International organizations, the "education-economic growth" black box, and the development of world education culture

Comparative Education Review

Volumn 50, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 173-195

  Resnik, Julia ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 33746029409     PISSN: 00104086     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/500692     Document Type: Review

References (126)

1. My use of the term "world education culture" in the tide is inspired by the term "world culture" coined by John Meyer and his colleagues; see John Boli and George M. Thomas, eds., Constructing World Culture: International Nongovernmental Organizations since 1875 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999). I use it to denote that certain educational models are diffused worldwide. This world education culture has been increasingly accepted in countries all over the world, but I maintain that the world education culture-centered around economic growth in the past or inspired by neoliberalism at present - is promoted by specific agents, be they scholars, experts, research institutes, or national or international organizations.
2. Peter Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Scokpol, eds., Bringing the State Back In (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
3. After a long period of gestation starting in the 1930s with the foundation of the Cowles Commission, which moved to the University of Chicago, econometric economics-called also mathematical economicsbegan to predominate in the 1950s in U.S. universities in which institutionalism and neoclassical theories were dominant. The boom of econometric economics was due to its application (first by econometrists, mainly Jan Tinbergen and Trygve Haavelmo) to Keynesian macroeconomics, which became highly influential after World War II in theoretical, applied, and policy work (Duo Qjn, The Formation of Econometrics: A Historical Perspective [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997]; see also http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/ schools).
4. A systematic study of education by economists began, enhanced by the "mystery" of economic growth. After World War II, the need to explain education as a coherent process was raised in economics (Sandrine Michel, Education et croissance économique en longue période [Paris: L'Harmattan, 1999], 108).
5. This theoretical "need" turned econometric economists to education and fostered the creation of the new discipline, "economics of education," born at the end of the 1950s. According to E. A. G. Robinson, a president of the International Economic Association (IEA): "It became evident that the IEA was interested in studying more profoundly several residual factors that influenced economic growth, particularly, education." Notwithstanding critics of the economics of education approach, in 1963 the prestigious IEA organized the first conference on the economics of education (E. A. G. Robinson, "Introduction," in The Economics of Education: Proceedings of a Conference Held by the International Economic Association, ed.John E. Vaizey [New York: Macmillan, 1966], xiii-xvii).
6. "Technical training, education and pre-investment assistance, whether undertaken by international organizations or by individual Governments, should be regarded as an important factor in the economic development of under-developed countries." See resolutions adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations during its fifteenth session 1515 (XV) on concerted actions for economic development of economically less developed countries, 948th plenary meeting, December 15, 1960.
7. I am referring here to the term "state managers" as used by Fred Block in "The Ruling Class Does Not Rule: Notes on the Marxist Theory of the State," Socialist Revolution 33 (May-June 1977): 6-28.
8. Allies can be "other scientists but also instruments and practices that embody the contribution, and arguments that justify it" (Yuval Yonay, "When Black Boxes Clash: Competing Ideas of What Science Is in Economics, 1924-1939," Social Studies of Seience 24, no. 1 [1994]: 39-80, n. 41).
9. Alex Inkeles and Larry Sirowy, "Convergent and Divergent Trends in National Education Systems," Social Forces 62, no. 2 (1983): 305-33.
10. Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System (New York: Academic Press, 1974).
11. Philip Altbach, "Education and Neocolonialism," Teachers College Record 72, no. 4 (1971): 543-58.
12. Martin Carnoy, Education as Cultural Imperialism (New York: McKay, 1974).
13. Annie Vinokur, "De la scolarisation de masse à la formation tout au long de la vie: Essai sur les enjeux économiques des doctrines éducatives des organisations internationales," Education et Société Revue Internationale de Sociologie de L'Éducation 12, no. 2 (2003): 91-104.
14. Ronald B. Cox, cited in Karen Mundy, "Educational Multilateralism and World (Dis)Order," Comparative Education Review 42, no. 4 (November 1998): 448-78, 450-51.
15. John Meyer, John Boli, George Thomas, and Francisco Ramirez, "World Society and the Nation-State," American Journal of Sociology 103, no. 1 (1997): 144-81.
16. Connie McNeely, "Prescribing National Education Policies: The Role of International Organizations," Comparative Education Review 39, no. 4 (1995): 483-507.
17. Colette Chabbott, Constructing Education for Development: International Organizations and Education for All (New York: Routledge, 2002).
