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The chapter demonstrates that one way to read recent developments in national curriculum in nations around the globe is as both expressions of and responses to globalization. Additionally, the chapter argues that curriculum making today is affected by ever-changing imbrications between local, national, regional and global relationships. Examples of this include the curriculum impacts actual and potential of the OECD's testing regime and aspirations in relation to curriculum and the EU's creation of a European education policy space. The more recent rise of new nationalisms and ethnonationalism is seen to have potential impact on national curriculum. Some consideration is also given to the content of the curriculum and the contemporary focus on both disciplinary knowledge and on what sorts of people schools should produce; both it is argued are responses to globalization. The ways the message systems (curriculum, pedagogy and evaluation) sit in a symbiotic relationship with each other and the impact of the strengthened significance of international and large-scale assessments on the enactment of the curriculum are also documented. Some brief account is provided of the enhanced involvement of EdTech companies producing online curricula and the ways the pandemic has accelerated this development with the concerning potential for the privatization of the curriculum.

This chapter provides a summary and a concluding discussion on the main findings from the different cases and chapters throughout this volume. The chapter revisits the approach on curriculum making as non-linear and as framed around a conceptualisation of interrelated sites of activity – supra, macro, meso, micro and nano – presented in the introduction. A central conclusion of this book is that the meso site of activity stands out as critical for current developments within curriculum making, both in terms of a transformed role for the nation state in macro curriculum making, as well as implications of policy flows and processes from the supra site of activity. Based on our observations, we suggest an elaborated model for understanding curriculum making, with special attention to the significance of meso curriculum making and teacher agency. In the final part of the conclusions, we argue that there are a number of lessons to be learned from curriculum making in the European context. In line with the significance of meso curriculum making observed throughout the volume, we emphasize the importance of middle ground and mobility, the necessity of participatory curriculum making, and that systems of accountability need to be based on trust. We also underline the importance of a delicate balance concerning regulation– providing support, guidance and steering – together with a critical awareness of destructive as well as progressive forces for maintaining and providing the agency of the educational systemfor good curriculum making.

The aim of this chapter is to investigate the potential of the disruption brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic to break the stagnation in the field of comparative and international education, detected on many fronts of the field by various scholars in the field. The chapter commences with a survey of the historical evolution of the field of comparative and international education, showing how the field has historically come to be defined by contextually induced discourse. At the same time, the historically trodden furrows have resulted in the field becoming trapped by historical forces, resulting in some stagnation in the field. It is argued that impediments to progress in the field of comparative and international education are the severance from practice, the “black box” syndrome of paying more attention to the societal context than to education, the tenacious attachment to the nation-state as the sole geographic level of analysis, the lack of an autochthonous theory, persistent Northern hegemony, and the regression of space and infrastructure at universities. Thereafter, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact thereof on education are discussed. In conclusion, the potential of the disruption brought about by the pandemic for the revisitation of comparative and international education is assessed.

This chapter provides an introduction to the European case study chapters in this volume on curriculum making. The chapter explores different conceptions of curriculum and curriculum making. It offers a critique of existing thinking about curriculum making as something that occurs withinreified levels within an educational system. Such thinking often construes curriculum making as occurring through linear and hierarchical chains of command from policy to practice. Drawing upon previous conceptualizations of curriculum making, the chapter develops a new approach to understanding curriculum making. This is a heuristic rather than a normative framing; it is essentially non-linear, framed around the concept of intertwined sites of activity – supra, macro, meso, micro and nano – within complex systems, with curriculum making framed as types of activity rather than institutional functions.

Canada is a country with ten provinces and three territories, each of which boasts its own set of unique characteristics. Education is constitutionally defined as a provincial responsibility. Although several federal government departments have some responsibilities in the area of education, there is no federal department of education. Thus, it is difficult to examine educational policy at a national level.

This chapter presents and discusses the value of cultural political economy (CPE) as a theoretical framework for the analysis of the international governance of education. CPE is situated historically as a contemporary example of attempts within the Marxist tradition to explore the relations between the cultural (the world of discourse and practice), the political (actors and institutions), and the economic. The chapter builds on the developed account of CPE to address the challenges presented by the European Union (EU) as an example of international governance. Established accounts of the development of an EU role in the governance of education since the launch of the Lisbon Strategy in March 2000 are examined so as to establish what a CPE approach can offer to attempts to complement and transcend them. In conclusion, the chapter acknowledges the aspects of CPE that remain undeveloped and problematic as well as underlining the terms upon which the CPE as presented here might need to engage with other theoretical approaches.

This chapter will now focus on humanity’s response to the seismic contextual changes brought about by globalization at the cusp of the twenty-first century. The signature feature of this response is an enrollment explosion. Other features are four driving policyscapes (that aligned to capabilities theory, neo-liberal economics, the Creed of Human Rights, and social justice), education for sustainable development, managerialism, decentralization, Global, Citizenship Education, Multicultural and Intercultural education, Multilingualism and the rising importance of English as international lingua franca, Human Rights Education, from STEM to STEAM education and a reappreciation of the social sciences and the humanities, the divergent calls for relevance, new ways of production and packaging of knowledge, a shift from teaching to learning, new learning theories, and the rise of international testing regimes. In many ways, these responses are incomplete and still searching for the perfect fit in each context. It is in this regard where the value of Comparative and International Education comes to the fore.