Globalisation,Post-modernity and the State: Comparative education facing the third millennium

In this article, the implications for globalisation and Post-modernity are assessed in terms of the self-understanding and practice of comparative education, particularly in relation to contemporary theories of the state, and civil society. It is argued that, while globalisation and post-modernity are usually seen as discrete phenomena, each raises complex questions of difference and hybridity, power and collective action, which can no longer be seen in relation to the nation-state alone. Different meanings of globalisation are canvassed, based in part on Sklair's taxonomy, while examples of the impact of globalisation, especially on higher education, are given. The implications of post-modern thought are also analysed, particularly for research and understanding in comparative education. Referring to Putnam's work on civil society, it is argued that both globalisation and post-modernity are linked to changes in the nature of late capitalism, and crises in the modern state. It is finally argued that neither offers much in practice to the much needed renewal of democracy, including in education; indeed that both arguably contribute to a trend towards individualism, and a retreat from democratic engagement and visions of the social good.     

Globalisation and Comparative Education: A Caribbean perspective

The phenomenon of globalisation argues for a broader view of the world than was hitherto necessary; one that takes into account the diversity of the human experience and consequently one that requires a deeper understanding of the particularities of each of the constituencies that make up that experience. Comparative education, which has always stressed the significance of context and circumstance, is ideally placed to foster awareness of these elements that differentiate us, thereby facilitating our 'reading of the global' and cultivating in us a deeper appreciation of the interdependence of today's global community. The small states of the Caribbean which risk being further marginalised by the processes of globalisation stand to benefit from comparative education initiatives which would give greater international exposure to their particular circumstances and their contribution to world culture and civilisation. The Caribbean region has had a history of learning to live and work with people from diverse backgrounds, and in this regard could make a contribution to the new perspective which increasing globalisation calls for. It is this experience that the region can offer through greater participation in, and closer engagement with, the field of comparative education.     

Meeting the Global Challenge? Comparing Recent Initiatives in School Science and Technology

A comparison is made between two schemes in England and New Zealand--the technology colleges programme and the Science and Technology Teacher Fellowship scheme--designed to promote science and technology education in the two countries. Both schemes are placed within the context of recent developments in science and technology education in England and New Zealand and are evaluated as responses to the challenges posed for science and technology education by the forces of globalisation and the growing importance of the 'knowledge economy'.     

Re-inventing the Historical in Comparative Education: Reflections on a protean episteme by a contemporary player

It has been said, not in jest, that while the future may be predictable, the past is unpredictable. This essay first constructs yet another, but hopefully different, historical overview of the episteme of comparative education in the USA, the American comparative proteus (after the Greek mythical sea-god who, according to the Oxford English Dictionary , would assume different shapes and appearances 'to avoid answering questions'). The focus of the second section is a comparative view of the British comparative proteus. In both cases, the analysis is focused on the epistemological-cum-methodological orientations of the two 'comparative educations'. It is argued that in the period after the 1960s the two proteuses were metamorphosed from essentially being historical to social scientific. In the third section it is argued that this metamorphosis has impoverished the field, and a call is made for the re-invention of the historical dimension in comparative education. It is further argued that the reclamation of the historical legacy, among other things, would help to humanise comparative education in a cosmos of economic globalisation and instrumental rationality.     

Education policy and social class in England and New Zealand: an instructive comparison

This article explores the ‘middle-class pressure thesis’, the extent to which recent education policy in England under New Labour may be shaped by the need to respond to an increasingly large and anxious middle class. It discusses why the intensification of middle-class pressure on education policy in England could be expected and outlines how New Labour's education policies can be seen as a response to that pressure. In the latter part of the article the case of New Zealand is used to ‘speak back’ to the middle-class pressure thesis in England. New Zealand highlights the potent influence of England's historic and recent class context on policy by demonstrating a setting where market policies have been embraced by policy makers but where class has played a less important role. The article suggests that although the means by which social class at the local level might act back on and help shape the direction of national education policy will be difficult to investigate, it would be a rewarding direction for future policy research related to social class.     

