What Does Globalization Mean for Educational Change? A Comparative Approach Author(s): Martin Carnoy and Diana Rhoten Reviewed work(s): Source: Comparative Education Review, Vol. 46, No. 1, The Meanings of Globalization for Educational Changebreak/breakGuest Editors: Martin Carnoy and Diana Rhoten (February 2002), pp. 1-9 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Comparative and International Education Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/324053 . Accessed: 18/03/2012 23:22 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. The University of Chicago Press and Comparative and International Education Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Comparative Education Review. http://www.jstor.org

Comparative Education Review, vol. 46, no. 1. 2002 by the Comparative and International Education Society. All rights reserved. 0010-4086/2002/4601-0001$05.00 Comparative Education Review 1 Guest Editorial Essay What Does Globalization Mean for Educational Change? A Comparative Approach MARTIN CARNOY AND DIANA RHOTEN This issue of the Comparative Education Review (CER) takes as its theme the relationship between globalization and educational change. Linking eco- nomic and social change to changes in how societies transmit knowledge is a relatively new approach to studying education. Before the 1950s, compar- ative education focused mainly on the philosophical and cultural origins of national educational systems. This approach saw educational change as rooted in new educational philosophies or theories���new conceptions of what knowledge should be transmitted and of organizing knowledge trans- mission���usually promulgated by individual visionaries. In the 1960s and 1970s, a rash of historical studies challenged this view. They situated edu- cational reform in economic and social change. Some of them went further, using approaches based in political economy, world systems theory, and the- ories of neocolonialism and underdevelopment to show that economic im- peratives on a global scale were a major force in shaping education world- wide.1 Others interpreted such change through an institutional lens, arguing that the convergence toward accepted models of modernity has resulted in a process of educational isomorphism within and across countries.2 Today, the notion that economic and social change affect educational structures and content is old hat. Comparative education has incorporated these models, and many studies have tied educational reform to economic and social change at an international level. Nevertheless, the current phe- nomenon of globalization provides a new empirical challenge as much as it does a new theoretical frame for comparative education. Globalization is a force reorganizing the world���s economy, and the main resources for that 1 See, e.g., P. Altbach, ���Servitude of the Mind? Education, Dependency and Neo-Colonialism,��� in his University Reform: Comparative Perspectives for the Seventies (Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman, 1974) R. Arnove, ���Comparative Education and World Systems Analysis,��� Comparative Education Review 24, no. 1 (February 1980): 48���62 N. T. Assie ��-Lumumba and T. Lumumba-Kasongo, ���The State, Economic Crisis, and Educational Reform in Co ��te d���Ivoire,��� in Understanding Educational Reform in Global Context: Economy, Ideology, and the State, ed. M. Ginsburg (New York: Garland, 1991) Martin Carnoy, Education as Cultural Imperialism (New York: McKay, 1974). 2 See, e.g., W. Cummings, ���The Institutions of Education: Compare, Compare, Compare!��� Com- parative Education Review 43, no. 4 (November 1999): 413���37 P. DiMaggio and W. Powell, ���Introduction,��� in their The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991) F. Ramirez and J. Meyer, ���The World Institutionalization of Education,��� in Discourse Formation in Com- parative Education, ed. J. Schriewer (New York: Lang, 2000).