Deconstructing the ‘magnetic’ properties of neoliberal politics of education in Bahrain

This article makes contributions to questions of why international transfers of programmes do not lead to the outcomes that nations engaging in them expect to gain. Using Bahrain as an example, it is argued that tensions arising from policy borrowing are rooted in the complexities of the political incoherence between the new teaching policies, the Kingdom’s economic vision and educational aspirations of many locals that have been shaped by old political and employment settlements within the nation state. The research shows that educating for global development is not a ‘magnet’ that equally attracts everyone.     

教育政策借用:必要性、可行性及其过程

教育政策借用是指一国对他国已有教育政策的引入。教育政策借用有其必要性和可行性,教育政策借用的过程包括产生动机、作出决策、实施和本土化四个阶段。     

New directions in policy borrowing research

Research on policy borrowing is a well-established research area of comparative education. Over the past 20 years or so it gained prominence among globalization scholars. Of great interest is not so much the question of which reforms “travel” internationally, and which ones are homebound, but rather why traveling reforms resonate in a given context and at a specific moment, and how they are subsequently translated or locally adapted. In addition to issues of reception and translation, questions on the politics and economics of policy transfer are central to this research area. Empirical studies have shown that borrowing reforms from other countries, from other sectors within a country, or from “international standards” broadly defined often help coalition-building in a country. Policy borrowing also helps to mobilize financial resources, especially when it is preceded by political talk of falling behind some international standards or “best practices.” Therefore, the methods of inquiry used, the type of research questions asked, and the conclusions drawn in this body of research tend to address political and economic aspects of educational reform. Arguably, a transnational perspective is indispensable to carry out this kind of intellectual project. The academic preoccupation with policy borrowing has helped to formulate the contours of comparative policy studies. The article provides a brief overview of the main tenets of policy borrowing research and then focuses specifically on three aspects: policy reception, policy projection, and the rise of the global education industry as a new actor and beneficiary of global education policy.     

Travelling policies and contextual considerations: on threshold criteria

Educational policy borrowing has become rather common in our globalised world. However, the literature lacks contextual criteria that may be employed by researchers and policy makers to assess the correspondence of a particular policy to the local context of a borrowing system. Based on a secondary analysis of documents and research reports, this paper describes the process of policy borrowing in the Israeli and Turkish educational systems. Discrepancies were found between the basic qualities of the borrowed policies and the contextual features and processes that characterise each educational system. The lack of congruency appears to be even deeper in centralised structures where the act of policy setting is done by top-level policy makers who are isolated from local school circumstances. Threshold criteria referring to fundamental considerations during decision making are offered and their theoretical and practical implications for centralised structures are discussed.     

The global/local nexus in comparative policy studies: analysing the triple bonus system in Mongolia over time

The article analyses a phenomenon that has accompanied teacher salary reform in Mongolia: the import of two global education policies that were nearly identical to the already existing local bonus system (olympiads). To make sense of an import that appears superfluous, the author analyses the reception and translation of the triple bonus system over time. The interpretive framework draws on system theory and pays attention to: (1) developments within a system or a context that explain the likelihood of policy borrowing; (2) change processes over time that result from interactions within a system as well as the system with its environment; and (3) periods of convergence and divergence that occur over the lifespan of a policy. The author finds that research on policy borrowing and lending has greatly contributed to better understanding the transnational flows of educational reforms. In contrast to spatial analyses, the time dimension of the global/local nexus is neither sufficiently studied nor convincingly interpreted. The author draws attention to the functional differentiation that occurred within the triple bonus system, and argues for a comparative policy studies perspective that acknowledges the salutary effects of policy borrowing for coalition building and change.     

The (mis)use of the Finnish teacher education model: ‘policy-based evidence-making’?

Abstract

Background: International achievement studies such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) have an increasing influence on education policy worldwide. The use of such data can provide a basis for evidence-based policy-making to initiate educational reform. Finland, a high performer in PISA, is often cited as an example of both efficient and equitable education. Finland’s teachers and teacher education have not only garnered much attention for their role in the country’s PISA successes, but have also influenced education policy change in England.

Main argument: This article argues that the Finnish model of teacher education has been borrowed uncritically by UK policy-makers. Finnish and English philosophies of teacher preparation differ greatly, and the borrowing of the Finnish teacher education model does not fit within the teacher training viewpoint of England. The borrowed policies, thus, were decontextualised from the wider values and underpinnings of Finnish education. This piecemeal, ‘pick “n” mix’ approach to education policy reform ignores the fact that educational policies and ‘practices exist in ecological relationships with one another and in whole ecosystems of interrelated practices’. Thus, these borrowed teacher preparation policies will not necessarily lead to the outcomes outlined by policy-makers in the reforms.

