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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.

The key questions explored in this volume converge around issues of educational governance in the context of globalization. The individual chapters each contribute to the goals of assessing the development of the educational agenda of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and providing evidence on the trajectories through which the organization’s programs and policies have directly and indirectly influenced and affected diverse educational systems. The chapter explores these issues in more depth, drawing on the perspectives presented in the volume’s individual chapters. The first section provides a discussion of the contexts that have given rise to the OECD as a key global education policy actor. Following this brief historical overview, some of the key findings raised by the volume’s authors are examined in the context of wider literature on global education policy. Collectively, the chapters raise important questions about the role of nation-states in educational planning, the scope and spatiality of international assessments such as PISA and TALIS, and the complexity of evidence and expertise in global, national, and local educational policy-making. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the implications of the volume’s work for the wider field of comparative and international education.

The first decades of the 21st century have witnessed unprecedented global political cooperation directed toward school teachers and the importance of quality education. This chapter discusses the current developments in the global educational policy field with a particular focus on teacher policy and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) program Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS). In adopting a critical realist approach and based on a literature review, this chapter provides a synthesis of the governance mechanisms, contexts, and outcomes of TALIS. TALIS is treated as an observable outcome resulting from the actions of an underlying mechanism – information-processing policy instruments – and two contextual conditions. The first contextual condition suggests that there is a predominance of the knowledge-based economy paradigm in the political discourse, linking school teachers to economic growth and competitiveness. The second condition is provided by the consensus that education, notwithstanding technological developments, in the foreseeable future will remain a labor-intensive sector requiring a teacher workforce, as reflected in the representation of diverse interests in the TALIS programme and their commitment to find compromises on teacher policy. We will be able to assess in future decades the extent to which the mechanism will be triggered with regard to TALIS. However, in giving voice to teachers working in different settings, TALIS findings are not easy to reconcile with human capital theory or translate into “best practice” recommendations for teacher policies that can help drive knowledge-based economies.

The Group of Twenty (G20) has substantial influence in global economic policy but has been peripheral in global education governance. There is intensification of education policy-relevant engagement within the Think 20 (T20), the “ideas bank” and official engagement group of the G20. The authors analyse the evolution of education as a policy domain within the T20, the ideas and discursive framing of education and global education policy “solutions” and assumptions about the G20 in education policy engagement.

The authors view the T20 as an external actor that can mobilise policy-relevant ideas to G20 actors responsible for internal policy selection and translation. The analysis covers the period 2018–2021 when education became an explicit T20 policy area. The authors screened all 461 T20 policy briefs across all domains. Of these, 32 briefs and four final T20 Summit communiqués were reviewed using critical discourse analysis. Data were supplemented via organisational websites and tacit professional knowledge.

Three assumptions on the G20 as an actor prevailed: (1) policymaker, (2) policy shaper and (3) knowledge mobiliser. The framing ideas on education were linked to assumptions on drivers of education system reform as intertwined with, or to enable: (1) economic adaptation, (2) technical adaptation and (3) socio-political adaptation of individuals and societies.

Accelerated education engagement within the T20 and its direct reach to G20 leaders makes it, and the G20, analytically unique and new unexamined actors of potential influence. The authors conclude that the T20 is positioned as a unique actor, both that can mobilise education policy-relevant ideas to G20 leaders, and legitimised as the actor from which G20 leaders and policymakers should adopt ideas.

This chapter explores the potential of transnational history for researching global higher education policy. It begins with an overview of transnational history as a perspective, demonstrating how it is, in part, a response to processes of globalization that have also transformed contemporary higher education. Second, it reviews key features of transnational history as a perspective that can enhance global higher education policy research. The third part takes dimensions of contemporary global higher education and discusses how these can be approached through a transnational historical perspective drawing on the features outlined. The chapter concludes by highlighting how a transnational historical approach can enable new insights and research questions as well as some challenges presented by this perspective. The spatial focus of the chapter is predominantly European higher education, though the implications are more general.

