Promising lines of scholarship have emerged on how International Organisations (IO's) deploy anticipatory techniques aimed at colonising the future as a means of governing in the absence of sovereignty. It follows that securing hegemony over a vision of the future is important strategic work for IOs, and a source of legitimacy derived from…

Ideas about educational improvement are contextual and contested. This study proposes a critical and pragmatic framework to analyse systemic improvement, taking into account the paradoxes and limitations of quantitative sources. The study compared 83 subnational educational systems of three federal countries in Latin America: Argentina, Brazil,…

We argue that the legitimacy of international organisations (IOs) as self-proclaimed representatives of humankind, which was unfounded from the outset, is waning. To substantiate that claim, we undertake a critical inquiry into the legitimacy of the promissory visions pursued by IOs in the field of education across three historical periods. The…

This article examines the intertwining and evolution of neoliberal and nationalist discourses in post-colonial Hong Kong and Macao, arguing that their combination reveals the dual layers of political rationality in the dynamics of higher education policymaking. It suggests a move towards governmentality with Chinese characteristics, marked by…

Since 2000, girls' education has been an increasingly high-profile concern in international development policy. At the same time, there has been a trend towards the greater production and reliance on quantitative data, indicators and targets in national and international education policy. Scholars have raised concerns about the rise of…

Improving schooling by reducing achievement gaps based on family background has been on the agenda of school governance worldwide for more than three decades. International benchmarking like the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is used to find models of best practice in effective school governance. Enlarging school…

Climate change threatens human well-being and planetary health but is hardly addressed in education. Comparative education research has advised governments about education reforms since the nineteenth century, so what must change to sustain a liveable earth? I use the concept of 'educational space' to understand how comparative knowledge building…

This study explores the narration of China as a nation in history education in two regions -- mainland China and Hong Kong -- that share cultural roots but different socio-political contexts. Inductive analysis of data from junior-secondary Chinese history textbooks used in the regions in the late 2010s revealed that whereas mainland China's…

The article investigates how and when the two first movers in knowledge-based regulation -- the OECD and the World Bank -- developed policy brokerage as an instrument of global governance in the education sector. We also examine how their target clientele -- national governments -- responds to this instrument. Given the surplus of research…

The OECD is a key player in global education policy advice and part of the edu-business network. This network comprises of companies, philanthropies, consulting agencies and think tanks profiting from educational governance reforms and large-scale testing. This article investigates the structure of the OECD global policy network and its capability…

This paper focuses on the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) "PISA for Schools" assessment. Our first substantive focus is a descriptive and analytical account of changes and developments in the functioning of this ground-breaking assessment since its creation in 2012. These changes include an expansion of the…

This paper identifies OECD's shifting agendas and approaches to education since inception and distinguishes three time periods. Each of these periods reflects shifting geopolitical and economic realities that shaped OECD's priorities and modes of operation. They also demonstrate the adaptive capacity and expansionist nature of OECD's education…

This article examines how and why the US reconstructed Okinawa in Japan, with a focus on the theme of 'self' and 'others' in educational interaction. I argue that during the occupation of Okinawa, the US tried to detach Okinawa from Japan socio-culturally, using the historically based racial tensions between them by promoting the local 'Ryukyuan'…

Due to their common history, Finland and Sweden share many similarities. However, important differences have also developed in constitutional law, political culture and governance models. These differences have affected the implementation of international trends in the governance of higher education in the two countries. Both the Finnish and…

In our present research we address the question of whether it is valid to apply the Quality Assurance and Evaluation (QAE) umbrella concept, which was formulated to explain new phenomena in European educational governance, to similar developments in Brazilian basic education. This led us to reflect on the possible pitfalls and potential strengths…