The Global Education Policy Field: Characterization, Conceptualization, Contribution

Abstract

Before delving into the trajectory of the Education with Community Participation program presented in this book, the present chapter first addresses the nature of the global education policy field. In doing so, it describes the evolution of this field and the dynamics that characterize it from the 1940s onward. The focus is to depict the “international political space in which policy agencies compete for influencing the shape of national and international education policy” (Jakobi, Glob Soc Educ 7: 473–487, 2009, p. 477). Following this characterization, the chapter reviews multiple approaches to investigating global education policies. This is done both to clarify the range of approaches employed by scholars and to situate the approach employed in this book. The approaches reviewed in this chapter are known as (or are grounded in) World Culture Theory (a.k.a., World Society Theory), international political economy, international relations and global governance, policy sociology, political perspectives, and anthropological perspectives.