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This book chapter uncovers the black box of PreK-12 African American male students’ experiences and outcomes as a result of their participation in career and technical education. Theoretical and scientific literature – related to benefits and challenges of African American male students’ educational experiences in career and technical education and school reform initiatives that may contribute to their educational outcomes – is discussed. Additionally, recommendations for educational research, practice, and policy are summarized providing future directions for educational and noneducational stakeholders to consider on how career and technical education may serve the unique needs of African American males.

This study examines the Career and Technical Education (CTE)/Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) higher education sector by focusing on international education at a US community college. The purpose is to examine how internationalization at CTE/TVET institutions engages students, many of whom are rural, poor, refugees, immigrants, and students of color and minoritized status. Employing a mixed methods research design, descriptive statistics sketch the CTE student profile and surveys and personal interviews detail the importance of international experiences to CTE students. Findings show that CTE students participate in internationalization activities at a higher rate than non-CTE students. The impact of international experiences is significant in the areas of career relevance, personal impact and understanding of diversity. This study substantiates the importance of CTE/TVET internationalization and shows that internationalization is an effective vehicle for impact and inclusivity of historically under-represented students in international education.

This chapter will examine the interplay among actors who took part in the process of consensus building towards a post-2015 education agenda via different channels of global governance, including both formal and informal channels.

Most of the forums and entities established as part of the global governance structure are composed of representatives from UN or UNESCO member states, civil society organizations (CSOs) and UN agencies. However, each of these categories has diverse constituent groups; representing these groups is not as straightforward a task as the governance structure seems to assume. Therefore, based on interviews and qualitative text analysis, this chapter will introduce major groups of actors and their major issues of concern, decision-making structure, mode of communication and relationship with other actors. Then, based on an understanding of the characteristics of the various channels and actors, it will present the structural issues that arose during the analysis of post-2015 discourse and the educational issues that emerged as the shared concerns of the ‘education community’. While most of the analysis to untangle the nature of discourse relies on qualitative analysis of texts and interviews, the end of this chapter will also demonstrate the trends of discourse in quantitative terms.

What was the post-2015 discourse for the so-called education community, which in itself has an ambiguous and virtual existence? The keywords post-2015 and post-EFA provide us with an opportunity to untangle how shared norms and codes of conduct were shaped at the global scale.

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) (2017, pp. 14–15) identified that “industrialization is the seedbed for entrepreneurship, business investment, technological progress, the upgrading of skills, and the creation of decent jobs.” This placed studying different industrial sectors and their respective clusters, which are key drivers for economy, innovation, and knowledge creation (Slaper, Harmon, & Rubin, 2018), at the forefront of research. This chapter tackles the automobile industrial cluster in Egypt that possesses promising potential yet faces some challenges. It aims to provide an overview of the cluster, alongside underpinning its strengths and obstacles facing it. Moreover, the chapter displays the importance of the labor dimension in increasing the labor competitiveness of the cluster and showcases this through two cases of German automobile manufacturers that pioneered in venturing into the market through employing technical and vocational education and training. In conclusion, recommendations are provided to help in steering the cluster toward success.

As the sole Asian country in the DAC donor community until South Korea joined in 2010, Japan has been struggling with the pressure to align with the norms and modalities of the community, while having a different history of aid from Western donors and desiring to be unique. This chapter untangles the domestic and international factors that have affected policy making and implementation of the Japanese Overseas Development Assistance (ODA), particularly in education, at different times in its history. The philosophical foundations of Japanese aid policies are examined in the changing political, economic, and social contexts from the 1950s up to the present.

As the Education for All paradigm took the stage, Japanese education ODA has shifted from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s to primary education from technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and higher education. However, in the post-2015 process, the policies have swung back to give equal emphasis to TVET and higher education as to basic education, reflecting the global trend to make the agenda more comprehensive. While the convergence with the global trend is clear in Japanese ODA, the hesitant desire to be unique always forces Japanese ODA officials and scholars to discuss and try to demonstrate the “Japanese model” of development and aid.

The chapter also points out that the increased presence of other Asian donors in recent years has made Japanese ODA policies driven more by national interests than by global humanitarianism, which is clearly seen in the Development Cooperation Charter adopted in 2014.

In this chapter, educational policy development addressing the learning needs of the at-risk population in Curacao is described as a direct result of the implementation of the global standards of the EFA goals. The at-risk student population is defined in this chapter as the proportion of students whose home language differs from the school language. Achievement is based on proficiency in the language of schools and a national tracking system, which has historically accommodated the learning needs of the at-risk into various school types. This chapter argues how the global promises for a quality education for all is exposing a more than 40-year-old policy of national tracking that questions the right to an academic education for the majority of the at-risk students. Goal 4 of the EFA places Curacao as an example of islands which have long surpassed the target for participation in technical and vocational programs. The chapter opens with an overview of the goals and targets that created a framework for continuous structural reform of a complacent system of education for all backed by compulsory education.