Globalisation,Neo-liberalism and the Limitations of School Effectiveness Research in Developing Countries: The case of Nepal

This paper considers the nature and implications of the increasingly global school effectiveness research tradition. It argues that such research, by focusing primarily on student cognitive achievement, creates an unnecessarily narrow definition of 'good' schools, and undermines the role of schooling for societal change. This is especially important in developing countries where schooling plays a key role in the process of modernisation. An example from Nepal illustrates the pervasive influence of neo-liberal tendencies in education, and is used as a point of departure for a more ethnographic research agenda that explores schools' aims and processes and the meaning that their various stakeholders attribute to them.