The OECD is extending the participation of low- and middle-income nations in its Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). To explore how PISA can be made more relevant to these contexts, a pilot study, PISA for Development (PISA-D), was launched. Translating PISA into PISA-D required the development of instruments that had relevance…

Interpreting modernisation and globalisation in East Asia as processes of Westernisation creates confusion and discomfort among some academics from the region. To illustrate why such discomfort occurs, this article explores the changes in the higher education systems of Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China in terms of their "Chineseness"…

Based on a vertical case study in post-communist Albania, this article examines how three local experts become "in-betweens" who strategically mediate processes of social change. For example, they negotiate constructions of time and place, East and West, policy and practice, state and society. As they localise global educational models,…

Research on educational policy borrowing has mostly focused on explicit transfer processes, often highlighting how explicit reference to the international has served legitimatory purposes in the borrowing country. In contrast, this paper focuses on "silent" borrowing, i.e. non-acknowledged processes of policy transfer. The paper argues…

This article is concerned with the influence of western educational approaches in non-western countries and societies. This influence is frequently referred to as educational neocolonialism in the sense that western paradigms tend to shape and influence educational systems and thinking elsewhere through the process of globalisation. Given the…

In this paper, the authors draw on Bronfenbrenner's theory of human development in order to examine western influences upon Russian education. They argue that while some have embraced western ideas about education and schooling, reflecting both the influence of specific educational theorizing and that of broader globalizing trends, many teachers…

This article explores policy and curriculum diffusion in southern and eastern Africa through an examination of the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) and outcomes-based education. The article argues that the NQF was adopted for different reasons in different contexts, but that discourse coalitions and conferences have been critical in…

Describes the USIA's Teacher Text Technology Initiative in Tanzania, providing teacher education in science, mathematics, and English, while serving as a vehicle for American educational practices and cultural values. Discusses the adaptation of foreign ideas to an indigenous context as an avenue allowing modernization minus dependency. Contains…

The author argues that educational reform efforts worldwide have shown little success because they have ignored teachers, whose ability and willingness to change are crucial. Part of a theme issue on the World Bank's 1980 Education Sector Policy Paper and on Third World educational development. (SJL)

Ideas from postpositivist thinking have been particularly challenging for comparative education scholarship and its metanarratives. Analysis of articles in major comparative education journals in the 1990s examines the integration of ideas from 10 poststructuralist thinkers and explores in detail the appropriation of Foucault's ideas and…

The history of England's attraction to the German education system is reviewed to exemplify four reasons for "borrowing" (copying) foreign models. Rather than simply copying it, England should use the German example to become aware of shortcomings in its own system and their potential solutions. (TD)

Comparative education can provide a background of contrasts and possibilities against which to examine one's own problems. For comparative education to be effective, background conditions must be understood; educational systems must be examined as wholes, in their contexts; and ideas should only be borrowed from systems sufficiently similar to…

Comparative education should stop trying to figure out how to borrow educational systems from one culture and transplant them into another. Instead, it should focus on how educational systems can be described and explained, comparatively, in a way that captures the intersections of forces of history, social structures, and individuals' pedagogic…

Draws on Canadian, U.S., and British policy documents and personal experience to examine how countries and their subjurisdictions are learning from each other about the nature of policy change and reform in education. Concludes that "mutual learning" does not necessarily describe such policy movements; analogies to diseases and epidemics…

Outlines a set of generic "problems" emanating from the global economy that constitute the contemporary social, political, and economic conditions for educational and social policy making. Discusses the emergence of ideological and "magical" solutions to these problems, the dissemination of such solutions, and their…