Globalisation and its Consequences for Scholarship in Philosophy of Education

A manifestation of globalisation as an economic imperative has occurred at the national level in Australia.This manifestation is in the form of political policies, administrative practices and funding distribution ostensibly aimed at creating a more competitive national economy.Philosophy of Education, as a practice and product of some employees in the higher education industry in Australia, is being influenced by this manifestation of globalisation.Reflection on ways in which established concepts are being reshaped to suit the agenda of globalising political policies may assist those engaged in philosophising about education to enhance their practice in ways they desire.It is argued here that such reflection should lead many academics in Australian universities to the conclusion that they should not undertake research and that research should not be part of the job specification for most academics employed in Australian universities.
The argument in this paper is based on a set of epistemological assumptions about the nature of academic practices or traditions (cf.Toulmin, 1972).Philosophy of Education is one such academic tradition or practice.A university may be conceived of as a community of academics engaged in a range of traditions or practices.A university may also be conceived of as a quasi-governmental administrative entity employing workers to value-add to customers intending to maximise personal economic rewards from future engagement in a more competitive national economy.     

Quality assurance policies and practices in Scandinavian higher education systems: convergence or different paths?

Because there is close cooperation on quality assurance in the Scandinavian countries, one would expect there to be convergence of quality assurance policies and practices in Scandinavian higher education. Few studies have analysed these quality assurance policies and practices from a comparative viewpoint. Based on empirical evidence produced in connection with studies of recent quality reforms in Scandinavia and an approach based on linking diffusion and translation theories with institutionalist perspectives focusing on path dependency, the paper contributes to the current debate on Scandinavian quality assurance. The debate is compelling with regard to the Swedish case in particular, with its ‘one size fits all’ approach and exclusive focus on outcomes which has been heavily criticised by the higher education institutions and has turned out to be controversial from the European viewpoint.     

Quality issues in the internationalisation of higher education

Although the quality issue has become a central preoccupation inother domains of higher education, current internationalisation policiesand practices in higher education have developed without much concernfor quality assurance. The central thesis of this paper is that we havecome to a point in the development of higher education whereinternationalisation policies and practices face the limits of theirdevelopment unless the quality challenge is addressed in all itsconsequences. The paper first provides an overview of contemporary formsof and recent developments in internationalisation in higher education.From more or less `traditional' forms such as student and teaching staffmobility, internationalisation policies and practices nowadays move intoactivities such as exporting higher education via branch campuses andinstitutional co-operation, developing transnational university networksand virtual delivery of higher education, and the harmonisation ofhigher education systems. In these recent developments several issuesand challenges arise, which in one kind or another have direct links tothe quality challenge. The quality of internationalisation policies andpractices itself is an important problem, but of more importance are theissues of the recognition of foreign diplomas and degrees and therecognition of credits and credit-transfer. This paper takes a criticalstance towards for example the ECTS, which tries to solve these issueswithout much concern for quality. The way out lies in an integration ofinternationalisation policies and general quality assurance practices atinstitutional and policy levels.     

Globalisation and Higher Education Restructuring in Hong Kong,Taiwan and Mainland China

Globalisation and the evolution of the knowledge-based economy have caused dramatic changes in the character and functions of higher education in most countries around the world. However, the impacts of globalisation on universities are not uniform even though similar business-like practices have been adopted to cope with competition in the global marketplace. The pressure for restructuring and reforming higher education is mainly derived from growing expectations and demands of different stakeholders in society. In the last decade, government bureaucracy, public service institutions and higher education institutions and universities have been significantly affected by the tidal wave of the public sector reform around the world. Apart from improving the efficiency and effectiveness of public services, universities are confronted with a situation in which the principles of financial accountability and responsiveness to stakeholders prevail amidst the massification stage under the condition of global economic retrenchment. In response to such pressing demands for change, policies and strategies of decentralisation, privatisation and marketisation are becoming increasingly popular measures in university governance. Reform strategies and measures like quality assurance, performance evaluation, financial audit, corporate management and market competition are adopted to reform and improve the performance of the higher education sector. This article examines the most recent higher education reforms and restructuring in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China, with particular reference to the issues related to globalisation of decentralisation and marketisation in higher education.     

