Due to the historically outsized influence of the United Kingdom's development assistance office on international aid, a better understanding of the underlying ideologies and political priorities guiding this agency would help the larger aid community more clearly understand the power dynamics and structural context of the development industry.…

This article analyzes three USAID education strategy documents (1998, 2005, and 2011) as well as USAID's requests for proposals for three projects to assess how teachers are represented. The main findings indicate that USAID education strategy documents a) treat teachers as human capital, a human resource input, rather than as human beings and b)…

In 2015, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly adopted a resolution titled "Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development" and a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The notion of "transformative education" is being mainstreamed in the work of UNESCO within the new framework of the SDGs,…

This paper presents a vertical case study of the history of universalizing education in postcolonial Sierra Leone from the early 1950s to 1990 to highlight how there has never been a universal conception of universal education. In order to unite a nation behind a universal ideal of schooling, education needed to be adapted to different…

This article analyses the institutional power of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in the process of education policy formation in El Salvador during 2003-2005. The results show how bi- and multi-lateral institutions are able to leverage financial and intellectual capital to guide the policymaking process and sway…

Bhutan is a "small state" according to the World Bank, and therefore categorized as fragile and vulnerable to local and global challenges. However, since the 1960s, when the country first engaged in "modernization" development and global politics, Bhutan has been anything but fragile and helpless. The Royal Government's focus…

In our times globalization and cosmopolitanism are terms that speak to the intensification of border-crossing, and in connection to education, to the global conditions and possibilities that are directing change in learning and teaching. Much of this change demands a rethinking of the identity of the teacher and a revisioning of the work of…

Early Childhood Development (ECD) has emerged as a theme in international and African dialogue on education in recent years. UNESCO's Division of Basic Education Early Childhood promotes an integrated approach to Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) policy development and review. The study examines how this is implemented in three West…

Sustainability strategies are closely tied to the logic of the donor in every institution. Philanthropies that are set up with a limited time-span tend to scale up their impact differently. The educational programs of the Open Society Institute, for example, prioritize institutionalization over any other sustainability strategy. This is how it…

The NGO boom of the 1990s was matched by mounting literature on the influence of NGOs on world politics. The 1998 inaugural issue of "Current Issues in Comparative Education" ("CICE")--"Are NGOs Overrated?"--brought these debates into the very center of international and comparative education. The journal issue inspired a fascinating conversation…

This article provides a brief history of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES). The CIES, initially the Comparative Education Society (CES), evolved from annual conferences at New York University begun in 1954 by William W. Brickman. CES was founded at the close of a subsequent conference (April 27, 1956), with Brickman as…

The Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) has, throughout its 50 years of existence, exercised leadership in the field of comparative education. It was one of the five societies that founded the World Council of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES) in 1970, an umbrella body that by 2006 brought together 35 national,…

The authors contend that the impact of the Cold War on multilateral organizations (especially UNESCO) as well as on the academic programs in Comparative and International Education or Development Studies in Education has been largely understudied. Both world-systems (USA and its allies, Soviet Union and its allies) laid claim on the project of…

UNESCO defines education for sustainable development (ESD) as covering a broad range of issues from natural resources and HIV/AIDS to poverty reduction. ESD thus becomes a term that must be subtle yet clear, holistic yet tangible. One option for ESD, in dealing with this complexity, is to simplify its content and narrow the issues it addresses.…