18. Roser Cussó and Sabrina D'Amico, "Vers une comparabilité plus normative des statistiques internationales de l'éducation: De l'éducation de masse aux compétences" (paper presented at International Seminar, La mesure en éducation [Assessment in education], FOREDUC [e-forum on education], Vendôme, December 20-21, 2004).
19. See also Roser Cussó, La démographie dans le modèle de développement de la Banque Mondiale: Entre la recherche, le contrôle de la population et les politiques néolibérales (Paris: EHESS, 2001).
20. Béatrice Hibou, "The Political Economy of the World Bank's Discourse," Etudes du CERI 39 (January 2000): 44.
21. Romuald Normand, "Le mouvement de la 'school effectiveness' et sa critique dans le monde anglo-saxon," 2003, Sociologie, politique et critique en éducation, Revue de l'Institut de Sociologie Université Libre de Bruxelles 2001, nos. 1-4 (2003): 135-67.
22. Christian Lavai and Louis Weber, eds., Le nouvel ordre éucatif mondial OMC, Banque Mondiale, OECD, Commission Européenne (Paris: Editions Nouveaux Regards, 2002).
23. Robert Michels, Political Parties (Mineola, NY: Dover, 1959).
24. Actor-network theory is an approach originating in studies of science and technology. Key references are Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar, Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1979; Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986),
25. further citations are to the latter edition; Bruno Latour, Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987);
26. Michel Callon, "Society in the Making: The Study of Technology as a Tool for Sociological Analysis," in The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology, ed. Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes, and Trevor J. Pinch (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987), 83-106;
27. Michel Callon and Bruno Latour, "Unscrewing the Big Leviathan: How Actors Macrostructure Reality and How Sociologists Help Them to Do So," in Advances in Social Theory and Methodology: Toward and Integration of Micro- and Macro- Sociologies, ed. Karin D. Knorr-Cetina and Aaron V. Cicourel (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981), 277-303.
28. John Law, "Note on the Theory of the Actor-Network: Ordering, Strategy, and Heterogeneity," Systems Practice 5, no. 4 (1992): 379-93.
29. Latour and Woolgar, Laboratory Life;
30. Michel Callon and Bruno Latour, "Do Not Throw Out the Baby with the Bath School," in Science as Practice and Culture, ed. A. Pickering (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 343-68.
31. In Yonay, "When Black Boxes Clash."
32. In Yonay, "When Black Boxes Clash."Ibid.
33. Latour, Science in Action.
34. See, e.g., L. Walsh, "Capital Concept Applied to Man," Quarterly Journal of Economics 49 (1935): 225-85;
35. Jacob Mincer, "Investment in Human Capital and Personal Income," Journal of Political Economy 66, no. 4 (1958): 281-302;
36. Theodore W. Schultz, "Investment in Man: An Economist's View," Social Service Review 33 (1959): 106-17;
37. Frederick Harbison and Charles A. Myers, Management in the Industrial World (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959);
38. Friedrich Edding, "Internationale Tendenzen in der Entwicklung derAusgaben fur Schulen und Hochschulen" [International trends in educational expenditure], Kieler Studien 47 (1958): 24-71;
39. Edward F. Denison, "Saving in the National Economy: From the Nation Income Perspective," Survey of Current Business (1955): 8-24;
40. Ingvar Svennilson, Growth and Stagnation in the European Economy (Geneva: Förenta Nationerna, 1954).
41. Ideas on human capital were also circulating in international organizations. For instance, Tinbergen, the Dutch scholar considered the founding father of econometric economics (Nobel Economics Prize 1969), collaborated with international organizations between 1936 and 1938 as an expert temporarily attached to the League of Nations Secretariat and further on with UNESCO and the OECD. Theodore W. Schultz (Nobel Economics Prize 1979), as a specialist in economic development in developing countries, was the head of the Ford Foundation's Technical Assistance in Latin America in the mid-1950s. See Clifton Wharton Jr., "Theodore W. Schultz, Biographies Memoirs," Proceedings of the American Philosophy Society 147, no. 3 (September 2003): 312-15.
42. Raymond F. Lyons, ed., Problems and Strategies of Educational Planning: Lessons from Latin America (Paris: UNESCO, HEP, 1965);
43. Casely Maté, "Addis Ababa in Retrospect: An Evaluation since the 1961 Conference," in Education in Africa: Research and Action, ed. Richard Jolly, published for the African Studies Association of the United Kingdom (Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1969), 5.
