New Directions in Comparative and International Education – serie

What does educational policy-making and institutional practice entail in an era of globalization? Global interactions challenge conventional assumptions governing the certainty of geographical boundedness; simplistic notions of citizenship and identity; fixed notions of time, space and movement, and clear distinctions between economic modes of production and consumption. Irving Epstein argues that conventional educational institutions and the policies that support them tend to ignore such anxiety by affirming a belief in educational modernism to the exclusion of other possibilities. What is missing in most of these analyses is an appreciation for the role of affect in determining how our encounters with these practices become significant and how our efforts to find meaning in those policies and practices lead to their acceptance or rejection. This book is the first application of affect theory to comparative education themes and shows how it can help to form a more robust discussion of the policy-making process and the popular reactions to it. After discussing the key concepts associated with affect theory, he presents a total of six case studies. Three of the cases depict relationships between educational, cultural, and social organizations whose purposes conflict with one another but whose presence is indicative of a loss of faith in the efficacy of public schooling. Three of the cases are illustrative of an even greater systematic rejection of educational institutional aim and purpose.

Illuminating thus far understudied international relations in global higher education, the book titled Internationalization of Higher Education for Development illustrates how the Brazilian government, under the presidency of Luis Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010), legitimized Africa-Brazil relations often referring to the presumably shared history of transatlantic slavery as the condition for solidarity cooperation and international integration. Ress reveals how this notion of history produces a vision of Brazil as a multicultural nation able to redress longstanding racialized inequalities while casting ‘Africa’ as the continent that remains forever in the past. She explores how this ambiguous notion was translated into curricula and classroom practices, and, in particular how it shaped international students’ experiences at a newly-created university in the Northeast of Brazil. Ress demonstrates how the historicized framing in conjunction with the powerfully racialized class structures that characterize Brazilian society, the challenging material conditions surrounding the university, and the future aspirations of students created an environment that made solidarity an economic necessity while repeating the century-old colonial gesture of othering ‘Africa’ in new yet all too familiar ways – reworking and reemploying the idea of race in the name of Brazil’s progress and development.This book showcases in an innovative way the challenges and opportunities of building international relations in postcolonial education contexts. A much-needed advances over current scholarship analysing race, blackness, and solidarity, it offers a timely contribution to postfoundational and postcolonial studies in comparative and international education.

Understanding PISA's Attractiveness examines how policy makers and the media interpret the results of PISA league-leaders, losers, and slippers in ways that suit their own reform agendas. As a result, a myriad of explanations exist as to why an educational system is high or low performing. The chapters, written by leading scholars from Australia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, the UK and the USA, provide a fascinating account of why results from PISA and other international large-scale assessments are interpreted and translated differently in the various countries. The analyses in this book bring to light the wide array of idiosyncratic projections into these international tests. In some countries, these tests are also used to scandalise one’s own educational system and to generate quasi-external reform pressure. Compiled by two leading scholars in comparative education, Florian Waldow and Gita Steiner-Khamsi, this book offers a truly global perspective on the uses and abuses of PISA and will be of great interest to students and academics working in educational policy, comparative education and political science and those working on large-scale data sets.

El Chavo del Ocho is one of the most influential pieces of popular culture to have hit Latin America in the last 50 years, having, at the peak of its popularity in the mid-1970s, reached an approximate audience of 350 million across the Americas. It is also a rare example of a cultural product that has travelled through Latin America, leaving a lasting impact for several decades.Resonances of El Chavo del Ocho in Latin American Childhood, Schooling, and Societies analyses the phenomenon of El Chavo, and its images of schooling and childhood, Latin American-ness, class and experience. With contributions from scholars emerging from or based in countries including Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia and the US, the book combines reflections from a variety of international perspectives without attempting to compare or reach consensus on any ultimate meaning(s) of the work. The book explores themes such as images of schooling and childhood, romantization of poverty, the prevalence of non-traditional families and the bordering cynicism towards the economic structures and inequalities which, some argue, make the show transgressive and quite uniquely Latin American. Investigating the connection between visual culture studies and transcultural curriculum studies, this innovative title provides scholars with original new insights into conceptualizing childhood, schooling and society in Latin America.