Comparative Education for the 21st Century: Retrospect and prospect

During the 19th and 20th centuries modern Western education systems have become so globally embedded that alternative forms of educational provision-and goals-have become almost inconceivable. The article argues the likely need for a substantial reconceptualisation in the content, organisation and evaluation of contemporary education systems in response to the profound changes currently impacting on society. Comparative education, it is argued, has a unique capacity 'to make the familiar strange' but so far, despite the advent of exciting new methodologies and the rapidly increasing prominence of comparative studies as a tool for policy-making, comparative education has largely worked within the conventional 'delivery model' conception of education. By so doing, it has arguably helped to reinforce the status quo. Thus the second half of the article offers a prospective vision for the mode, purpose and context of comparative education studies which is in tune with the emerging new educational aspirations of the 21st century and the acknowledged shortcomings of conventional forms of educational provision. Such a 'neo-comparative education', it is argued, would focus on learning and its relationship with culture; would become perhaps better conceptualised as Wa 'comparative learnology' as the means of understanding how individuals can be encouraged to engage successfully with the many new forms of learning opportunity that are likely to characterise the third millennium.     

Globalisation and the Politics of Accountability: Issues and dilemmas for gender equity in education

This article considers issues of accountability for gender reform in education given changing state formations accompanying globalisation processes and pressures. It is argued that globalisation processes work in contradictory ways. Hence, while market liberal ideologies and practices underpinning economic globalisation threaten to undermine gains which have been achieved in gender equity in education, there may be possibilities for a feminist engagement with processes of political globalisation to assist the project of gender reform. Examples will be drawn from the Australian experience but, if globalisation theorists are correct, should have broader applicability.     

Exploring discipline differences in student engagement in one institution

Student engagement has become increasingly important in higher education in recent years. Influenced internationally by government drivers to improve student outcomes, many countries and institutions have participated in surveys such as the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and its progeny, the Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE). Findings from these surveys are used to make comparisons, for example, between disciplines within an institution, and between different institutions. The intention is positive – to generate institutional improvement. However, some researchers are raising issues with the design and use of instruments like the NSSE, particularly as it becomes dominant in countries such as the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, China and Ireland. Questions have also been raised about discipline differences in student engagement. This article reports on a study conducted in New Zealand. It draws on data from an AUSSE to answer the question: what can we learn about discipline differences in student engagement from AUSSE data in one institution? It uses analysis of variance and post hoc procedures to identify significant differences between disciplines. Findings show that: there were significant differences between disciplines on all six engagement scales; some discipline differences are influenced by assumptions in the AUSSE; findings on differences between hard and soft disciplines are both similar to and different from previous studies; AUSSE data not be compared across disciplines within an institution; and the AUSSE scales need to go beyond the current focus on measuring students’ behaviours.     

Curriculum development and teacher education in New Zealand

When the National English Syllabus Committee (New Zealand) was established in 1970 to revise the existing English syllabus for the first three years of secondary school, it sought to evolve a model of curriculum development which was process oriented.

This article describes the bases of the teaching guidelines and the extensive and complex teacher‐education programme which accompanied the evolution of the project. It describes an attempt to alter teachers' ideas about what to teach in English, as mother tongue, how to teach it and within what administrative structures it could best be taught.     

Making Connections for Future Directions: Taking religion seriously in the sociology of education

This article argues that a problem for the contemporary sociology of education is that it has operated within a 'secularisation of consciousness paradigm'. This has limited both the depth and the scope of its intellectual enquiries. Sociological analysis which elides a religious dimension not only presents an over-simplified view of social relations in 'the Modern West', but it also fails to make an authentic engagement with many socio-cultural and educational situations internationally, where God is far from dead. The article suggests various ways forward for a reorientation of sociological writing and research.     

