, helping to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the many ways compulsory schooling is being internationalised, and with what consequences.

A response to Argentina’s shifting political climate, Global Liberalism and Elite Schooling in Argentina reveals how elite schooling encourages the hoarding of educational advantage and reinforces social inequalities. Presenting Buenos Aires’s Caledonian School as part of the growing scholarly discussion on elite education in the Global South, Howard Prosser situates the school’s history in concert with that of the state, the region, and the globe. The book applies new methodologies for the study of elite schools in globalizing circumstances by fusing ethnographic fieldwork with archival research and a wealth of secondary sources. This transdisciplinary approach focuses on the nature of liberalism as a global ideal, positing that eliteness is sustained by an economy with its own culture of value and exchange that, ironically, the scholarship on elites may help perpetuate.

A response to Argentina’s shifting political climate, Global Liberalism and Elite Schooling in Argentina reveals how elite schooling encourages the hoarding of educational advantage and reinforces social inequalities. Presenting Buenos Aires’s Caledonian School as part of the growing scholarly discussion on elite education in the Global South, Howard Prosser situates the school’s history in concert with that of the state, the region, and the globe. The book applies new methodologies for the study of elite schools in globalizing circumstances by fusing ethnographic fieldwork with archival research and a wealth of secondary sources. This transdisciplinary approach focuses on the nature of liberalism as a global ideal, positing that eliteness is sustained by an economy with its own culture of value and exchange that, ironically, the scholarship on elites may help perpetuate.

Geography matters to elite schools — to how they function and flourish, to how they locate themselves and their Others. Like their privileged clientele they use geography as a resource to elevate themselves. They mark, and market, place. This collection, as a whole, reads elite schools through a spatial lens. It offers fresh lines of inquiry to the ‘new sociology of elite schools.’ Collectively the authors examine elite schools and systems in different parts of the world. They highlight the ways that these schools, and their clients, operate within diverse local, national, regional, and global contexts in order to shape their own and their clients’ privilege and prestige. The collection also points to the uses of the transnational as a resource via the International Baccalaureate, study tours, and the discourses of global citizenship. Building on research about social class, meritocracy, privilege, and power in education, it offers inventive critical lenses and insights particularly from the ‘Global South.’ As such it is an intervention in global power/knowledge geographies.