Sources of evidence: Two teacher preparation reforms in England, the University Training Schools (outlined in the UK Government’s 2010 Schools White Paper, The Importance of Teaching) and the Master’s in Teaching and Learning (MTL), are used to illustrate the problematic nature of uncritical policy borrowing. This article juxtaposes these policies with the Finnish model of teacher education, a research-based programme where all candidates are required to complete a Master’s degree. The contradictions exposed from this analysis further highlight the divergent practices of teacher preparation in England and Finland, or the disparate ‘ecosystems’. Evidence of educational policy borrowing in other settings is also considered.

Conclusions: Both the MTL and the White Paper reforms overlook the ‘ecosystem’ surrounding Finnish teacher education. The school-based MTL contrasts with the research-based Finnish teachers’ MA. Similarly, the University Training Schools scheme, based on Finnish university-affiliated, teaching practice schools, contrasts heavily with the rest of the White Paper reforms, which contradict the philosophies and ethos behind Finnish teacher education by proposing the move of English teacher preparation away from the universities. The analysis highlights the uncritical eye through which politicians may view international survey results, looking for ‘quick fix’ options instead of utilising academic evidence for investigation on education and education reform.     

School Choice Policies in England and the United States: An exploration of their origins and significance

This paper notes some similarities between school choice policies in England and the US and considers how far any convergences can be explained, on the one hand, by broader social changes and, on the other, by evidence of policy exchange. In the first case, it discusses the usefulness of concepts such as post-Fordism and post-modernity and indicates their limitations. In the second case, it identifies relevant neoliberal policy networks within and between the two countries but finds more evidence of the use of overseas examples to legitimate policies at home than it does of direct policy borrowing. Reflecting upon both sets of explanations, it argues for a clearer conceptualisation of the relationship between accounts of the micro-politics of policy making and macro-level theories of change.     

政策转移过程中的差异与选择——以中美教育券政策为个案

全球化中,通过借鉴发达国家先进的教育理念和政策来完善本国教育体制的现象越来越普遍,如何在两国的体制差异中作出恰当的选择是政策转移成败的关键。目前关于这方面的研究多偏重于政策理念的比较,缺乏对制定历程和执行面的过程探索。近年来源自于美国教育券(Education Voucher)政策是政策转移的一个典型个案,通过结合道洛维茨、马什(Dolowitz,Marsh)的政策转移架构以及大卫·菲利普斯(Phillips·David)政策转移过程的理论对中美教育券政策制定和转移过程的研究有助于为今后教育领域的相关政策转移提出具有启发和借鉴意义的思考。     

构建本土教育政策理论:目标、价值与研究路径

构建植根于中国政策实践的本土政策概念和理论,是当前教育政策研究一项重要而紧迫的任务。本土政策理论特别是政策过程理论有助于促进我国教育政策研究的学科自立和跻身国际领域,对改进教育政策运行系统、提高教育政策质量产生积极影响。要建立和发展本土教育政策理论,应当妥善处理外来理论借鉴与本土经验挖掘的关系,立足中国真实的教育政策现象,扎实开展理论导向的经验研究,并在研究过程中着重抓好深入了解政策现象、准确把握现有理论及培育理论思维能力三个关键环节。     

Qualified to lead? A comparative,contextual and cultural view of educational policy borrowing

Abstract

Background: Around the globe, education policy borrowing remains pervasive and prevalent. The strategies, interventions and innovations of education systems that perform well, in international assessments, are enthusiastically borrowed and copied in the anticipation of similar educational performance and outcomes.

Purpose: This purpose of the article is to highlight some of the implications and consequences of policy borrowing by comparing the preparation and development programmes for school leaders in various education systems. The article explores the way in which the leadership programmes and models are being adopted and developed by different countries.

Sources of evidence: The article draws upon findings from a contemporary, comparative study of leadership preparation and development across seven different education systems (Seven System Leadership Study). This large-scale, mixed-methods, comparative research study is collecting quantitative and qualitative data about the nature and impact of leadership development and preparation programmes in seven different education systems.

Main argument: The findings from the study reinforce how leadership preparation and development programmes are increasingly becoming standardised as a result of education systems borrowing and adapting from each other. This article also argues that in the contemporary policy discourse, important cultural and contextual influences that significantly affect subsequent implementation and outcomes are increasingly being side-lined and ignored.

