Decolonising ‘Context’ in Comparative Education: The Potential of Oceanian Theories of Relationality

Abstract

This article addresses long standing and inter-connected tensions within Comparative and International Education (cie) as a field of research: those of an inadequate theorising of ‘context’ and of a continued and deeply ‘entangled’ colonial legacy. While supporting many of the arguments outlined in recent theorisations of context as ‘assemblage’ we propose a more explicitly relational cie approach, drawing on both Southern Theory’s inter-epistemic project and our learnings from Indigenous scholars of Oceania.

(Re)drawing Lines in Our Research: Using Policy Mobilities and Network Ethnography to Research Global Policy Networks in Education

“…For instance, a school's pedagogy might be informed by the schooling system authority administering teacher credentials, but it might also be steered by the professional learning modules freely offered to teachers by multinational EdTechs (see Lewis, 2022). In developing countries, education departments often create a regional forum to develop “local” policymaking capacity and cooperation, but this tends to entail interaction with donor countries and international development organizations from the Global North (see Lewis & Spratt, 2024; Spratt & Coxon, 2020). While sustainability education might appear as a converging global discourse, its integration into federal systems necessarily reflects the cultural, historical, and economic contexts and histories of its subnational polities, resulting in variegated understandings and enactments of an otherwise “similar” policy initiative (McKenzie & Aikens, 2021).…”

Editorial: De-distancing ‘us’ from the rest of Earth: ecopedagogical analysis and approaches

“…She argues the need for Indigenous inter-relationality wisdom within environmental and citizenship pedagogies for Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. Coinciding with Spratt and Coxon (2020) arguments in needing to construct education through a 'combined lens of assemblage and Oceanian theories of relationality', Richie describes how her arguments are essential within and beyond the context of Oceana and the global South, including exemplifying the United Nation's (UN's) anthropocentricism (citing Kopnina (2016)).…”