The article compares how the success of the "Asian Tiger" countries in PISA, especially PISA 2009, was depicted in the media discussion in Australia, Germany and South Korea. It argues that even in the times of today's "globalised education policy field", local factors are important in determining whether or not a country…

This article tries to look forward and backward simultaneously--the normal uncomfortable perspective used within articles written for anniversary issues. The theme of the paper is the need for some academic housekeeping. The main motif is that "comparative education" does not have an essential identity but that earlier debates which…

What happens when standardised literacy assessments travel globally? The paper presents an ethnographic account of adult literacy assessment events in rural Mongolia. It examines the dynamics of literacy assessment in terms of the movement and re-contextualisation of test items as they travel globally and are received locally by Mongolian…

This paper explores the nature and quality of the participation that characterises the Bank's consultations with external actors and examines the extent to which the Bank is responsive to such feedback when it comes to defining its policy preferences and strategies in the education domain. It draws on a case study of the participatory process…

This paper examines the outstanding performance of Shanghai, China on PISA 2009 and its effects on other national systems and within the global education policy field. The OECD's PISA is helping to create this field by constituting the globe as a commensurate space of school system performance. The effects of Shanghai's success are…

This study examines how textbooks in the Republic of Korea incorporate liberal, Western notions of diversity and multiculturalism. Through a systematic analysis of 60 civics textbooks over time, this study shows that ideas of multiculturalism and diversity have dramatically increased in the South Korean intended curriculum. While in the past,…

Comparative research on education in small states has attracted international attention since the mid-1980s when the Commonwealth sponsored a number of seminal meetings and publications, and became a key advocate for the advancement of such work. This article considers the place of different dimensions of scale in comparative research; re-examines…

In Asia, we are witnessing an era where the pendulum of power is swaying towards the East with the rising economic strength of China and India. Singapore is at the "crossroads" between the East and West of these most populous nations on earth. Although Singapore may appear the most Westernised country in Asia, she is nevertheless a multicultural…

The purpose of the study is to analyse and discuss the influences of globalisation and localisation on music education in Hong Kong and Taiwan. It argues that the reform of music education concerns changes to the contents of the curriculum that envisage the cultural and political developments that arise from processes of globalisation and…

At the 2010 American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual conference, a featured invited session focused on "How professors think: inside the curious world of academic judgment." Harvard University professor and author, Michele Lamont, articulated a thoughtful precis of her book. Her material concentrates on the "curious" world of…

Comparative international tests of students' achievements have become increasingly popular over the past decade. An outcome of this widespread practice is the tendency of various countries to evaluate their national status according to their pupils' international ranking in such achievement tests, partly due to the common belief that high ranking…

This article explores the neo-institutional theory of global policy convergence, or "isomorphism", by comparatively examining one of its most recent manifestations--the global diffusion of national standardised testing--in Australia and Japan. By understanding the particular configurations of national testing as being conditioned by both nations'…

This essay argues against a simple, reified view of culture as a set of ideas and norms belonging to a group or nation, and considers the implications of a more complicated concept for discussion of world culture and the global/local nexus. Most anthropologists define culture as the making of meaning, with an emphasis on the process itself as…

Increasing globalisation is concomitant with a growing lack of uniformity in the world. Hardly any satisfactory concepts are available which grasp both of these tendencies within the scope of a single model. While processes of becoming globally alike are central to world system theories, comparative research into institutions has identified a…

Just as the world has increasingly been compressed over recent decades through transnationally engaged actors or "carriers" such as mobile experts, international organisations, and seemingly globalised bodies of knowledge, so have China's politicians and academics increasingly "gone global" in various fields of social action, including education.…