Globalization and education: Demonstrating a "common world educational culture" or locating a "globally structured educational agenda"?

Educational Theory

Volumn 50, Issue 4, 2000, Pages 427-448

  Dale, Roger ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND   (New Zealand)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0038590692     PISSN: 00132004     EISSN: 17415446     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-5446.2000.00427.x     Document Type: Article

References (65)

1. This essay is one of a set of three in which I am attempting to develop various aspects of this approach. See Roger Dale, "Specifying Global Effects on National Policy: A Focus on the Mechanisms," fournal o Education Policy 14, no. 1 (1999): 1-14 and Roger Dale, "Globalization: A New World for Coinparativc Education!" in Discourse and Comparative Education, ed. Juergen Schriewer (Bern: Peter Lang, 1999),87-109.
2. Robert W. Cox, Approaches to World Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996)
3. Bjom Hettne, ed., International Political Economy: Understanding Global Disorder [London: Zed Press, 1995)
4. James Mittelman, ed., Globalization: Critical Reflections (Boulder: Lynn Reincr, 1996).
5. John W. Meyer and Francisco O. Ramirez, "The World Institutionalization of Education," in Schriewer, Discourse and Comparative Education, 11 1-32.
6. Walter W. Powell and Paul DiMaggio, eds., The Newlnstitutionalism in Organization Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, and Peter A. Hall andR0semaryC.R. Taylor, "Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisrns," Political Studies 44, no. 4, 1991936-57.
7. However, it is possible to discern some potential shifts in a recent major statement of the approach. John W. Meyer, John Boli, George M. Thomas, and Francisco 0. Ramirez, "World Society and the Nation-State," American, Iournal uf Sociology 103, no. 1 (1997): 144-81.
8. John W. Meyer, John Roli, and Gcorgc M. Thomas, "Ontology and Rationalization in the Western Cultural Account," in Institutional Structure: Constituting State, Society and the Individual, ed. George M. Thomas, John W. Meyer, Francisco 0. Ramirez, and John Boli (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage],27,29. This is the lead chapter in the theoretically most significant collection of work on the world institutionalist approach 1987
9. Francisco O. Ramirez and Marc J. Ventresca, "Building the Institution of Mass Schooling; Isomorphism in the Modern World," in The Political Construction of Educational Expansion: The State, School Expansion and Economic Change, ed. Bruce Fuller and Richard Rubinson (New York: Praeger, 1992),47-59.
10. Francisco O. Rarmrez and John Boli, "Global Patterns of Educational Institutionalization," in Thomas et al., Institutional Structure, 154.
11. The most accessible and relevant accounts of this work in education are the collections, The Political Construction of Educational Expansion, where the main focus is explaining the spread of education systems; and School Knowledge for the Masses: World Models and Curricular Categories in the Twentieth Century, ed. John W. Meyer, David H. Kamens, and Aaron Benavot (London: Falmer, 19923, whose focus is the unexpected homogeneity of curricular categories across the world and from which I shall draw most of my examples since it represents the strongest statement of the CWEC case.
12. Wong, Sulr-Ying, "The Evolution and Organization of the Social Science Curriculum," in Meyer et al., School Knowledge for the Masses, 126.
13. Aaron Benavot, Yun-Kyung Cha, David H. Knmens, John W. Meyer, and Wong Suk-Ying, "Knowledge for the Masses: World Models and National Curricula, 1920-86," in Meyer et al., School Knowledge for the Masses, 41.
14. Yun-Kyung Cha, "The Origins and Expansion of Primary School Curricula:1800-1920," in Meyer et al., School Knowledge for the Masses, 65.
15. A similar point is made in Richard Rubinson and Irene Browne, "Education and the Economy," in Handbook of Economic Sociology, ed. Neil 1. Smelser and Richard Swedborg (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). I am, of course, conscious that I am employing a somewhat similar strategy in this essay.
16. Benavot et al, "Knowledge for the Masses," 41.
17. David Kamens, John W. Meyer, and Aaron Benavot, "Worldwide Patterns in Academic Secondary Education Curricula," Comparative Education Review 40, no. 2 (1996): 116-38.
18. John W. Meyer, "Introduction," in Meyer et al., School Knowledge for the Masses, 8, 21.
19. John W. Meyer and David H. Kamens, "Conclusion: Accounting for a World Curriculum," in Meyer et al., School Knowledge for the Masses, 171
20. Rubinson and Browne, Education and the Economy, 592
21. Meyer et al., School Knowledge for the Masses, xi-xii. Although, as has been noted above, there is also a tendency to stray beyond this self-imposed restriction.
22. We might also note that each of them individually carries different meanings. Takc "standards," for example. Within a few pages of School Knowledge for the Masses we have references to "world standards," apparently implying a measure of quality; to "the correct educational standard," apparently implying a criterion of achievement; and to "dominant standards of educational propriety," apparently implying some kind of norm.
23. Meyer et al., Ontology and Rationalization, 34
24. Meyer and Kamens, "Conclusion," 168
25. David H. Kamens, "Variant Forms: Cases of Countries with Distinct Curricula," in Meyer et al., School Knowledge for the Masses, 82 and Cha, Origins and Expansion, 65.
26. John W. Meyer, David H. Kamens, and Aaron Benavot, "Authors' Preface," in Meyer et al., School Knowledge for the Musses, xi-xii; bracketed phrases added.
27. Stefan Hopman, "Review of School Knowledge for the Masses," Journal of Curriculum Studies 25, no. 5 (1992): 475-82.
28. Paul Streeten, "Human Development: The Debate about the Index," International Social Science fournal47, no. 1 (1995): 25-37
29. Cox, Approaches and Dale, Globalization.
