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The way in which the international teacher organizations evolved suggests both the advantages and the difficulties of maintaining a coherent and purposeful international organization for education advocacy (the abbreviations and acronyms for all the organizations are spelled out for reference in Appendix A to this chapter; the complex succession of organizations is traced in a table, presented as Appendix B to this chapter). The international teacher organizations began at the outset of the 20th century in Europe.¹ The first of these, founded in 1905 and centering on the concerns of primary school teachers, was the International Bureau of Federations of Teachers (IBFT; it became the International Federation of Teachers’ Associations [IFTA] in 1926). The second, founded in 1912, was the International Foundation of Secondary Teachers (known by its French acronym, FIPESO, the Fédération internationale des professeurs de l’enseignement secondaire officielle).

This article explores two related facets in the history of international teacher union organisations. First, a basic overview is provided of the history of a number of these networks, beginning in Europe well before 1900. Secondly, this exploration will then focus on one particular group ‐ the WCOTP (the World Confederation of Organisations of the Teacher Profession), and specifically its activities during the 1950s and 1960s. This organisation, like its counterparts, was actively involved over its entire history in discussing and promoting a wide variety of issues and activities relating to public education. However, it was also involved in more partisan political activities, in the context of its Cold War engagement with national teacher organisations globally. Drawing on the work of Claus Offe, Maria Elena Cook and Kim Scipes, the article explores these intra‐ and inter‐union affairs, relations with state apparatus, and raises questions about the overarching nature of teachers’ work.

More than ever before, globalization has linked the socioeconomic development of nations to the performance of their educational systems. One of the consequences of this new focus on improving the quality of teachers is the acknowledgment of the importance of engaging more directly with what is at the center of action, that is, pedagogy (Alexander, 2008). In this perspective, we conduct research aimed at describing, analyzing, and establishing a critical portrait of the scientific bases of the pedagogical choices made by three major international organizations (OECD, UNESCO, and World Bank) with respect to teacher education and development. In terms of methodology, we conducted a fine-grained analysis of the documents produced in the framework of TALIS and semi-structured individuals interviews with five staff members of OECD. The idea of pedagogical pluralism constitutes a rhetorical artefact through which constructivist teaching approaches are favored.

The first part of this chapter addresses the history and development of the International Study Association of Teachers and Teaching (ISATT) and its engagement with the global educational community. We provide an account of the context and background against which ISATT developed as well as information about the founders’ orientations and the actions that led to ISATT’s birth. The second part of the chapter uses patterns of topic focus as graphic indicators of the evolution of ISATT’s research interests expressed through publication titles.

The public has long been led to believe that the connection between teacher unions and quality education is negligible or even a contradiction in terms. For an example of that view, one barely needs to go beyond the title of a 1996 U.S. News & World Report cover story, “Why Teachers Don’t Teach.” The story essentially tells the public that the teacher unions bear most of the blame, that they have used their money and muscle to preserve their own privileges and to stave off efforts at reforms aimed at improving educational quality. The two major teacher unions, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA), are the main targets of this criticism.

This article put forward two claims. First, it argues that, historically, the rationale for education has shifted from religious and national indoctrination to, in the more recent neoliberal period, human capital and the related notion of individual empowerment. Second, the article argues that the recent shift toward individual empowerment is reflected in international organizations’ (IOs) changing emphases in education. IOs’ educational agenda has undergone various changes since their early work in the 1960s: From the structural expansion of national education systems to the measurement of individual educational achievement through a focus on competencies and, most recently, individual psychosocial development.

Based on a content analysis of 60 documents from 38 IOs involved in international education networks between 1990 and 2015, this work identified an expanding field of IOs directing attention to the mental capabilities of a learner. The proliferated model of an individual actorhood reflected in these novel assessment designs will be presented and embedded in wider discussions about the cultural construction of the individual in contemporary world polity.

This chapter examines the impact of national membership in international organizations on female entrepreneurship. Drawing on the institution-based view from global strategy and civil society theory from international relations, we show how international organizations can promote entrepreneurship opportunities for women with respect to the United Nations’ sustainable development goals (SDGs). This research has both practical and social implications. From a practical perspective, it provides important insights for policy makers and entrepreneurs. Policy makers can use the findings to understand how the international organizations that countries join affect entrepreneurship, particularly the United Nation’s SDGs Entrepreneurs can also use the findings to advocate mutually beneficial conditions for host environments, particularly those dedicated to female empowerment. A sample of 44 countries, 5 years of data, and 130 country-year observations finds robust support for our assertions.

This chapter explores the trajectories of higher education expansion and its political and social conditions in seven countries, namely China, Japan, Germany, Qatar, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States of America.

The analysis relies on longitudinal and cross-sectional data gleaned from the World Higher Education Database, UNESCO, and the OECD.

The countries have seen remarkable higher education expansion in the 20th century in terms of enrollments and the foundings of universities, with particularly strong growth in the immediate post-WWII period and since 1990. For the particular case of STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, mathematics), the chapter shows that in those higher education systems in which growth took off relatively late, universities oriented toward the STEM fields are more dominant than in those with a longer history. Countries with a more recent HE system stress technological development more than those that look back on multiple centuries of HE expansion with their canonical legacies.

Comparing these highly dissimilar countries nevertheless reveals important common patterns, and the variable paces of higher education expansion can be explained by national, social, and political factors driving the institutionalization of higher education and research.

Many scholars and practitioners consider development to be as much an institutional and organizational phenomenon as it is an economic one. Among other elements, civil society is a key determinant of a country’s level of social capital. Important links appear to exist between a robust associational milieu and the effective operation of democracy. However, the role of civil society organizations in human development has only recently gained attention.