Table Of ContentPOLICY BORROWING AND
REFORM IN EDUCATION
GLOBALIZED PROCESSES
AND LOCAL CONTEXTS
LAURA M. PORTNOI
Policy Borrowing and Reform in Education
Laura M. Portnoi
Policy Borrowing and
Reform in Education
Globalized Processes and Local Contexts
Laura M. Portnoi
California State University
Long Beach, California , USA
ISBN 978-1-137-53022-6 ISBN 978-1-137-53024-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-53024-0
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This book is dedicated to the students from the Social and Cultural
Analysis of Education master’s program at California State University,
Long Beach, with whom I have had the pleasure to interact over the past
ten years. They encouraged me to write this book and continue to serve as
an inspiration every day.
P
REFACE
No matter where we live, we experience international connections—
through the foods we buy at grocery stores, the clothing we wear, and the
everyday products we use in our homes. Global developments and trends
infl uence sports, politics, economics, and just about every other aspect of
today’s society. Although education has historically been, and continues to
be, governed by local jurisdictions, global developments and trends have
a profound impact on education in today’s interconnected world. Current
global trends, such as the preponderance of standards-based education in
schooling environments and the emphasis on rankings and competition
in higher education, are affecting educational systems around the world.
Globalization and its infl uences are not a ‘given’, however, and local
responses to global trends vary based on the contexts involved. For all of
these reasons, studying globalization and policy borrowing, as well as the
global and local manifestations of educational reforms, is important for all
types of educators as well as for those from affi liated disciplines.
SITUATING THE STUDY OF GLOBALIZATION
As I explain more fully in Chap. 1 , ‘globalization’ is a complex concept that
has developed through a combination of academic and popular sources.
The meaning of ‘globalization’ remains contested, as are its processes and
impacts. The formal study of globalization is relatively new, beginning
in earnest in the 1970s. Understandings of globalization continue to be
developed in various areas and through a number of academic disciplines,
and it is not uncommon to fi nd globalization courses in sociology, political
vii
viii PREFACE
science, anthropology, education, and policy studies departments, among
others. Indeed, the fact that globalization is tied to so many different
areas of study serves as one of the foundations of this book, which takes
into account that students or scholars of education may not have formal
exposure to the history, theories, and concepts related to globalization.
In addition to its integration into traditional academic disciplines,
globalization is studied as a central component of two interdisciplinary
fi elds: Global Studies and Comparative International Education (CIE).
Established in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Global Studies is a rela-
tively new domain, which Global Studies scholar Manfred Steger (2013)
describes as ‘transdisciplinary’ because it is not confi ned to a specifi c fi eld
within the humanities or social sciences. Instead, Global Studies—also
referred to as ‘Globalization Studies’—uses theories and ideas from mul-
tiple arenas and requires students and scholars to have an understanding of
a variety of academic disciplines, including philosophy, modern languages,
economics, and communication studies. Some Global Studies programs
are housed in specifi c academic departments (e.g., political science or
sociology), although most are offered as stand-alone, interdisciplinary
programs, often as part of Global Studies Institutes. Global Studies cur-
ricula generally include thematic and/or regional course offerings, along
with transdisciplinary Global Studies courses that allow for developing an
understanding of how insights gained from various perspectives or dis-
ciplines fi t together into an integrated whole. Many established Global
Studies programs are offered at the graduate level, although undergradu-
ate majors in Global Studies are growing in number as well.
Given that the fi eld is still evolving, the Global Studies Consortium,
which includes a variety of institutions from around the world, devel-
oped a set of fi ve common areas of focus for Global Studies graduate
programs: transnationality (occurring across national boundaries), inter-
disciplinary (drawing from multiple academic disciplines), both historical
and contemporary perspectives (focusing on the here and now while rec-
ognizing historical roots), postcolonial and critical approaches (critiquing
how Western 1 knowledge and countries are privileged), and connections
to global citizenship (solving problems and operating on a global scale)
(Juergensmeyer, 2011). Despite this concurrence regarding the emphases
of graduate-level Global Studies programs, many within the fi eld are still
debating its parameters, which is not surprising because most faculty who
teach within such programs come from other, more traditional academic
disciplines. A consistent central aspect of Global Studies, however, is its
PREFACE ix
emphasis on studying global trends, processes, and topics that cut across
national borders and occur in multiple countries.
Like Global Studies, CIE has evolved as a fi eld that draws upon mul-
tiple disciplines. It emerged as a formal area of study in the late 1950s
and early 1960s, when the fi rst comparative international education jour-
nal (C omparative Education Review ) and graduate programs in CIE were
established. 2 Many senior academics within CIE today were originally
trained as economists, sociologists, or educators from other disciplines.
This array of scholars has come together to study CIE and train master’s
and doctoral students in the fi eld, using a wide variety of theories and
constructs, many of which are drawn from other disciplines. Areas of study
within CIE include international development education, study-abroad
and international education, globalization, policy borrowing, area studies,
and specifi c topics relevant to education in countries around the world
(e.g., language policies in Russia or affi rmative action in South Africa).
CIE covers the full range of educational levels, from preschool to higher
and adult education, and much of its scholarly literature focuses on specifi c
country case studies that employ qualitative research. Although large-scale
cross-national quantitative studies are part of the fi eld’s literature base,
the preponderance of country-based studies has led some CIE scholars to
question how ‘comparative’ the fi eld truly is (see, e.g., Cummings, 1999).
Moreover, discussions about the boundaries of the fi eld are continually
present at annual meetings of the US-based Comparative and International
Education Society, as is the question of whether CIE constitutes a fi eld or
a discipline (see, e.g., Arnove et al., 2006; Carnoy, 2006; Wilson, 1994).
Interestingly, Global Studies scholars would likely criticize CIE for an
overemphasis on the nation-state as a key actor; indeed, using the nation-
state as the unit of analysis tends to restrict scholars’ ability to study
developments and topics that occur at the global level (Shields, 2013).
Nonetheless, numerous scholars within CIE take a broader perspective
and have focused on topics such as globalization, the diffusion of knowl-
edge across borders, educational policy borrowing and lending, and global
competition in higher education (see, e.g., Chakroun, 2010; Jakobi, 2012;
Portnoi & Bagley, 2014; Steiner-Khamsi, 2004, 2012; Tikly, 2001). In a
certain sense, these scholars have added a Global Studies angle to their
CIE lenses because they concentrate on the global aspects of education
that cut across borders.
This book is situated within this area of CIE scholarship that focuses
on globalization and educational reform, utilizing a global perspective.
