Today's schools are faced with increasingly complex demands of juggling their core educational tasks alongside multi-dimensional policy bids for reform, development and change. In this paper, we conceptualize our own RCT research on small-group tuition in mathematics in Norwegian lower elementary schools as a policy-relevant measure and part of a…

Increased attention on "what works" in education has led to an emphasis on developing policy from evidence based on comparing and combining a particular statistical summary of intervention studies: the standardised effect size. It is assumed that this statistical summary provides an estimate of the educational impact of interventions and…

While other scholars have analyzed the way that international organizations (IOs) in higher education policy may contribute to neocolonial domination, this paper illuminates not only on "how" IOs' epistemic activities promulgate one-size fit all solutions, but centers the colonial structures of knowledge/power that inform the…

This article considers the impact of the "Lau v. Nichols" Supreme Court decision on the education of English learners in Washington State, US In particular, we focus on the most popular educational program in the state, Sheltered English Instruction. We first examine how intertextual links to various policy texts and discourses shape…

This study analyzes the effect of spatial competition on public schools' efficiency in Chile, an extreme case of market-oriented reforms in the educational sector. To address this issue, we use a measure of competition that captures three major characteristics of market competition in a spatial context: the number of competitors, based on distance…

The article argues that there is no single globalisation of education systems, but rather multiple globalisations of each system taken in its individual context. We propose three explanatory factors to account for these vernacular globalisation processes, that is, for individual policy trajectories in each national context: path dependence on…

This paper provides a comparative analysis of national curriculum reforms in Australia and the USA, set against the backdrop of global trends since the 1980s. The analysis is driven by an interest in the reconstitution of national policy spaces in global times, and draws particularly upon Stephen Carney's notion of "global policy-scapes"…

There is growing research interest in school inspection throughout Europe; however, there have been few comparative studies between Swedish and Norwegian school inspectorates. Such a study is necessary since little is known about how inspection policies are shaped through "governing modes" in the two Nordic countries. This paper explores…

Education reform is increasingly portrayed as a quest to achieve a "world class" education system through a process of identifying and adopting the practices of those systems whose pupils perform best in league tables of achievement. This is the rationale for the range of new policies proposed by the coalition government in the schools…

In this article we provide a critique of the interpretation and utilization of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results by the National Education Authorities in Turkey. First, we define and explain what OECD's PISA is. Second, we make an overview of the media coverage in Turkey of the PISA 2003 and 2006 results. Third, we…

Many researchers studying the impact of parliamentary devolution conclude that education policies in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are diverging. They attribute this to five factors: the redistribution of formal powers associated with devolution; differences in values, ideologies and policy discourses across the four territories;…

This paper contributes to conversations about school, post-compulsory and further education policy by reporting findings from a three-year study with disaffected students who have been referred to special "behaviour"schools. Contrary to popular opinion, our research finds that these "ignorant yobs" do value education and know…

Early years education has received considerable attention in recent years, particularly as a result of longitudinal studies that demonstrate the importance of the first few years in a child's development and educational experience. In 2004, a new approach to early years education, the Foundation Phase, was introduced in Wales. This is a major…

In the last four years McKinsey and Company have produced two highly influential reports on how to improve school systems. The first McKinsey report "How the world's best-performing school systems come out on top" has since its publication in 2007 been used to justify change in educational policy and practice in England and many other…

During its time in office, the UK's Labour government gave a strong message that having caring responsibilities for a young child should not be seen as a barrier to engaging in education and training. Its widening participation strategy included a specific commitment to increasing the number of mature students in higher education (HE)--students…