Globalisation and internationalisation of teacher education: a comparative case study of Canada and Greater China

This article begins with a brief overview of the relationship between globalisation and the internationalisation of higher education. This serves as a backdrop for the focus of the article, which is the internationalisation of teacher education. In order to see the diverse ways that teacher education programmes have been internationalised over the past 15 years, a case study comparing internationalisation initiatives in Greater China and Canada is presented. This comparative case study demonstrates how different globalising processes influence various forms of internationalisation. Comparison also sheds light on the importance of attending not only to broader, global processes, but specific, local contextual factors. Rather than consider internationalisation as one set of practices that have been taken up globally, this article suggests that there are many different forms of internationalisation in teacher education that are influenced by both global and local contexts. In this respect, the study moves us towards a more nuanced and complex understanding of how teacher education institutions across diverse settings are being internationalised in the twenty-first century.     

Performativity and pedagogising knowledge: globalising educational policy formation,dissemination and enactment

Critical policy scholars have increasingly turned their attention to: (1) the work of policy actors engaged in globalised and globalising processes of policy formation, (2) the global flows or movements of education policies across multifaceted, hybrid networks of public–private agencies, and (3) the complex politics of global–national policy translation and enactment in local school contexts. Scholars have emphasised firstly, the economic turn in education reform policies, a shift from a social democratic education orientation and secondly, policy convergence towards a dominant neoliberal political agenda. This paper suggests that Bernstein’s concepts of the totally pedagogised society (TPS) and the pedagogic device, as the ensemble of rules for the production, recontextualisation and evaluation of pedagogic discourses may add to this corpus of critical policy scholarship. It does this by firstly reviewing the take up of Bernstein’s concept of the TPS in the critical policy sociology literature, arguing that this interpretation presents a largely dystopian account of globalising educational policies. In contrast, the paper argues for and presents an alternative open-ended reading and projection of Bernstein’s concept of the TPS and pedagogic device for thinking about globalised processes and devices of the pedagogic communication of knowledge(s).     

我国远程高等教育质量保证政策体系研究

远程高等教育质量保证政策建设,是我国高等教育质量政策体系的重要组成部分。我国远程高等教育质量政策体系现状与英美等发达国家比较,存在以下问题：指向远程高等教育质量内涵的政策文本缺失,保证多元主体利益实现的政策层次单一,制定政策的前瞻性、全面性和合法性的工作有待加强。借鉴国外政策建设经验,可以将我国远程高等教育质量政策体系框架划分为核心政策、支撑政策和环境政策,重点构建核心政策中的人才标准政策、课程管理政策、组织机构政策、质量控制政策和学习与公共服务政策的结构。     

Code of practice for the pastoral care of international students: making a globalising industry in New Zealand

Export education in New Zealand has grown rapidly since 1990, earning significant foreign exchange and underwriting the finance of domestic education. As principal owner of education institutions, the national state is the primary investor. Previous governments treated the ‘industry’ as both windfall and cash‐cow as they advanced the neo‐liberal project of disentangling state from economy and making education providers self‐regulating. The current ‘Third Way’ inspired government has adopted a more prominent management interest in the making of this globalising industry. A new Code of Practice enacts multiple technologies of control from quality control to standard setting, benchmarking, certification and audit. Legitimated by a discourse of concern for the pastoral care of school‐aged students, it requires institutions to provide detailed information. The Code makes ‘the industry’ visible, makes a market, controls brand NZ education, regulates through consumer assurance, and imposes direct disciplinary controls on institutions. The Code of Practice makes apparent the ambitions and governmental technologies of the ‘augmented’ neo‐liberal state, and is a pivotal structure in the constitution of the industry and of the globalising processes that define it. The paper uses governmentality analysis to uncover these technologies of control and to consider their part in the constitution of both industry and globalisation.     

Globalisation and education for sustainable development: emancipation from context and meaning

This article tries to contribute to the critical debate on the ideological and globalising potential of education for sustainable development (ESD), which exists in the research field of environmental education, by highlighting potential contradictions in the argumentation for ESD’s ideological and globalising tendency. Further, the authors of this article argue for an alternative perspective on how education policy on ESD can be seen to contribute to globalisation and homogenisation by merging two conceptualisations of ‘globalisation as connection' and the role of ‘empty signifiers' in political discourse. The ambition with the merger is not to provide a universal explanation of globalisation and ideology, instead, the intention is to outline an alternative theoretical outlook that allows for an empirical study of the processes that can be seen to feed into or interrupt the preservation of hegemony in a global setting.     