Conclusions: This article highlights some of the limitations and unintended consequences of educational policy borrowing. It concludes that adopting some of the design features of effective interventions rather than simply borrowing policies or strategies, in part or in their entirety from very different contexts, may be a more productive way forward.     

Referencing and borrowing from other systems: the Hong Kong education reforms

Abstract

Background: This paper analyses the role of, and approach to, policy referencing and borrowing in Hong Kong’s recent reforms that culminated in the creation of its New Academic Structure and the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education.

Main argument: It argues that Hong Kong has gone further than most jurisdictions not just in responding to global influences on education reform, but in taking explicit steps to internationally benchmark its curriculum and assessment, and in involving the global community at multiple levels in the process of education policy planning and implementation.

Sources of evidence and method: The paper is based on the documentary analysis of policy documents in Hong Kong, and 23 interviews with key stakeholders in the policy network, including policy-makers, practitioners and community leaders.

Discussion and conclusions: While policy referencing and borrowing in the Hong Kong context can, in part, be traced to a colonial legacy, the Special Administrative Region of China demonstrates a collaborative approach to education reform involving local and international engagement that may be relevant to other systems. Its approach was informed by a measured use of policy referencing that involved ‘horizon scanning’ of other systems’ policies and practices; international benchmarking; and engaging international expertise to facilitate implementation.     

论美国对朝政策的“变”与“不变”——兼论奥巴马政府的对朝政策趋向

美国的对朝政策在＂变＂的外衣里具有＂不变＂的内核。＂不变＂的内核源自于美朝两国的意识形态差异、决策者的思想认识、对朝鲜的认知以及民情舆论,表现为对朝鲜持强硬立场且不受党派影响。认知心理学认为,观感一旦形成,短时间内难有实质性改变,美国的对朝政策典型反映了这种状况。此外,受到国际战略格局变化的影响,美国往往需要与其他国家相互协调彼此的对朝政策,因此又不得不朝温和方向进行调整。克林顿和小布什各自的对朝政策都经历了从对抗到谈判的转变的过程,但基本立场并没有发生变化。奥巴马的上台虽然为美国对外政策带来了新气象,但在朝鲜政局没有发生大的变化的前提下,美国新总统的对朝政策仍将在对抗的＂不变＂与谈判的＂变＂之间摇摆。     

Markets,equity and democracy — structural adjustment and the tensions of educational change in South Africa

In 1994 South Africa embarked on a process of major reform of an education system that had existed to support and maintain apartheid. Two of the key principles behind these reforms were greater equity and democracy. However, although not formally having a structural adjustment policy, since 1994 the South African government has had close ties with the World Bank and has increasingly adopted the type of free market macro-economic policies that it favours. This article examines tensions in South African educational policy caused by existing policies favouring state initiated redistribution of resources and power on the one hand and the wider context of a mounting emphasis on limiting public expenditure and increasing private provision on the other. It concludes by asking whether South African education would benefit by borrowing from the World Bank to invest in human resources and argues that the potential dangers outweigh the potential benefits.     

Alternative school policies and the benefits of general cognitive skills

School policy debates vacillate between policies emphasizing improvement in general skills and those aimed at strengthening the linkages between schools and the workplace. While these policies do not necessarily conflict, each is frequently motivated by shortcomings in the other. This paper presents basic evidence about the very substantial impacts of general cognitive skills on individual earnings and on economic growth. The calculations are then put in a school policy framework that emphasizes the importance of considering both the magnitude and the speed of quality improvements. It then considers alternative school reform policies focused on improvements in teacher quality, identifying how much change is required. Finally, teacher bonus policies are put into the context of potential benefits.     

Decentralization and recentralization reform in Mongolia: tracing the swing of the pendulum

For the past 10 years the Ministry of Education of Mongolia has periodically oscillated between decentralization and recentralization policies. On paper, it has consistently and enthusiastically subscribed to decentralization, but in practice has given these policies low priority. This study attempts to explain the discrepancies between policy talk and actual implementation. Methodologically, the authors investigate local policy contexts and examine how international interventions such as decentralization policies are locally reinterpreted or ‘Mongolized’. The study examines several areas where cultural legacies from the socialist past have clashed with the expectations of international donors. Theoretically, the Mongolian fiasco of decentralization reform lends itself as a case to address issues that have been raised both in comparative research on ‘transitology’ and on cross‐national policy borrowing.     

The Globalizing Labor Market in Education: Teachers as Cultural Ambassadors or Agents of Institutional Isomorphism?