30. Roger Dale and Susan Robertson, "Resisting the Nation, Reshaping the State," in Education Policy in New Zealand, ed. Mark Olssen and Kay Morris Matthews (Palmerston North Dunmore, 1997,209-27
31. Joseph Grieco, "Sources of Variation in Regional Institutionalization in Western Europe, East Asia, and the Americas," in The PoliticalEconomy of Regionalism, ed. Edward 0. Mansfield and Helen V. Milner (New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1997,167-87
32. Mittelman, Globalization; Hettne InternationaII'oliti~a~ Economy; and Peter Katzenstein, "Regionalism in Comparative Perspective," Cooperation and Conflict 31, no. 2. In the case of the EuropeanUnion thisinvolves theregional body takingprecedence over national bodies on a number of key issues that were traditionally the exclusive preserve of the sovereign nation-state; moreover, it carries out these state-like functions without taking on a state-like form. In both these ways, it seriously threatens the basis of the world polity argument. This is an extremely important issue, but it will not be pursued further here because the focus of the paper is the effects on education and not a general critique of the world polity approach. 1996: 123-59
33. Again, for the sake of this essay it is not necessary to go through the arguments about globalization in depth. There is in any case a burgeoning secondary literature that is providing increasingly sophisticated summaries of the arguments. However, the argument that what we are witnessing is an epochal shift and not merely an incremental development, is central to the GSAE approach
34. This argument is fully elaborated in Roger Dale, The State and Education Policy(Mi1ton Keynes: Open University Press, 1989).
35. See Martha Finnemore's Excellent critical appraisal of the "world institutionalists" in, Martha Finnemore, ''Norms, Cultures, and World Politics: Insights from Sociology's Institutionalism," International Organization 47, no. 4 and Martha Finnemore, National Interests in International Society (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1996, 1996): 565-97
36. Finnemore, National Interests, 131.
37. The concepts of mandate, capacity, and governance are spelled out in Dale, Globalization.
38. This dstinction is elaborated in Roger Dale, "Applied Education Policy or Political Sociology of Education? Contrasting Approaches in the Recent Study of Education Policy," in Researching Education Policy: Ethical and Methodological Issues, ed. David Halpin and Barry Troyna (London: Falmer, 1994,3 1-41.
39. A similar point is made by Finnemore, Norms, Culture and MforId Politics
40. Meyer et al, World Society and the Naiion-State, 154.
41. This argument is more full yelaboratedin SusanRobertsonand RogerDale, "Competitive Contractualism: A New Social Settlement in New Zealand Education," in Education in Times of Transition: World Yearbook of Education 2000, ed. David Coulby, Robert Cowen, and Crispin Jones (London: Kogan Page, 2000), 116-31.
42. Sce Dale, Specifying Global Effects.
43. Dale and Robertson, Resisting the Nation
44. Robert Reich, The Work of Nations (London: Simon and Schuster, 1991).
45. Governing Capitalist Economies, ed. J. Rogers Hollingsworth, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Wolfgang Strecck (Ncw York: Oxford University Prcss, 1994).
46. For a more extensive account of a rescarch strategy informed by the GSAE approach, see Roger Dale and Susan Robertson, A Critical Policy Methodology for Education (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, forthcoming.
47. Benavot et al., Knowledge for the Masses, 59.
48. JohnBoli, "Identity, State, andSchooling," inFuller andRubinson, ThePoliticaZ Construction of Schoo Expansion.
49. Meyer et al., World Society and the Nation-State, 166.
50. John Boli and George M. Thomas, "World Culture in a World Polity: A Century of International Non- Governmental Organization," American Sociological Review 62 (1997): 173, 182-83.
51. Connie McNeely, "Prescribing National Education Policies: The Role of International Organizations," Comparative Education Review 39, no. 4 [1995): 484
52. Connie McNeely, Constructing the Nation-State: International Organizations and Prescriptive Action (Westport: Greenwood, 1995)
53. Connie McNeely and Yur-Kyung Cha, "Worldwide Educational Convergence through International Organizations: Avenues for Research," Education Policy Analysis Archives 2, no. 14 (1994).
54. McNeely and Cha, "Worldwide Educational Convergence," 2-3
55. James N. Kosenau and Emst-Otto Cziempel, eds., Governance without Government: Order and Change in World Politics [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, See Dale, Specifying Global Effects. 1992
56. Streeten, "Human Development" and Donald McGranahan, "Measures of Development: Research at the UnitedNations Research Institute for Social Development," International Social Science lournal 47, no. 1 (1995): 39-59.
57. And this is to say nothing of the declining authority of science, consequent on the consequences of its perceived mistakes (Chemobyl) and hubris ("Mad Cow Disease" and Genetic Engineering).
58. See footnote 53.
59. See, for instance Peter Hall, ed., The Political Power ofEconomic Ideas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).
60. Roger Dale, "New Directions for Education Policy: Neo-Keynesian, Neo-liberal, and Neo-Schumpeterian Approaches." Keynote address to New Zcaland Association for Research in Education (NZARE) Conference on Education Policy, Auckland, 1995.
61. Meyer et al, World Society and the Nation-State, 159-60.
62. Meyer and Kamens, Conclusion, 175.
63. See Martha Finnemore, "International Organizations as Teachers of Norms: UNESCO and Science Policy," International Organization 47, no. 4 (1996): 565-97.
64. See Philip W. Jones, World Hank Financing of Education: Lending, Learning, and Development (London: Routledge, 1992).
65. See especially R.S. Pannu, "Neo-liberal Project of Globalization: Prospects for Democratization of Education," Albertcl ]ournal of Educational Research 42, nu. 2 (1996): 87-101.