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One of the central themes of education for all (EFA) for the last two decades has been empowerment through access to education. The history of EFA, however, can at best be termed as checkered. EFA has been relatively successful in drawing world attention and improving access to education. However, the question whether world attention and improved access has resulted in empowerment of people in the developing world still remains unanswered.

In this paper we argue that the limited success of EFA can best be examined and analyzed by paying close attention to tension between demands of the global capital and labor market place and nationalist agendas of the developing (post-colonial) state. These tensions affect the EFA agenda in the developing countries in complex ways.

Taking empirical-educational data from Pakistan we demonstrate that demands of the global capital and the labor market had resulted in an increased attention on institutions and programs of study that cater to the needs of the global capital and labor pool. Access to these institutions is limited to certain strata of the society. On the other hand the mass education program in Pakistan is largely defined by the nationalistic agenda of the post-colonial undemocratic state. A net impact of the interplay of these global and national dynamics is that not only the EFA's aim of mass education is hampered but also more importantly education in its present state is not empowering the recipients.

This chapter presents an analysis of the constitutional definitions of the right to education. Four countries of the Southern Common Market are selected: Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay (member countries) and Chile (an associate State). A conceptual definition of the right to education -from the human rights-based perspective- is provided in order to analyze, from a comparative standpoint, the constitutional norms of each country. In recent decades, these countries have experienced recurrent school reforms which, as they are framed within legal definitions, have regulated the right to education as a premise for overcoming social inequalities. First, a definition of this concept is provided. Second, the national constitutions of each country are analyzed so as to identify the definitions they have in this field. Subsequently, a comparative discussion of the underlying regulatory definitions of the right to education is carried out. Finally, the scope and limitations that the constitutional texts of these countries have on the right to education are discussed, which allow for a better understanding of school reform processes that were carried out during the last decades and that had the right to education as an object of regulation and reconfiguration.

In focusing on the changing dynamics of education governance, this chapter draws on a few key concepts of policy borrowing research, notably the focus on reception and translation of global education policy, and sheds light on the temporal and spatial dimensions of policy transfer. It is not sufficient to simply acknowledge that one and the same global education policies means something different to different actors in different contexts. In addition, to providing a “thick description” of why global education policies are received and how they are translated, a specific strand of policy borrowing research – well represented in this edited volume – examines the global/local nexus and acknowledges that local actors are positioned simultaneously in two spaces: in their own (cultural/local) context and in a broader transnational “educational space.” From a systems theory perspective, the broader educational space is Umwelt (environment) and therefore local actors interact at critical moments with the broader educational space. The policy bilingualism (or in the work of Tavis Jules, the “policy trilingualism” when the local, regional, and global is taken into the account) is a result of policy actors operating simultaneously in two spaces that are populated with two different audiences: local and global actors. The example of bonus payments in Kyrgyzstan, a local adaptation of global teacher accountability reform, is used to explain how the method of comparison is used as an analytical tool to understand the global/local nexus in the policy process.

In India and Pakistan, issues of ethnicity, faith, language, Indigenous knowledge, and rights have had severe ramifications for the two countries' constitutional, educational, and political development. The idea to safeguard the interests of Indigenous and ethnic minorities has always been contentious in these countries. Furthermore, ethnic and Indigenous orientations have been camouflaged by these two states' facades of nationalism. Although the ideology of nationalism is defined as a feeling of belonging among the individuals of a nation and is based on religion, language, ethnic origins, and practices, the governments of both countries have made several attempts to change the concept of nationalism, using communalism as a tool to segregate people based on identity and question their loyalties. Postmodern and post-Marxist theorists have emphasized the need for plurality, identity, and heterogeneity in the political and educational discourse. It resulted in globalization, leading to the homogenization of cultural identities at both national and subnational levels.

The notion that a clash exists between the stability of the state and recognition of multiple cultural identities has had a drastic influence on the educational and political discourse within these two countries, as already the Subcontinent has been disintegrated into different nation-states.

