Global Education Policy
The movement and interpretation of international education agendas
Lofty global education policies can seem so far away from the everyday nitty-gritty of teaching and learning but they have immense impact on how we make educational decisions. Global education policies are the prescriptions or learning agendas that come from outside of nation states and governments. Policy is associated with the notion of progress (Ball, 2013). Global Citizenship Education is an example of global education policy [GEP] that has made its way into classrooms and curricula. GEP is not a new idea, but hopefully this post serves as an introductory resource for educators to zoom out and contemplate how learning targets enter mainstream consciousness, aspiration and practice.
Whether generated in international organisation [IO] offices, in consultancy firms, private foundations or borrowed from national initiatives, GEP generally moves from a supranational centre of authority and finds its way into local systems. The use of quantitative data and educational indicators heavily influence the policy launchpad. This should immediately pique our criticality in questioning what knowledge and values get promoted above others. What constitutes progress? Contemporary policies take complex pathways, paved by the intersecting forces of fluctuating political economy, national identity construction, international relations, globalisation and antiglobalisation.
“Over the past three decades there has been an expansion of global education policy-making. This is the outcome of interactions among an array of international, multilateral, corporate agencies and civil society actors, who have entered into the education sector in various capacities: as policy shapers, providers, financiers, owners of infrastructures and regulators.” (Robertson & Dale, 2022, p 297)
Scholars continue to study how policy movement happens (Edwards et al, 2024; Lewis, 2020). Rizvi & Lingard (2010) state that policy is mediated along its global journey including by practitioners who actively interpret it. Therefore policy is inherently unstable (Ball, 2013). GEP moves and mutates on a variety of scales (Edwards et al., 2024). From small face to face meetings (Stahelin & Mckenzie, 2023) to vast networks (Junemann, Ball & Santori, 2016), policies are sifted and shaped in their mobility and then re-made in local contexts.
“Policies are never transferred ‘fully formed’ from afar into new spaces, but are instead (re)made and enacted through processes of re/de/contextualisation (or re/dis/assembly), with these processes directly shaped by unique local arrangements of people, practices and places.” (Lewis, 2021, p 329)
Do you use the UN Sustainable Development Goals [SDGs] as a framework in your educational context? Global Citizenship Education is a part of SDG number 4 which is a global policy for educational quality, inclusion (Mundy & Manion, 2022) and promotion of sustainability - but not without major tensions and challenges (Wulff, 2020). When we start to look at how the SDGs are implemented in local contexts, it’s apparent that many complex overt, and discrete factors determine the outcomes. That in turn affects how educators and students conceptualise global issues and development.
Use this set of questions that I have put together below to discuss GEP in your educational contexts. Taking examples of GEP such as the SDGs, pay attention to the origins, assumptions, cultural contextualisations and localised interpretations of the agenda. Consider how policy may exclude Indigenous ways of being (O’Sullivan, 2020) and how governance (plus the all-important numbers used to measure the policy) impact the way that it is interpreted and applied internationally (Elfert & Ydesen, 2023). Look for evidence of how economics (such as neoliberalism) infiltrates policy (Carter & Smith, 2023) and the motivations for consultants, philanthropists, and businesses that influence policy movement.
References:
Ball, S. (2013). The Education Debate, 2nd Edition. The Policy Press.
Carter, L. & Smith, C. (2023). The United National Sustainable Development Goals in a Neoliberal World. In K. Beasy, C. Smith & J. Watson (Eds.). Education and the UN Sustainable Development Goals: Praxis Within and Beyond the Classroom. Springer.
Edwards, D.B, Verger, A., McKenzie, M. & Takayama, K. (2024). Researching global Education Policy: Diverse Approaches to Policy Movement. University of Bristol Press.
Elfert, M. & Ydesen, C. (2023). Global Governance of Education: The Historical and Contemporary Entanglements of UNESCO, the OECD and the World Bank. Springer.
Junemann, C. Ball, S. & Santori, D. (2016) Joined‐up Policy: Network Connectivity and Global Education Governance in K. Mundy, A. Green, B. Lingard, and A. Verger (Eds.) The Handbook of Global Education Policy. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., pp 535-553
Lewis, S. (2021). The turn towards policy mobilities and the theoretical-methodological implications for policy sociology. Critical Studies in Education, 62(3), 322-337.
Mundy, K. & Manion, C. (2022). The Education for All Initiative and the Sustainable Development Goals: History and Prospects. In T. McCowan & E. Unterhalter (Eds.) Education and International Development: An Introduction. Bloomsbury.
O’Sullivan, D. (2020). Indigeneity, Culture and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Palgrave.
Rizvi, F. & Lingard, B. (2010). Globalizing Education Policy. Routledge.
Robertson, S. & dale, R. (2022). Global Education Policy. In N. Yeates & C. Holden (Eds.) Understanding Global Social Policy. Policy Press.
Stahelin, N., & McKenzie, M. (2023). The Impact of Meetings on the Network Governance and Mobility of UN Policy Programs on Environment and Education. ECNU Review of Education, 6(4), 597-622.
Wulff, A. (Ed.) Grading Goal Four: Tensions, Threats and Opportunities in the Sustainable Development Goal on Quality Education. Brill.