Set against the backdrop of globalization and global philanthropy, this book offers new perspectives on the sociological dynamics and governance implications of ‘social entrepreneurial’ policy in education. It examines the spatialities, relationships and culture that powerfully mediated the making and localisation of 'Teach for Bangladesh'.This globalised and philanthropy-backed reform model is based on 'Teach for America/All' (TfA) which promotes social entrepreneurial solutions to educational problems across continents. The authors demonstrate how TfB's policy model travelled through networks of diaspora, finance, technology and media and became established in Bangladesh through complex policy work. The book documents empirical research from Bangladesh to draw out broader implications in relation to education policy-making and policy content in today’s globalizing world. The book also contributes to ongoing debates in contemporary comparative education about North-South dialogue, policy mobility and transfer, philanthrocapitalism, and international teacher education.

Understanding PISA's Attractiveness examines how policy makers and the media interpret the results of PISA league-leaders, losers, and slippers in ways that suit their own reform agendas. As a result, a myriad of explanations exist as to why an educational system is high or low performing. The chapters, written by leading scholars from Australia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, the UK and the USA, provide a fascinating account of why results from PISA and other international large-scale assessments are interpreted and translated differently in the various countries. The analyses in this book bring to light the wide array of idiosyncratic projections into these international tests. In some countries, these tests are also used to scandalise one’s own educational system and to generate quasi-external reform pressure. Compiled by two leading scholars in comparative education, Florian Waldow and Gita Steiner-Khamsi, this book offers a truly global perspective on the uses and abuses of PISA and will be of great interest to students and academics working in educational policy, comparative education and political science and those working on large-scale data sets.

What does educational policy-making and institutional practice entail in an era of globalization? Global interactions challenge conventional assumptions governing the certainty of geographical boundedness; simplistic notions of citizenship and identity; fixed notions of time, space and movement, and clear distinctions between economic modes of production and consumption. Irving Epstein argues that conventional educational institutions and the policies that support them tend to ignore such anxiety by affirming a belief in educational modernism to the exclusion of other possibilities. What is missing in most of these analyses is an appreciation for the role of affect in determining how our encounters with these practices become significant and how our efforts to find meaning in those policies and practices lead to their acceptance or rejection. This book is the first application of affect theory to comparative education themes and shows how it can help to form a more robust discussion of the policy-making process and the popular reactions to it. After discussing the key concepts associated with affect theory, he presents a total of six case studies. Three of the cases depict relationships between educational, cultural, and social organizations whose purposes conflict with one another but whose presence is indicative of a loss of faith in the efficacy of public schooling. Three of the cases are illustrative of an even greater systematic rejection of educational institutional aim and purpose.

Illuminating thus far understudied international relations in global higher education, the book titled Internationalization of Higher Education for Development illustrates how the Brazilian government, under the presidency of Luis Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010), legitimized Africa-Brazil relations often referring to the presumably shared history of transatlantic slavery as the condition for solidarity cooperation and international integration. Ress reveals how this notion of history produces a vision of Brazil as a multicultural nation able to redress longstanding racialized inequalities while casting ‘Africa’ as the continent that remains forever in the past. She explores how this ambiguous notion was translated into curricula and classroom practices, and, in particular how it shaped international students’ experiences at a newly-created university in the Northeast of Brazil. Ress demonstrates how the historicized framing in conjunction with the powerfully racialized class structures that characterize Brazilian society, the challenging material conditions surrounding the university, and the future aspirations of students created an environment that made solidarity an economic necessity while repeating the century-old colonial gesture of othering ‘Africa’ in new yet all too familiar ways – reworking and reemploying the idea of race in the name of Brazil’s progress and development.This book showcases in an innovative way the challenges and opportunities of building international relations in postcolonial education contexts. A much-needed advances over current scholarship analysing race, blackness, and solidarity, it offers a timely contribution to postfoundational and postcolonial studies in comparative and international education.