This chapter presents a very broad synopsis of the intensification of education governance. It opens by narrating the multifaceted nature of governance and in what way it has developed as the axiom for professed policy problems that national educational systems are experiencing. The chapter chronicles the amplification of education governance and it explicates the metamorphosis and myriad typographies that “governance” has taken in responding to perceived endogenous and exogenous policy problems. It explains how managerialism and neo-corporate reforms sought to destabilize the activities of education governance and the results. In making this argument, it suggests that new public management policy prescriptions in education were part of the earliest form of disruptive innovation in education. It advances that educational managerialism, in hollowing out national educational systems, has generated the perfect breeding ground for the rise of newer modus operandi (or modes, styles, and arrangements) that governs and regulates education systems through the use of different techniques and mechanisms. The second half of the chapter discusses five different modus operandi that are inchoate in the post-managerialist era and highlights that in education, we have progressed beyond the movement from government to governance across national education systems and these systems are now employing additional modes of governance (vertical and horizontal) across different scales. The chapter concludes by drawing on the concept of a “Wicked Problem” (an unsolvable or difficult problematic, that is, fluid, paradoxical, and unfinished) to insinuate that education governance is an example of a wicked problem that has been and continues to be shaped by the ideological contours of endogenous and exogenous policy influences.

This chapter focuses on theories and methods for policy studies in higher education, in an era of accelerating globalisation. Policy is increasingly conceived as a complex process which extends from global to local levels, and is contested at all levels. At the same time, higher education has assumed a more central role in the development of a so-called ‘global knowledge economy’. Thus, the re-conceptualisation of ‘policy’, along with the repositioning of the role of higher education in globalising times, call for a rethink on theory and method for higher education policy studies. With attempts to cover a broad global-local span, single theoretical framings are often insufficient, and theoretical eclecticism potentially offers more comprehensive insights into dynamic policy processes than single theories alone. In particular, the combination of critical theory and post-structural theory has presented a fruitful way to build policy ‘trajectory’ and ‘network’ analyses across multiple levels and sites.

The intervention of international organizations in the development of the Global South has been credited with expanding the freedoms, capabilities, and well-being of people so that they are more able to lead valuable and flourishing lives. There are, however, critical issues that need to be considered regarding the extent to which powerful donor countries of the Global North shape educational development work in the Global South. The need for education might be universal, but local communities should have a leading role in shaping its content and determining its goals. Drawing on postcolonial perspectives, we raise questions about northern involvement in educational interventions in the Global South including the role of loan conditionalities; the gradual encroachment of international business and corporate interests; the hegemonic control of knowledge; the dismantling of cultural values and ways of life; and the stereotype, racism and deficit perspectives that are frequently perpetuated. We argue for the need to rethink, reframe and reconstruct educational development in a way that will place the Global South at the front and center of the education process.

This chapter explores the rise of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in global education policy through theories of neoliberal globalization and analyzing the practices of international organizations that help to frame and establish such policies in various countries such as Egypt. PPPs have been a vehicle for promoting the involvement of transnational corporations, especially in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector, in education sector reforms. The chapter examines the case of Egypt and the role of internal and external actors in promoting educational reform, spearheaded by the largest PPP: the Egyptian Education Initiative. The chapter questions the relevance and impact of such education reforms in the unstable political, economic, and social environment of post-revolution Egypt.

This chapter offers a contemporary overview of philanthropy in education as an emerging research field. Although the education sector has traditionally been a popular recipient of philanthropic investment, the scale and scope of funding and policy involvement on the part of philanthropy are growing. In addition, and potentially amplified by COVID-19, big- and in particular tech-philanthropies are emerging as increasingly influential players in national, regional, and global educational contexts. This chapter describes how most existing education research on philanthropy is mainly US- and higher education-focused which has resulted in a narrow geographic and thematic scope whereby contemporary developments remain either overlooked or under-researched. It discusses venture philanthropy inside and outside of the United States, a greater diversity of geographic perspectives, and an increasing dependence of academia on philanthropic funding as emerging research areas that bear great potential to being explored further.