Global Governance of Education

This book examines the educational role of three international organizations created as part of the post-World War II multilateral architecture: the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Bank, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). These organizations have significantly promoted and shaped education as a fundamental feature of the modernization of society and contributed to the globalization of educational norms, policies and technologies. Drawing on primary source materials and interviews, the book provides novel perspectives to the literature on the global governance of education by focusing on the historical entanglements, relations and power struggles between these three organizations, rather than treating them separately. The study sheds light on the homogenizing effects of globalized educational policy-making and the shifting power dynamics in the global governance of education.

'This book makes a very distinctive and important contribution to the literature that critically analyses the influence of the global agencies on education globally; it goes beyond the standard discursive analyses of policy texts to also explore the history of those organisations through archival research and in-depth interviews of the key personnel. What emerges is a powerful analysis which locates those agencies within their historical epochs and shines a light on their tensions and micro-politics, both internally and between organisations.'

Paul Morris, Professor of Comparative Education, Institute of Education, University College London, UK.

Chapter "UNESCO, the OECD and the World Bank: A Global Governance Perspective" is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Auteur

Maren Elfert is Senior Lecturer in International Education in the School of Education, Communication & Society at King's College London. She holds a PhD from the University of British Columbia. She is author of the book UNESCO's utopia of lifelong learning: An intellectual history, and she has published on the history of international organizations in relation to education for development, literacy, and adult education and lifelong learning policy. She is submissions editor of the International Review of Education and member of the editorial board of Comparative Education.

Christian Ydesen is a professor at Aalborg University, Denmark and an Honorary Research Fellow at Oxford University, UK. He has recently completed the research projects 'The Global History of the OECD in education' funded by the Aalborg University talent programme and 'Education Access under the Reign of Testing and Inclusion' funded by Independent Research Fund Denmark. He has been a visiting scholar at the University of Edinburgh, UK (2008-2009, 2016), the University of Birmingham, UK (2013), the University of Oxford, UK (2019), and the University of Milan, Italy (2021). He has published several articles on topics such as educational testing, international organisations, accountability, educational psychology and diversity in education from historical and international perspectives. He currently serves as an executive editor of the European Educational Research Journal.