44. Eric Delamotte, Une introduction a la pensée économique en éducation (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1998), 84.
45. Friedrich Edding, "Expenditure on Education: Statistics and Comments," in The Economics of Education: Proceedings of a Conference Held by the International Economic Association, ed. E. A. G. Robinson and J. E. Vaizey (London: Macmillan, 1966), 48.
46. Michel, Education et croissance économique en tongue période, 33-101.
47. Thomas R. Malthus, Principles of Political Economy (1820; repr., London: Macmillan, 1973).
48. Alfred Marshall, Principle of Economics (1890; repr., London: Macmillan, 1991).
49. See Theodore W. Schultz, "Investment in Human Capital," American Economic Review 51 (March 1961): 1-17,
50. and The Economic Value of Education (New York: Wiley, 1963);
51. see also Gary S. Becker, "Investment in Human Capital: A Theoretical Analysis," Journal of Political Economy 70 (1962),
52. and Human Capital (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), 9-49.
53. In Michel, Education et croissance économique en longue période, 135.
54. Frederic Harbison, "Quantitative Indicators of Human Resource Development," in Robinson and Vaizey, The Economics of Education, 349-80.
55. Frederic Harbison, The Economics of Education, Ibid., 370.
56. Similar to Schultz, Denison ("Measuring the Contribution of Education [and the Residual] to Economic Growth," in Study Group in the Economics of Education-the Residual Factor and Economic Growth [Paris: OECD, 1965], 13-57, 22) uses empirical data regarding personal income due to education in order to obtain a first approximate measure of the social product.
57. Ingvar Svennilson, Friedrich Edding, and Lionel Elvin, "The Objectives of Education in Europe for the 1970s," in Conference on the Economic Growth and Investment in Education Policies (Paris: OECD, 1962), 103-31.
58. Delamotte, Une introduction a la pensée économique en éducation, 122.
59. Jan Tinbergen and H. C. Bos, "A Planning Model for the Educational Requirements of Economic Development," in OECD, Study Group in the Economics of Education, 147.
60. Thomas Balogh, comments on Tinbergen and Bos's paper: "A Planning Model for the Educational Requirements of Economic Development," in OECD, Study Group in the Economics of Education, 180-87, 182.
61. "A Planning Model for the Educational Requirements of Economic Development," Study Group in the Economics of Education, 180-87, Ibid.
62. John Vaizey, "Towards a New Political Economy? Or Some Problems of Some Aspects of Economics in the Light of 'Human Resource' Problems," in OECD, Study Group in the Economics of Education, 122.
63. Haavelmo, "Comments on 'The Objectives of Education in Europe for the 1970s,' by Ingvar Svennilson, Friedrich Edding, and Lionel Elvin," in OECD, Conference on the Economic Growth and Investment in Education Policies, 132-43, 132.
64. Cited in Delamotte, Une introduction a la pensée économique en éducation, 46.
65. See "Recommendation no 60 to the Ministries of Eduation concerning the Organization of Educational Research," in International Conference on Public Education: Recommendations, 1934-1977, with a historical note by P. Rosello (Paris: UNESCO-IBE, 1978), 318.
66. According to McNeely, the role of international organizations is to prescribe national education policies (Connie McNeely, Constructing the Nation-State: International Organization and Prescriptive Action [London: Greenwood, 1995]).
67. Maria D. Vasconcelos, "L'évolution des politiques éducatives," in L'école, l'état des savoirs, éd. Agnes Van Zanten (Paris: La Découverte, 2000).
68. The French historian Antoine Prost argues that the reformist initiatives in France, like similar ones undertaken in other European countries, were not national but international (Education, société et politiques [Paris: Editions du Seuils, 1997], 84).
69. Julia Resnik, "Globalization of Educational Models: Structural Reforms of the Education System in Israel and France" (PhD diss., Tel Aviv University, 2001).
70. Assemblée Nationale, Séance du 25 juillet 1957, 3968, cited in Julia Resnik, "Globalization of Educational Models: Structural Reforms of the Education System in Israel and France" ibid., 215.
71. Haim Gaziel, "The Comprehensive Middle School in France," Comparative Education 25, no. 1 (1989): 29-39.
72. "Colloque sur l'éducation nationale: Sous les auspices du Grand Orient de France" (1962), cited in Resnik, "Globalization of Educational Models," 228.