Scenarios of quality assurance of stakeholder relationships in Finnish higher education institutions

Although the role and significance of the external stakeholders of higher education institutions has grown in recent years, quality assurance of stakeholder relationships remains a new phenomenon in the management practices of higher education institutions and in higher education research. Based on interviews and expert panel data, this article analyses the internal and external stakeholders’ perceptions of scenarios of the quality assurance of stakeholder relationships in Finnish higher education institutions. It especially focuses on exploring how institutions can balance internal and external stakeholders’ perspectives with regard to quality assurance. The results show that an essential challenge for Finnish higher education institutions is to develop flexible quality assurance practices capable of balancing the academic goals of the institutions and the needs of the external stakeholders. This also requires seeking balance between the centralised coordination and the differentiated practices of disciplines and academic units inside institutions.     

Limited legitimacy among academics of centrally driven approaches to internal quality assurance in Vietnam

For more than 15 years, Vietnam has worked to develop a quality assurance (QA) system as part of its effort to reform higher education. The government’s effort seeks to respond to widespread criticism over the quality of training in higher education. The appropriation of western QA mechanisms and the effectiveness of the QA system as it has been implemented, however, is still viewed with scepticism. This paper reports on a study of academics and QA practitioners’ perceptions of quality assurance. Documentation and in-depth interviews were used in the study. The findings show that QA remains a new concept in the country, which appears to have promoted a compliance-driven approach to mandated policies rather than a system that promotes academics’ engagement in continuous improvement. Moreover, the appropriated mechanism may be seen as contradictory to the values respected by academics and rooted in a Confucian society.     

Quality Teaching and Learning in Australian and South African Universities: Comparing policies and practices

Over the last decade universities across the world have been grappling with quality and quality assurance issues. In several countries national policies on higher education quality assurance have been evolving, mostly with the purpose of putting external systems of quality assurance in place. In many instances, these policies and systems had less effect on the quality of teaching and learning than had been expected. This paper serves as a comparison of national quality policy developments in two countries, Australia and South Africa, and goes on to investigate the emerging tensions in quality policy processes in these countries. Whereas a number of similarities were discerned, differences were as evident, verifying the underlying assumption of the authors that notions of quality, and quality policies and their implementation are very much dependent on the particular localised contexts in which they exist.     

经济全球化条件下我国高校人才培养的目标与理念更新

经济全球化在导致全球经济竞争日益激烈的同时,必然使全球高等教育竞争进入白热化状态,而全球高等教育竞争的根本则是人才之间的竞争,人才之间的竞争最终决定着经济竞争的水平。本文认为,只有通过研究经济全球化条件下我国高等教育的应对策略,确定有效的人才培养目标,实现高等教育理念的全面更新,才是我国赢得经济全球化主动权的必然选择。     

Globalisation,the challenge of educational synchronisation and teacher education

In this article, we set out from the challenge that globalising synchronisation – usually exemplified by Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and World Bank initiatives – presents for education to argue that the time–space compression effected by globalisation must educationally be dealt with with caution, critical vigilance and a broadening of educational theoretical outlooks. We focus on the demands this raises upon the teacher as a researcher and a critical thinker and claim that meeting such demands presupposes some curricular enrichment of teacher education. We suggest two theoretical frameworks that can effect such enrichment and be made relevant to a critique of the globalising educational synchronisation, namely, the charge of developmentalism and the capabilities approach (Sen, Nussbaum) to equality. We conclude with some indications of the need for a reformulated notion of cosmopolitanism that should be contrasted with those globalising practices that often appear in cosmopolitan guise.     

A Tale of Two Cities: Education Responds to Globalisation in Hong Kong and Singapore in the Aftermath of the Asian Economic Crisis

It has been suggested that although the most theorisation about globalisation has emerged from “western” contexts, the material implications of globalisation have been felt most strongly in non‐western regions. With this in mind, we are undertaking a situated analysis of how two states, Singapore and Hong Kong, are interacting with the broader processes of globalisation through their educational policies. We apply Foucault's conceptual tool of governmentality to understand (i) the conduct of governing in the contemporary nation‐state, and (ii) how the “right” rationalities are being inculcated by government to create “desiring subjects” who will play their part in ensuring national prosperity. We use the Asian Economic Crisis as a point of departure to show how global‐local tensions are being managed by Singapore and Hong Kong. We conclude that both these global cities have adroitly managed the Asian economic crisis to steer their citizens away from pursuits of greater political freedom and towards concerns of material well being. They have done so through a selective interpretation of globalisation, by simultaneously resisting and embracing the contradictory strands of globalisation. Education has emerged as a critical space for this selective absorption of globalising trends.     

