Toward an international measure of global competence? A critical look at the PISA 2018 framework

This paper focuses on the OECD’s PISA 2018 international framework for global competence. Given the growing national and international attention on educating for global competence, and absent of other measures, there is a need to scrutinise this framework. Our critical analysis is conceptually framed by academic literature related to (a) the OECD’s influential role in facilitating neoliberal education policy trends, (b) disjuncture and debate surrounding global competence, and (c) how influence is garnered through measurement technologies. We conclude by encouraging the OECD to be transparent in the reporting of results and educational stakeholders to be cautious interpreters of forthcoming results and rankings.     

A cross-national comparison of international strategies: global citizenship and the advancement of national competitiveness

This paper examines national-level strategies concerning internationalisation of education and the extent to which global citizenship is deployed in their discourse. We focus on a cross-national comparison of selected internationalisation strategies in Australia, Canada, Ireland, the UK and the USA, all countries with highly developed economies and a relatively high proportion of the market share of international students. We draw on a thematic textual analysis and the use of corpus technologies to explore the framing of discourses and language use in each strategy. Our comparative analysis of national strategies highlights a dominant approach to international education that is primarily competitive in its orientation, with national interest as the key driver. This cross-national comparison also revealed considerable variation in framing of strategic internationalisation on a discourse level. Based on findings, we argue that internationalisation strategies limit the possibilities of advancing central tenets of global citizenship.     

International Communication

U.S. TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICES IN EUROPEAN MARKETS (Washington: Office of Technology Assessment, August 1993—$14.00, paper, S/N 052–003–01334–7, 220 pp.)

MEDIA INDUSTRY IN EUROPE edited by Antonio Pilati (London: John Libbey, 1993—$48.00, paper, ISBN 0–86196–398–9, 246 pp.)

BEYOND NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY: INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION IN THE 1990s edited by Kaarle Nordenstreng and Herbert I. Schiller (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1993—price not provided, paper, ISBN 0–89391–960–8, 483 pp.)