73. Jean Fourastié and Raymond Poignant, "Le développement des enseignements du second degré et supérieur et l'évolution de l'emploi" (paper presented at Colloque sur l'éducation nationale, Sous les auspices du Grand Orient de France, Palais de l'UNESCO, Paris, April 6-8, 1962), 55.
74. Louis Gros, "L'Administration de l'éducation nationale face a l'évolution économique et sociale" (paper presented at Colloque sur l'éducation nationale, Sous les auspices du Grand Orient de France, Palais de l'UNESCO, Paris, April 6-8, 1962), 87.
75. Jean Capelle, "Economic des programmes" (paper presented at Colloque sur l'éducation nationale, Sous les auspices du Grand Orient de France, Palais de l'UNESCO, Paris, April 6-8, 1962), 181-82.
76. Resnik, "Globalization of Educational Models."
77. Sauvy, director of the INED, represented France in the UNESCO Population Commission from 1947 and chaired it from 1951 to 1953. Bourgeois-Pichat, the successor of Sauvy as director of the INED, was vice-director of the population division in the department of social affairs in UNESCO from 1954 to 1962. This information is cited in Alain Girard, L'Institut National d'Etudes Démographiques-histoire et développement (Paris: Editions de l'Institut National d'Etudes Démographiques, 1986), 69-73.
78. Jean Fourastié, "Politiques de croissance economique et d'investissement dans l'enseignement" (paper presented at Conférence de Washington II: Les objectifs de l'éducation en Europe pour 1970, OECD, Washington, DC, October 16-20, 1961).
79. Raymond Poignant, director of the IIEP 1963-68, participated in large numbers of international conferences and workshops organized by the OECD and UNESCO (Resnik, "Globalization of Educational Models," 261).
80. Michel Debeauvais was vice-director of the Institut d'Etude du développement Economique et Social (IEDES) Paris before his nomination as chief of unity in charge of the Ford Foundation Program for Latin America. He participated in the study group in the economics of education, financing of education for economic growth organized by the OECD (Paris, September 21-24, 1964). He presented, with Daniel Blot, a paper entitled "Educational Expenditure in Developing Areas: Some Statistical Aspects" (paper presented at a conference organized by the Directorate for Scientific Affairs, Paris, September 21-24, 1964).
81. He participated as an expert and consultant for the OECD at the Conférence sur les Politiques d'Expansion de l'Enseignement, Rapport Général, Politiques d'Enseignement pour la Décennie 1970/1980, Paris, June 3-5, 1970, organized by the OECD. He was Director of HEP from 1977 to 1982.
82. See OECD, "Reviews of National Policies for Education, Sweden, 1969" (OECD, Paris, 1969), 17.
83. "Reviews of National Policies for Education, Sweden, 1969" 1969, 17Ibid.
84. Husén identifies the wastage of talent in selective education systems as the reason for this social distortion. See Conférence sur les Politiques d'Expansion de l'Enseignement, Rapport Général, Politiques d'Enseignement pour la Décennie 1970/1980, Paris, June 3-5, 1970.
85. Husén participated in Objectifs sociaux et planification de l'enseignement, groupe d'étude sur l'aspet économiques de l'enseignement [Study group on the economics of education, social objectives and education planning] (Paris: OECD, 1969).
86. As an expert, he participated in the Conférence sur lés Politiques d'Expansion de l'Enseignement, Rapport Général, Politiques d'Enseignement pour la Décennie 1970/ 1980, Paris, June 3-5, 1970. He was responsible for the OECD report on "Education Policy in France: Notes et Etudes Documentaires" (OECD, Paris, February 12, 1971).
87. Barry J. Hake, Education and Social Emancipation - Some Implications for General Secondary Education towards the Year 2000, Plan Europe 2000, published under the auspices of the European Cultural Foundation (The Hague: Nijhoof, 1975), 4.
88. In 1962, UNESCO set up two training institutes, one at Beyrotuh for the Arab countries and at New Delhi for Asia. The rest were held in Latin America; see Lyons, Problems and Strategies of Educational Planning.
89. 1946 UNESCO 50 Years of Education (Paris: UNESCO, Education Sector, 1997), 64-65.
90. The EIP projects were presented by the OECD Committee for Scientific and Technical Personnel, cited in OECD, "Reviews of National Policies for Education, Sweden," 8.
91. Friis Henning was the director of the Danish National Institute of Social Research, Copenhagen, Denmark; chairman, OECD Committee for Scientific and Technical Personnel; and the author of the introduction for OECD Study Group in the Economics of Education, Organizational Problems in Planning Educational Development (Paris: OECD, 1966), 9-12, 12,
92. OECD Study Group in the Economics of Education, Organizational Problems in Planning Educational Development, 1966, 9-12, Ibid.