The trouble with doctoral aspiration now

This article attends to the affective-political dimensions of doctoral aspiration. It considers why doctoral students continue to hope for an ‘academic good life’ in spite of the depressed and precarious features of the academic present. The article emerges from 2013 research with ten doctoral students in the Arts and Social Sciences, at a research-intensive university in Aotearoa New Zealand, and accomplishes two primary objectives. Firstly, it contributes to scholarship that considers how visual methodologies might inform accounts of contemporary doctoral education. And secondly, it extends queer theorizing of affect in higher education studies, with the goal of understanding how doctoral aspiration might be reimagined through an engagement with Lauren Berlant’s ‘Cruel Optimism’ (2011). I propose that Berlant’s analytic framework helps to explain why students retain attachments to even problematic objects, like PhDs. I conclude the article by tarrying with the question of what to do about doctoral aspiration now.     

Infusing technology into a mathematics methods course: any impact?

The short report reviews the research on the factors that influence young people's higher education choices. It considers the main messages that have emerged from empirical studies, looking in particular at: the sources of information young people use; the relative importance of factors in their decisions; and their judgements about the 'feasibility' of an application. The paper concludes by suggesting that, although much of the literature is underpinned by an assumption that if young people's access to information improves they will make 'better' decisions about their futures, the picture is rather more complex due to the socially embedded nature of decision-making. Both research and policy need to recognize that young people's access to, and interpretation of, information is often patterned by their gender, ethnicity and socio-economic status.     

Model of blogging structure for intercultural communication environments in higher education

It is often observed that most international students are less likely to express their opinions in class. The lack of communicative engagement has negative impacts on students' academic performance. The objective of this article was to explore a range of possible explanations for international students' lack of engagement in class discussions and to seek a way to model how an e-tool could be applied to make international students more comfortable communicating. The present study viewed that those students' communication problems are induced by the following multiple factors: a sense of belonging to a minority, cultural difference, and communication apprehension. Blogs were thus suggested to enhance those students' communication contexts. An ideal model of blogging interactions between students and teachers was theoretically proposed.     

Beyond Orientalism in comparative education: challenging the binary opposition between Japanese and American education

This article challenges the common-sense observation that Japanese and American education have been moving in “opposite directions” in recent times. Drawing on postcolonial discourse studies and cultural studies, the article extracts from this observation an Orientalist binary epistemology that continues to set discursive limits on the way Japanese and American observers make sense of each other's education. It is argued that the predominance of this Orientalist binary paradigm in comparative discussions of Japanese and Anglo-American education has resulted in the unfortunate lack of scholarly efforts to take full account of the common global structural changes in education driven by neo-liberal and neo-conservative impulses. As a crucial step towards the critical, reflexive engagement with the continuing colonial legacy, this article proposes a structurally oriented research paradigm that enables us to discuss localised and nationalised differences in education changes within the common frame of global structural changes in economy, state and education.     

Biodiversity Education: A teacher's perspective

Reduction in biodiversity has been established as a global environmental issue, mainly over the last 10 years. However, there is disagreement amongst experts whether it is a natural phenomenon or strongly influenced by human activity. This article considers biodiversity as a controversial issue in the education of students of 11-18 years of age in schools, particularly in relation to science education. It includes a study of teachers' attitudes and approaches to biodiversity education in the UK and was undertaken using participatory appraisal methods with 'focus' groups of teachers. It was shown that the teachers in the study were frequently well informed, they considered biodiversity to be an important issue and although the formal science curriculum had a contribution to make it was also a matter that the whole institution could address. Suggestions for evaluating the possible indicators and outcomes of effective biodiversity education were made. In conclusion it was shown that while programmes included many of the essential components of knowledge for biodiversity education there was usually little attempt to ensure that students achieved a more coherent understanding of the complex issue or how to deal with matters that are truly controversial. The methodology provided a useful model for reflection on practice and professional development in many possible contexts.     

Development Studies and Comparative Education: Context,content, comparison and contributors

This article reviews Comparative Education over the past 20 years, explores the parallel literature of development studies, and identifies future directions and challenges for comparative education. Using Parkyn (1977) as a benchmark, an analysis of articles published between 1977 and 1998 suggests that only a small proportion appear to meet his criteria for comparative education. Parkyn's purpose for comparative education, to increase our understanding of the relationship between education and the development of human society, is shared by development studies. Educational writings within development studies have explored the meanings of development and underdevelopment and have raised important questions about the unit of analysis for comparative education. Several reasons are advanced to explain the separate development of these literatures. The contemporary challenge of globalisation presents fresh opportunities and challenges for both literatures. A shared commitment to understanding the role of education in the globalisation process and the reasoned response to it could form the heart of a shared effort in the future. Globalisation also highlights the need for more effective dialogue between comparative educators in different corners of the globe.     

