This paper focuses on the formation of the Rand Change Agent Study, characterizes it as the pursuit of school reform for "social equity" and attempts to demonstrate anew its significance. First, the paper finds that "social equity" was among the main motivations for the Rand Change Agent Study. It was clear in the earliest…

This article interrogates the legitimacy and influence of interest groups in the elaboration of two school reforms of the last stage of compulsory schooling in two Swiss cantons: Geneva and Vaud. Based on the principle of participatory democracy, the Swiss political system raises questions about the specificities of interest groups' influence on…

This article examines how global institutions contribute to educational change by analyzing the role of Education for All (EFA) in the recent rise of a global field dedicated to education in emergencies (EiE). I build on new sociological insights to argue that global institutions like EFA, commonly critiqued as ineffectual or mere vehicles for…

The purpose of this article is to reexamine the decision-making process on Portugal's entry into PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment). The analysis indicates that the decision, which was not unanimous among the government members with responsibilities in the education field, was made in a context of normative emulation, with the…

Policy cycles are initiated via a variety of context-bound causal drivers. In situations where systemic reform is desired, agenda-setting is vital to this process. This paper examines 'The National Discussion on Scottish Education', which was a sequence of stakeholder engagements promoted as a listening exercise to enable policy agenda-setting for…

Educational researchers need to pay more attention to understanding the perspectives of implementers as a means to preventing future implementation failures. In an attempt to elucidate the reasons for resistance to the implementation of the 2013 education reform in Mexico, qualitative methods were used to explore the lived experiences of…

In recent years, many populist leaders and parties have succeeded in taking over the levers of state power, in spite of the fact that much of their political rhetoric in opposition expresses anti-state sentiments. This paper examines how populist leaders and parties in Asia have been able to use the institutions of the state, including education,…

This study explores spillover effects between national security and education issues. I examine whether the rise of new foreign threats is correlated with education issues rising onto the congressional agenda and with the passage of education laws. To answer this question several data sources on military conflicts and congressional activity from…

"Gary B. v. Snyder," a federal class action lawsuit originally filed in September 2016, is one of the most recent and high-profile entrants into the line of cases involving large-scale education reform. In this case, seven students from traditional public schools and charter schools in Detroit sued various Michigan state officials,…

The coronavirus pandemic has upended the school year for 50 million American students, and revealed the best and worst of public education: the best in terms of the heroic response by so many educators, support staff, students, and parents; the worst in terms of the intense light shone upon inequities that plague our system. As policymakers and…

This paper applies political discourse analysis to an examination of gubernatorial rhetoric and agenda setting around higher education in Texas during Governor Rick Perry's leadership, from 2000-2015. The authors analyzed 28 gubernatorial speeches using manifest content analysis in STATA and qualitative coding via pattern matching in Atlas.ti.…

This paper examines how the initiation of a national-level curricular reform invites different educational ideas and how such ideas attain legitimacy through policy narratives that confer meanings about school knowledge, schooling, and the nation using the case of the South Korean national curriculum reform of 2015. By critically analysing…

Diverse actors and organizations representing governments, civil society, international agencies, and the private sector participated in consensus-building and negotiation activities toward shaping SDG 4 and outlining the priority targets and indicators for which all education stakeholders would have collective responsibility to meet. As the…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to address school-NGO interactions by analyzing the power of foundations -- a specific type of third sector organization or NGO in education. Design/methodology/approach: Data are collected through a quantitative survey, qualitative interviews, official documents, reports and websites. Social network analysis…

By applying the concepts, practices, and limits of the theories of global governance of education, this study tries to reveal the characteristics of education for all (EFA), the millennium development goals (MDGs), and the sustainable development goals (SDGs) from the dimensions of norms and rules, accountability, transparency, participation, and…