Internal quality assurance: A new culture or added bureaucracy?

This paper analyses teaching and non-teaching staff perceptions on the implementation of internal quality assurance (QA) practices at their higher education institutions. The aim is to understand how far different perspectives on quality – as culture, as compliance or as consistency – are reflected in the views of these two groups on such practices. Data from a survey sent to all Portuguese institutions show that, to some extent, the perspectives of quality as culture and quality as compliance seem to permeate both groups’ views. This is evident in regard to the factors identified as supporting the development of internal QA, the main features underlying the implementation of such practices and their main effects. As the study allows for a better understanding on how these practices are perceived by teaching and non-teaching staff, it can contribute to promoting the critical reflection of institutions about QA and the way it can be both more effective and aligned with academia’s needs and expectations, contributing to influencing institutional practices.     

Mediatizing higher education policies: discourses about quality education in the media

This article presents a critical–political discourse analysis of the media debate over quality assurance in higher education, which occurred in Chile after the 2011 student movement. Students criticized the privatization of higher education and the multiple flaws of this sector, which included corruption scandals during the process of quality assurance certification. After the end of the movement, the government announced a new quality assurance system, triggering public discussion over this issue in the media. The most influential newspapers and educational authorities participated actively in this debate. Through editorials and columns, these education agents constructed quality assurance discursively as a domain for experts, who have to design and administer quality standards for all educational institutions and actions. These procedures regulate and discipline educational practices, but professors and students are excluded from this debate. Thus, this quality assurance discussion reproduces the traditional neoliberal power relations in education and does not problematize the role of education in society.     

Quality assurance in distance education: The challenges to be addressed

Integration of technology in all forms ofeducation has narrowed down the gap between theon- and off-campus students and has resulted inthe use of the more broad-based term`distributed learning'. Consequently, distancelearning is seen as a subset of distributedlearning, focusing on students who may beseparated in time and space from their peersand the instructor. The new forms and meaningsit is acquiring, its convergence withtraditional learning and its global impact poseseveral challenges. It has caused a seriousconcern to the governments and the qualityassurance agencies all over the world about thesafety of the national systems, legitimacy ofthe providers, protecting the public from fakeproviders, quality of the offerings etc. thecommon element being `concern for quality'.Many quality assurance agencies have respondedto this need and there is considerable dialogueabout ensuring quality in distance education.Some think that quality assurance practices fordistance education are essentially the same asthose used for traditional education. Othersargue that distance education testsconventional assumptions and hence the presentmechanisms of quality assurance are notadequate to ensure the quality of distanceeducation. This paper highlights the aspects ofdistance education that deviate so markedlyfrom what has been practiced for hundreds ofyears and argues that quality assurance ofdistance education has to be approacheddifferently.     

Quality assurance in Europe and the U.S.: Professional and political economic framing of higher education policy

In this article we study globalization in termsof the diffusion of quality assurance modelsand practices between two ``core' regions, theU.S. and Europe, as well as within Europe,concentrating particularly on Germany andAustria. We examine the timing of theemergence and diffusion of quality assuranceand relatedly of strategic managementpractices. We then consider the prominence ofU.S. models and voices in Europe, addressingthe professional and political economic framingof higher education policies. Finally, weexplore local variations in the meanings andpractices of quality assurance and strategicmanagement. We emphasize the ways in which inthese ``core' settings, professionals areimplicated in the diffusion and adaptation ofpolicies and practices in higher education,even as their activities are shaped by largerstructures of global professional and politicaleconomies.     

英国高校质量文化与内部质量保障机制研究——以伦敦大学学院（UCL）为例

自从高等教育进入大众化时代以来,质量问题一直是人们讨论的热点。如何确保高等教育的质量以及提升高等教育的竞争力,达成追求卓越的目标,更是成为了高等教育的重要发展方向。本文分析了英国高校内部质量观与＂质量文化＂的形成,继而以伦敦大学学院（UCL）为例,从主要特征、组织形式和主要途径三个方面介绍了其内部教学质量管理政策,并在对我国高校内部质量保障机制存在问题进行分析的基础上提出了若干启示建议,以期对我国高校结合自身定位和特色建立内部教学质量管理体系以借鉴。