Drawing upon the long tradition of recalcitrant thought in Western humanist scholarship, this book rethinks education and educational research at a time of intense social transformation. By revisiting a range of post-foundational ideas and developing their own methodological experiment, Stephen Carney and Ulla Ambrosius Madsen reimagine the possibilities for the comparative study of education. Exploring the experiences of young people in Denmark, South Korea and Zambia, this book illustrates how these very different contexts are increasingly connected by common narratives of purpose, as well as overheated promises of success.Focusing on the writings of Jean Baudrillard, the authors examine them in the context of works by other theorists of modernity, to explore processes of simulation and disappearance that are shaping life worldwide. In the process, the authors paint a rich portrait of education and schooling as a site of joy, hope, pain and ambivalence. Encompassing both theoretical and methodological innovation, Education in Radical Uncertainty provides inspiration for scholars and students attempting to approach the fields of comparative education, education policy and youth studies anew.

Set against the backdrop of globalization and global philanthropy, this book offers new perspectives on the sociological dynamics and governance implications of ‘social entrepreneurial’ policy in education. It examines the spatialities, relationships and culture that powerfully mediated the making and localisation of 'Teach for Bangladesh'.This globalised and philanthropy-backed reform model is based on 'Teach for America/All' (TfA) which promotes social entrepreneurial solutions to educational problems across continents. The authors demonstrate how TfB's policy model travelled through networks of diaspora, finance, technology and media and became established in Bangladesh through complex policy work. The book documents empirical research from Bangladesh to draw out broader implications in relation to education policy-making and policy content in today’s globalizing world. The book also contributes to ongoing debates in contemporary comparative education about North-South dialogue, policy mobility and transfer, philanthrocapitalism, and international teacher education.

What can a study of international film contribute to our understanding of education in a globalized context? How can such an exploration further push the boundaries of comparative and international education (CIE) as an academic field? In addressing these questions, Irving Epstein brings together insights from film theory, affect theory and CIE to explore the ways in which educational meanings are mediated through globalization processes. Some of the many films discussed in detail in the book include Parasite, Small Axe, My Octopus Teacher, The Pearl Button, and A Separation. Epstein shows how films can speak broadly to issues involving social class privilege, racism, colonialism and indigeneity, and environmental justice regarding educational concerns.

What can a study of international film contribute to our understanding of education in a globalized context? How can such an exploration further push the boundaries of comparative and international education (CIE) as an academic field? In addressing these questions, Irving Epstein brings together insights from film theory, affect theory and CIE to explore the ways in which educational meanings are mediated through globalization processes. Some of the many films discussed in detail in the book include Parasite, Small Axe, My Octopus Teacher, The Pearl Button, and A Separation. Epstein shows how films can speak broadly to issues involving social class privilege, racism, colonialism and indigeneity, and environmental justice regarding educational concerns.

Drawing upon the long tradition of recalcitrant thought in Western humanist scholarship, this book rethinks education and educational research at a time of intense social transformation. By revisiting a range of post-foundational ideas and developing their own methodological experiment, Stephen Carney and Ulla Ambrosius Madsen reimagine the possibilities for the comparative study of education. Exploring the experiences of young people in Denmark, South Korea and Zambia, this book illustrates how these very different contexts are increasingly connected by common narratives of purpose, as well as overheated promises of success.Focusing on the writings of Jean Baudrillard, the authors examine them in the context of works by other theorists of modernity, to explore processes of simulation and disappearance that are shaping life worldwide. In the process, the authors paint a rich portrait of education and schooling as a site of joy, hope, pain and ambivalence. Encompassing both theoretical and methodological innovation, Education in Radical Uncertainty provides inspiration for scholars and students attempting to approach the fields of comparative education, education policy and youth studies anew.