Globalisation and Societal Culture: Redefining schooling and school leadership in the twenty-first century

This paper highlights the importance of societal culture to developing theory, policy and practice within an increasingly globalising educational context. It argues that tensions exist between globalisation and societal culture and that globalisation makes the recognition of societal culture and cross-cultural similarities and differences more, not less, important. Consequently, the inclusion of societal culture as a factor in investigations covering such themes as the curriculum, teaching and learning, leadership and school-based management is seen as an imperative for the future development of comparative education. Accordingly, the first part of the paper clarifies the concept of 'globalisation'. In the second part, globalisation and societal culture are juxtaposed and the interface between them is explored. The third part offers a set of dimensions by which to gauge the influence of, and to compare, cultures. Finally, we illustrate our argument for greater cultural sensitivity by raising some key issues concerning school reform and improvement.     

‘To provide for the edifice of learning’: Researching 450 Years of Jesuit Educational and Cultural History,with Particular Reference to the British Jesuits 1

Jesuit education provided the first rigorous educational ‘system’ in the Western world from the 1540s onwards. By 1773 more than 700 Jesuit colleges and universities educating some 250,000 students worldwide constituted the largest educational network in existence up to that time. At the present day, in 68 countries worldwide, the Society of Jesus is responsible for 848 educational institutions serving an estimated 2.5 million lay students. This article examines the extensive historiography of Jesuit education and the educational archives that the Society of Jesus has generated since 1540. Particular attention is paid to the foundational Ratio Studiorum of 1599, a key educational document drawing on earlier traditions, and a source of later reformulations and scholarship in many parts of the world. The scope of Jesuit archives around the globe is examined and an assessment made of their significance for educational and cultural historians.

There are few religious institutions in the Roman Catholic Church that have aroused more fascination, during its four and a half centuries of existence, than the Society of Jesus, few that have inspired such curiosity and misunderstanding, such attraction and repulsion. ^{2 2} Woodrow, Alain. The Jesuits: A Story of Power. London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1995: 10.