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This discussion essay explores trends and issues in the teaching of comparative education. We argue that the field of Comparative and International Education (CIE) must give more attention to the aspect of teaching, as comparative education courses are increasingly being affected by diminishing devotion to social foundations of education programming in many institutions of higher education and schools. Ironically, despite growing pluralism, the rise of economic utilitarianism has led to technicist-driven curriculum and less inquiry about philosophical, historical, and cultural assumptions underlying educational policy and practice. Another challenge in the teaching of comparative education is that students are often ill-prepared to understand and utilize the most basic social science concepts. Recognizing that teaching and research in CIE are inevitably linked, it is argued that a transformational model that advances CIE across disciplines, schools, and departments may reinforce its importance and ensure that the benefits that comparative inquiry affords – namely critical reflexivity, insight about school–society relationships, and possibilities for educational improvement – are addressed and safeguarded in tertiary and teacher education. An understanding of cultural and national contexts is important to educational reform and enables educators to view globalization in terms of how it benefits or undermines humanistic aims, namely the importance of individuals and the uniqueness of cultures.

Drawing on the work of Niklas Luhmann, the paper argues that technology can be viewed as a self-referential system which is autonomous from both human beings and other function systems of society. The paper aims to develop a philosophy of technology from the work of Niklas Luhmann. To achieve this aim, it draws upon the systems-theory work of Jacques Ellul, a philosopher of technology who focuses on the autonomous potential of technological evolution.

The paper draws on the work of Niklas Luhmann and Jacques Ellul to explore the theme of autonomous technology and what this means for our thinking about technological issues in the twenty-first century. Insights from these two thinkers and researchers working in the Luhmannian sociological tradition are applied to remote work.

The sociological approach of Luhmann, coupled with Ellul's insights into the autonomous nature of technology, can help us develop a systems theory of technology which takes seriously its irreducibility to human functions.

The paper contributes to the growing sociological literature that thematizes the Luhmannian approach to technology, helping us better understand this phenomenon and think in new ways about what technological autonomy means.

The paper brings together the work of Luhmann, Ellul and contemporary researchers to advance a new understanding of technology and technological communication.

The purpose of this paper is to ask what can be learned from contemporary resistance to neo‐liberal policies in Latin America, in terms of broadening the disciplinary understanding of civil society actors.

Management, international management, and non‐profit management studies are reviewed and assessed through a lateral reading.

The field of management studies and the sub‐field of international management are identified as parochial in orientation, ignoring the diversity of local management knowledge and the organizational settings where practiced.

The paper demonstrates the narrow foci of the field of management, on Northern contexts, and large international business organizations. It calls for greater sensitivity to the diverse and significant efforts to resist and mitigate neo‐liberal policies globally.

In a world dominated by scores, ratings, and rankings, near-constant measurement can make one think, and in turn act, differently. Quantification is felt to be necessary. On a social level, the manufacturing of numbers paves the way for the politicization of numbers, which then allows the regulation of a person’s activities. The setting of seemingly unobjectionable thresholds and limits in fact contributes to the creation of government strategies that conceive of every citizen as a calculable thing. Further, assuming that these numbers are socially constructed elements, a numerical hegemony may develop in which those who do not possess the desired scores suffer social exclusion. The quantification of life has many implications in the realm of social justice. It is conceivable that, in the future, society could acquire some of the characteristics imagined by the writers of dystopian literature. Fourcade and Healy (2013) write that our society is experiencing a transition from distinct social classes to classification based on personal scores and ratings. Indeed, in the United States, the “credit score” is a number which is as important for the modern individual as titles were to medieval to nobility because they determine one’s access to credit. Personal scores and ratings – which could be not only financial but also social or political – could therefore exclude some sectors of society. In this case, too, a numerical indicator holds immense power, making this form of political violence appear as objective and even natural.

This introductory chapter introduces standards and standardisation as concepts of outmost relevance to current educational practice and policy across the world, and frames them historically, empirically, as well as theoretically. Furthermore, it gives an overview of how the book is structured and how it can be seen to contribute to the wider field of research in education. The chapter starts by introducing the concepts before it provides the reader with a background description of the broad discursive landscape of policy developments, as painted by educational policy research. Subsequently it describes how standards and standardisation have been theorised within educational research, and concludes with a presentation of the different contributions.