This paper explores the relationship between global, regional and local influences on adult literacy policy and practice in the UK through a discourse analysis of policy-related texts. The analysis is framed by theoretical perspectives from literacy studies and socio-material theory. The paper identifies a number of specific features in the UK…

In this article I consider the place of a school in Cyprus that admits students from both sides of the Green Line and the role sport is meant to play in bringing students from diverse backgrounds together. One of the island's elite schools, The Lefkos Academy (TLA), is one of the few places where Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots gather…

This article discusses the involvement of international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) in transnational education policy-making, with particular reference to the global initiative Education for All (EFA). EFA is a policy process carried out by international governmental organisations (IGOs) with the main aim to achieve basic education for…

Education policy has undergone transformation in many countries over the last decade. In this article, we focus on the effects of the most significant international initiative in secondary education, which is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). We analyse…

The article compares educational regionalisation in Europe and Latin America. This analysis unveils the influence of three social phenomena in the two case studies, namely power, fields of activity and knowledge. Mostly, it focuses on the initiatives led by the European Union and the Organisation of Ibero-American States in order to implement…

In this article, we set out from the challenge that globalising synchronisation--usually exemplified by Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and World Bank initiatives--presents for education to argue that the time-space compression effected by globalisation must educationally be dealt with with caution, critical vigilance and a…

This article explores the nexus between foreign aid and Nepal's primary education in order to understand how aid agencies affect national educational development. It argues that after 1990, when global education targets provided the basic framework for all donor agency funding to primary education and the subsequent use of a sector-wide approach…

Encouraged by transnational organisations, curriculum policy-makers in the UK have called for curricula in schools and higher education to include a global dimension and education for global citizenship that will prepare students for life in a global society and work in a global economy. We argue that this call is rhetorically operating as a…

This paper examines annual changes in the participation of developing countries in three kinds of learning assessment activity over the past three decades. It specifically highlights, and provides initial explanations for, the worldwide spread of national and regional assessments since the mid-1990s. The paper argues that national learning…

What do the shared norms emerging in the regulation of access reveal about the higher education internationalisation process? The history of access norms brings to light two characteristics of this process: the spreading of sociotechnic tools and the emergence of moral entrepreneurs. Based on case studies carried out in France, the US, South…

This contribution aims at exploring the significance of the new generation of UNESCO conventions for the recognition of higher education qualifications. It discusses three possible scenarios and links them to the empirical findings of a study that compares the enabling conditions of the first generation of recognition conventions established in…

This paper analyses the relation between power and politics under the conditions of economic globalisation and transnational policy-making in education. The paper argues that power lies not only with the producers of the dominant educational discourse nor simply with the very discourse which is circulated and reproduced in national legislations,…

The project of the Bologna process to create a "European Higher Education Area" (EHEA) has established the necessary conditions for the emergence of a new sociopolitical space of higher education in Europe. This space has become a cooperation/competition area that changes the European and national balance of power: the relations the countries…

In recent years, policy scholars have increasingly turned towards the international level as a source for national policy change. This article conceptualises this development as the emergence of a global policy field of education. The example of lifelong learning is given to illustrate this global policy process. In the first part, I introduce…

In his article titled "A Quarter Century of Neoliberal Thinking in Education: Misleading Analyses and Failed Policies", Steven J. Klees provides a rich account of how educational policy has been influenced by a shift towards neoliberal economic thinking since the 1980s. He also effectively demonstrates the negative impact of this experiment in…