Institutional isomorphists and other proponents of world culture theory argue that schools around the world are converging in many ways, whereas anthropologists and others question this conclusion, often arguing that local cultural differences belie superficial similarities. These viewpoints are not merely academic explanations of the spread and apparent convergence of education policies and practices around the world but are often present in policy and practice. The authors seek both to shed new light on these often-entrenched positions and to refocus the debate by considering the presence and influence of such views in the policies and practices of international teacher exchanges. In the context of the expanding global labor market for teachers, the authors consider the implicit theories underpinning international exchange policies and the ways in which the exchange teachers themselves make sense of these policies.

In particular, we recognize that although extensive work has been done on the dynamics of policy borrowing, little attention has been paid to international exchange teachers as potential agents of isomorphism, adopting and disseminating practices at the local level. Paradoxically, the exchange policies construct a universal teacher who is interchangeable across national (and cultural) contexts, a view resonant with institutional isomorphists, while justifying the exchanges rhetorically on the basis of their value as a cultural exchange, a view more consistent with the culturalists. The teachers who participate, however—and who effectively self-select by their beliefs that such exchanges are possible—accept the interchangeability thesis and view such exchanges as a professional development opportunity.     

Lifelong learning policy in two national contexts

This article describes and discusses the development of lifelong learning policy in two EU member states, Denmark and Portugal. The purpose is to show how different societal and historical contexts shape the development and implementation of lifelong learning policies, even though these policies have significant common elements. As a basis for the discussion an inventory of policy elements is presented. Denmark and Portugal have been chosen as examples of smaller EU member states with different historical, social and cultural characteristics. Developments and policies in the two countries, including the links with EU education policy, are described. The discussion includes comparison drawing on the inventory of policy elements. A main conclusion is that the different historical trajectories of the two countries remain very important for present-day education and for the advancement of lifelong learning policy. Early development of public primary education and popular adult education has provided a strong foundation for lifelong learning policy in Denmark while in Portugal not only institutional provision but also popular demand for lifelong learning has had to be built up relatively recently. EU education policy has had much more impact on lifelong learning policy in Portugal than in Denmark, because Portugal has had to depend much more on economic support from the EU social fund.     

Neither a borrower nor a lender be: exploring ‘teaching for mastery’ policy borrowing

Abstract

Mathematics education is a high-stakes indicator of success in ‘über’ performative systems. The search to address England’s mathematics underperformance resulted in cross-national attraction toward, and policy borrowing of, ‘teaching for mastery’ from the high-performing education systems of Shanghai and Singapore. We argue that the cultural baggage implicit in mastery was in direct conflict with fundamental structures underpinning the English education system—structures which resulted in significant barriers toward implementing and internalising mastery. Theoretically grounded in the work of Lyotard, Foucault, and Ball, our paper maps how teachers working in the East Midlands region of England borrowed, implemented, and internalised mastery. Our micro, classroom-scale, examination reveals macro-scale performative drivers, as well as the pitfalls of policy borrowing without due care and attention. We highlight that policy borrowing is far more complex than simply copying and checking for fidelity between the original and the borrowed. We conclude by suggesting that underestimating the consequences of policy borrowing has highly significant and even detrimental outcomes at both the micro and macro scales.     

国家助学贷款市场与信息不对称

在我国的国家助学贷款市场中,由于银行与学生、政府与高校在合约形成的前后信息不对称,导致出现了逆向选择和道德风险问题,具体表现为:高风险的借款者驱逐低风险的借款者,银行实行信贷配给;学生不当使用银行贷款;非贫困校在一定程度上驱逐贫困校;高校不积极落实国家助学贷款政策。现行的国家助学贷款制度在解决信息不对称方面,存在四点问题:加剧信息不对称产生的问题、制度缺位、制度不完善、制度实施效果受到其他相关制度的制约。     

Different Assessments,Common Practice? Mathematics testing and teaching in the USA and England and Wales

Recently, the state has used testing more extensively to influence instructional practice. But how much do assessments actually influence practice? To explore this issue, we observed middle-grade mathematics teachers in England and Wales with their highly aligned curriculum and assessment system and two US states with performance-based assessment systems promoting more thoughtful instruction. Maryland's tests had higher stakes attached to them than Maine's. Our observations suggest that testing policies can influence the content taught and promote certain kinds of teaching to the test but that basic instructional practices, like the kind of explanation teachers offer to students and the intellectual challenge of the work, are more difficult to influence. We suggest three hypotheses for the apparent stability in underlying teaching practice. First, some testing policies do not challenge those practices. Second, assessments that do challenge current practice may not be accompanied by adequate professional development to help teachers change practice. Finally, teachers' knowledge and beliefs about teaching mathematics are so deeply embedded that they are difficult to influence.