With increasing globalization and mass migration, nations around the world are facing new levels and new types of diversity. On one hand, increased diversity has prompted global attention to issues of human rights and related discourses of cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism, and cross-cultural tolerance. On the other hand, flows of diversity are sometimes linked to renewed nationalisms and xenophobia, and educational actors engage in new “bordering and ordering” processes (Robertson, 2011). Amidst these shifts, schools continue to be sites where complex global debates about diversity and national belonging play out in localized, “everyday” ways. In the quotidian activities of classrooms around the world, educators are expected to promote equality, build national unity, increase intergroup tolerance, and foster peace. Yet schools are inextricably linked to their sociopolitical contexts, and often reflect the exclusion, inequality, stratification, and xenophobia that exist outside of school walls. Scholars of Comparative and International Education (CIE) are uniquely positioned to examine how these complex dynamics of nation building and intergroup relations are negotiated in local-level curriculum, language practices, and pedagogical approaches. By comparing such dynamics on local, national, and global levels, scholars can interrogate how global discourses of human rights, multiculturalism, and cosmopolitanism play out in different contexts – and how such discourses are circulated, adapted, resisted, and appropriated by global and local actors.

This research explores the educational participation, cultural identification, and linguistic practices of Middle Eastern refugee youth in Vancouver, Canada. Twenty refugee youth aged 15 to 30 participated in this critical ethnography that provided new information about the impacts of pre- and post-migration experiences on their educational attainment, language, and identity construction. Evidence reported here indicates that refugee youth are subject to institutional challenges in both their home and host countries. The youth experienced educational assimilation, biased curriculum, and language discrimination with devastating impacts on their educational participation and overall well-being. In response, this study indicates that young people resist assimilation and racism in educational and wider social settings. This study further suggests that refugee youths’ educational experiences, linguistic practices, self-identification, and well-being should be examined in relation to their pre- and post-migration experiences, and the dominant meta-narratives of their home and host countries (e.g., nationalism).

This chapter examines the processes of rewriting nationhood in educational narratives regarding the Second World War (WWII) in Poland. Using mixed methods, this case study analyzes narrative change in state-approved history textbooks published between 1977 and 2008, thus covering the period of political transition from a communist to a democratic Poland. Although trends in learning theory and international norms suggest that attention to diversity should have increased in textbooks, in Poland these trends have been subsumed by more long-lasting Polish specific cultural tropes. WWII narratives, in particular, emphasize an ethnically homogeneous nation. Throughout the 31-year sample, educating youth about WWII in Poland continues to be focused on reclaiming “Polishness” rather than on espousing global understandings and citizenship.

Japan has long occupied a unique place in East Asia and continues to do so in an era of increased global interconnectivity. Beginning with the Meiji Restoration (1868), it became the first in the region to make a decisive, sustained, and highly successful attempt to “modernize” its political, economic, and social structures, thereby largely avoiding Western domination. This particular historical trajectory built directly on social foundations laid during the prolonged closure of the Tokugawa period and largely allowed Japan free reign to craft its own version of modernity, educational and otherwise. One result of this conscious, directed process of “catch-up” was an impressive “compression” of the transition to modernity – a phenomenon that had stretched out over hundreds of years in most Western countries – to little more than a half century (Kariya, 2010); a feat unmatched by any country in the first half of the twentieth century. Following the devastation of the Second World War, Japan redoubled its efforts to “catch-up” and through a combination of high birth rates following the war, export-driven economic growth leading to an explosion of manufacturing jobs, a commitment to egalitarian growth and full employment, and the creation of an educational meritocracy that meticulously selected the country's best and brightest, the country quickly moved up the value-added chain until, by the early 1980s, the Japanese economy was globally dominant (Katz, 1998; Okita, 1992). As such, by the 1980s, Japan became unique, first, in being the only country in the region whose social conditions facilitated genuine comparison with the “advanced” countries of the West and, second, a model for “modernization” that other countries in the region could emulate, first the four Asian Tigers and then (although rarely explicitly) China in the post-Mao “Reform and Opening” period (Rappleye, 2007; Kojima, 2000).

Several countries in South Asia face the challenge of ineffective educational reforms manifest in increasing rates of school failure and poor learning outcomes after embarking along education for all. Critical voices from the South have questioned the relevance and appropriateness of ideas that have shaped these reforms. Narratives from the region tell us that importation of educational concepts and policy orientations have led to the dismantling of existing structures and processes of education, creating new forms of inequities and disadvantage. The sheer scale and diversity of populations within the region poses formidable challenges and opportunities for contextual innovation. The construction of national imaginaries in the diverse societies of South Asia has the potential to provide new discourses to educational reform; going beyond the abstract goals set by disconnected international experts and the institutional processes they represent. This chapter deliberates on the need to establish a persuasive critical perspective that can influence and shape the trajectories of policy and practice, research and theorization, within the field of comparative education in South Asia, and the global south.