Globalisation plus Comparative and International Education: Towards a Theory of the Confluence

Abstract

There is the need to understand what national policy--making means in aid recipient countries, and in the process, it is essential to understand the influence of globalisation on policy--making in these national contexts. Globalisation requires a reconsideration of …how...policies are formed, shaped and directed... [and] the key problem then becomes understanding the nature of globalisation in ways that enable one to trace more precisely, how, and with what consequences, it affects national policies, what is the nature and extent of their influence (Dale, 1999, p.1).In applying Bourdieu's "thinking tools", (i.e. habitus, practice, capitals and fields) to policy studies, Rawolle and Lingard (2008) argue that in this era of globalisation cross--field effects (the influence of practices in the policy field on actors in alternative fields) can be a means of categorising, researching and defining policy effects. Both argue in terms of "an emergent global education policy field" and attempt to examine some of the means by which such a field influences national education policy. While their work acknowledges the connection between the global and national policy fields, it does not examine this link empirically. They articulate the need for studies that will investigate this intersection when they argue that:…research is required now to understand the nature of this emergent global education policy field, its agencies and relationships, associated cosmopolitan policy habitus and practices, and cross--field effects with national education policy field mediated by national capital (p.733).The current paper is one attempt to contribute to ways by which this global and national education policy nexus referred to as the confluence could be understood. Part 1 introduces the argument, states its rationale and briefly mentions the research procedures. Part 2 briefly outlines the ideas and features that frame the confluence, while acknowledging the importance of its globalisation dimension. It then highlights and examines globalisation. Part 3 illustrates how globalisation frames the confluence by drawing on findings of a study into the shaping of Ghana's ESP. Part 4 then concludes by arguing the significance of the confluence in education policy processes. Research ApproachMy analysis is based on a study that utilised a qualitative research design, and adopted the interpretative approach of investigating actions and behaviour that emerged from the MoE--donor agencies' interactions and their shaping of the ESP in their natural setting. It employed the non--probability sampling (Merriam, 1988;Punch, 1998;Robson, 1993) because the nature of the research questions and the qualitative strategy required this sampling approach. In other words, sampling was done in a consciously purposeful manner.ABSTRACT: This paper attempts to contribute to ways by which confluence, referring to a meeting point for the different agents to cooperate and communicate on education policy processes, can be understood. Pertinent national education policies...

‘South-South’ Borrowing: Lessons from the Caribbean and implications for post 2015 agenda

“…Among the plethora of approaches explored to implement EFA, one particular perspective that will be examined in this article is the use of 'education borrowing' or 'policy transfer' for the developing south to draw positively on lessons learned from other developing countries that have experienced success in implementing processes to reach goals (see Rose and Greeley, 2006). Amoako (2012) notes the complicated nature of policy transfer in the Global South due to donor funding, using Ghana as an example:…”