Similar Trends,Diverse Agendas: Higher education reforms in East Asia

Globalisation is a central concept in this paper but it is important to note that 'globalisation' is a highly contested term. Strong globalisation theory argues that the global economy is dominated by uncontrollable global forces in which nation states are structurally constrained and therefore the capacity of modern states eventually declines. Unlike strong globalists, other scholars believe even though there may be similar trends and patterns in public policy and public management domain along the line of privatisation, marketisation, commodification and corporatisation, different governments may use the similar strategies to serve their own political purposes. Hence, modern states may tactically make use of the globalisation discourse to justify their own political agendas or legitimise their inaction. The present paper sets out in this wider context to reflect upon globalisation effects on national policy, with particular reference to how the selected East Asian societies such as the four Tigers, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea as well as mainland China have transformed their higher education systems. More specifically, this paper discusses the theme of 'similar trends, diverse agendas' by examining how the selected East Asian governments have reformed their higher education systems to cope with the growing impact of the global tide of marketisation and decentralisation.     

Using a realist research methodology in policy analysis

The article describes the usefulness of a realist methodology in linking sociological theory to empirically obtained data through the development of a methodological device. Three layers of analysis were integrated: 1. the findings from a case study about Māori language education in New Zealand; 2. the identification and analysis of contradictions and vagueness in language education policy; and, 3. the explanation of these contradictions in terms deeper ideological forces underpinning bicultural politics in New Zealand. The paper makes two contributions to the literature. It demonstrates how a realist methodology can link theory and data, specifically in the discussion of the methodological device. It also generalises the findings in terms of how ideologies of ‘culture’ (i.e ‘culturalism’) inform the inclusion of culture in education in New Zealand and internationally.     

Globalisation,Qualifications and Livelihoods: The case of Zimbabwe

This article explores how globalisation has impacted on the demand and nature of qualifications and livelihoods in Zimbabwe. It argues that while economic globalisation has had an influence on the labour market, particularly through economic reforms such as the Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes, colonial legacies continue to influence education and training in Zimbabwe. The article observes that although access to education has increased phenomenally since the attainment of political independence, this has not significantly solved unemployment and the reduction of poverty as new challenges have surfaced. The information and communications technology revolution that characterises globalisation has changed the skill and knowledge requirements for most jobs, leading to the need for continuous retraining and the improvement of one's qualifications. Yet qualifications have no impact on the availability of employment opportunities since these depend on the prevailing economic situation. The article comes to the conclusion that while globalisation has created new opportunities through liberalised economic systems, it has mainly benefited industrialised countries with more stable economies. For developing countries such as Zimbabwe, it has had a negative impact since it has led to retrenchments, weakening of the informal sector, increased consumer prices and a general decline in living standards.     

Exploring the interweaving of contrary currents: transnational policy enactment and path-dependent policy implementation in Australia and Japan

This article explores the neo-institutional theory of global policy convergence, or ‘isomorphism’, by comparatively examining one of its most recent manifestations – the global diffusion of national standardised testing – in Australia and Japan. By understanding the particular configurations of national testing as being conditioned by both nations' institutional frameworks and historical legacies of education policy development, this study illuminates how the conditioning effects of these frameworks and legacies resulted in the divergent ways in which a policy model circulating at the transnational level became translated into assessment policies that are ‘simultaneously similar and different’. These findings are related to the concept of ‘path dependency’, emphasised in particular by political science and historical institutionalism. The theoretical conclusions drawn on this basis indicate a promising direction of comparative education research, one that recognises global convergence and national divergence as processes that simultaneously shape the globalisation of education policy. In so doing, they summarise the implications of the study for the ongoing debate on the neo-institutionalist theory in comparative education.