93. see also George Papadopoulus, Education, 1960-1990 (Paris: OECD, 1994), 50-54.
94. Herbert Parmers, The Mediterranean Regional Project: Forecasting Educational Needs for Economic and Social Development (Paris: OECD, 1962), 61.
95. Développement des ressources humaines, Les prévisions de main d'ouevre dans la planification de l'enseignement, Direction des Affaires Scientifiques, OECD, Paris, 1967.
96. For instance, régional conferences of ministers of education in Asia and the Pacific convened by UNESCO have met regularly since 1962 (Tokyo in 1962, Bangkok in 1965, Singapore in 1972, Colombo in 1978, and Bangkok in 1985). "They were attended by both by ministers of education and those responsible for economic planning in their countries. The composition of the Conferences comprising both education and economic policy-makers has served to broaden the perspectives in which the development of education was viewed" (Raja Roy Singh, Education in Asia and the Pacific, Retrospect: Prospect [Bangkok: UNESCO, 1985], 1).
97. See Lyons, Problems and Strategies of Educational Planning, v-vii;
98. Maté, "Addis Ababa in Retrospect," 5.
99. See Maté, "Addis Ababa in Retrospect," 3.
100. Lyons, Problems and Strategies of Educational Planning, vi.
101. Thomas N. Chirikos and John R. Shea, "Educational Development in Bolivia," in Educational Innovations in Latin America, ed. Richard Cummings and Donald Lemke (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1973), 207.
102. Laurence Gale, Education and Development in Latin America with Special Reference to Colombia and Some Comparison with Guyana, South America (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969), 110-12.
103. Jose Blat Gimeno, La educación en America Latina y el Caribe en el ultimo tercio del siglo XX (Paris: UNESCO, 1981), 21.
104. Jose Blat Gimeno, La educación en America Latina y el Caribe en el ultimo tercio del siglo XX, 1981, 21, Ibid.
105. Gale, Education and Development in Latin America, 110.
106. Gimeno, La educatión en America Latina y el Caribe.
107. Lyons, Problems and Strategies of Educational Planning, vii.
108. Richard Cummings, "Dynamics Affecting Education," in Cummings and Lemke, Educational Innovations in Latin America, 7.
109. Gale, Education and Development in Latin America, 112, 20-21.
110. Gale, Education and Development in Latin America, Ibid., 22.
111. Gale, Education and Development in Latin America, Ibid., 110.
112. See Muhammad Shamsul Huq, Education and Development Strategy in South and Southeast Asia (Honolulu: East-West Center Press), vii.
113. Singh, Education in Asia and the Pacific, 8.
114. Singh, Education in Asia and the Pacific, Ibid., 9.
115. Singh, Education in Asia and the Pacific, Ibid., 10.
116. See Maté, "Addis Ababa in Retrospect," 5.
117. Filomina Indire, "Education in Kenya," in Education in Africa - a Comparative Survey, ed. A. Babs Fafunwa and J. U. Aisiku (London: Allen & Unwin, 1982), 123.
118. See Maté, "Addis Ababa in Retrospect," 8.
119. Abdelaziz Soliman, "Education in Egypt," in Jolly, Education in Africa, 51.
120. Ahmadu Toure, "Education in Mali," in Jolly, Education in Africa, 191.
121. Karen Mundy and Lynn Murphy, "Transnational Advocacy, Global Civil Society? Emerging Evidence from the Field of Education," Comparative Education Review 45, no. 1 (February 2001): 85-126.
122. I borrow here from Hibou's expression "economic catechism," which refers to the World Bank economic ideology ("The Political Economy of the World Bank's Discourse").
123. See Hans N. Weiler, "Education and Development: From the Age of Innocence to the Age of Skepticism," Comparative Education 14, no. 3 (1978): 179-98;
124. Kenneth Blakemore and Brian Cooksey, A Sociology of Education for Africa (London: Allen & Unwin, 1981).
125. Chabbott, Constructing Education for Development, 62.
126. I refer to the suggestion to take states seriously made in Margaret M. Weir and Theda Scokpol, "State Structures and the Possibilities for 'Keynesian' Responses to the Great Depression in Sweden, Britain, and the United States," in Evans, Rueschemeyer, and Scokpol, Bringing the State Back In.