The Oxford Handbook of Education and Globalization

Abstract

The categories commonly mobilized to think about education have long been associated with the notion of the nation state and have functioned as obstacles, rather than resources, for our understanding of how globalization plays out in this particular field. In the last two decades, both social theory and comparative politics have attempted to overcome these limitations in their own way. Social theory increasingly acknowledged education as a global phenomenon. Theories have been developed to describe a global society evolving across borders. They show how, through processes that remain debated (cultural isomorphism, capitalism, functional differentiation), a number of structural and semantic evolutions have spread across education systems. Part I of this Handbook is dedicated to presenting, discussing, and comparing three such theories of globalization and their implications for our understanding of education and education policy. Comparative politics has for its part concerned itself with developing a more complex, less unified, and “transformationalist” view of the state by acknowledging the fragmentation and distribution of its functions among distinct domains and levels. Part II gravitates around this global constellation, with chapters focusing on global reforms, norms, and ideas put forward by supranational organizations, on international accountability processes and on the ways in which nation states or local actors adopt, implement, or resist global ideas and reforms. The two parts reflect these disciplinary approaches to the relation between globalization and education. Together, these two approaches seek to provide a comprehensive overview of how globalization and education interact to result in distinct and varying outcomes across world regions.