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The study considers the opportunities and barriers facing the implementation of virtual exchange in K-12 education, and the perceptions of access to these opportunities for underrepresented students in the context of the federal US education system. These issues are examined through the lens of a domestic program offered by Empatico known as Empathy Across the US. Our findings point to several of the known barriers in the facilitation of virtual exchange, including technology access and pressing demands facing teachers, both of which impact accessibility. This study offers insights into how teachers in different settings perceive and experience the implementation of a domestic model of virtual exchange. As K-12 virtual exchange programs often rely on the willingness of teachers to implement these kinds of programs outside of the official school curriculum, our research indicated the importance of system-wide investment and structural support for domestic virtual exchange beyond individual champions.

This paper focuses on the production of cosmopolitan capital among students participating in the DC Public Schools Study Abroad Programme, an initiative that has been lauded as shifting the narrative of equitable access to global learning. We draw on a framework of Bourdieusian ideas about cultural capital, as well as community cultural wealth perspectives to illuminate findings from a multi-year, mixed-method study of the programme. Our focus is on how students, many of whom identify as belonging to minoritised groups within the US, experience global travel and its varying effects as related to the production and expression of cosmopolitan capital. By examining how cosmopolitan capital is mobilised and enacted in a myriad of ways by youth in a globalising urban space, we engage and contribute to the literature on internationalisation and elite making, inviting a more relational definition of 'elites'.

The intensities of the contemporary moment continue to prompt reflections on the strengths and limitations of approaches typically used to study education policy reform. The central contention of this essay is that policy sociology and its application within education offers needed vantage points on contemporary pressing global policy problems. Future studies would do well to keep the footprint of existing frameworks, which emphasize policy networks and mobilities, power dynamics within these flows, and the focus on doing research that speaks to concerns of stakeholders. The next generation of policy sociologists can further strengthen the relevance and rigor of the analytic scheme by leaning into methodologies that further attend empirically and descriptively to power asymmetries within policy networks.

This article offers perspectives on the framing of citizenship education in recent education policy reform in Morocco. Against a background of shifting conceptions of citizenship and citizenship education occurring both globally and regionally in the Middle East and North Africa, the article focuses on Morocco's Strategic Vision for Reform 2015-2030, offering an analysis of the main section of the policy targeting citizenship education, referred to in the document as chapter 3 ('For a school that develops the individual and society'), lever 18 ('Enact a society of citizenship, democracy and equality'). Drawing on policy analysis of these sections of the reform documentation, we examine the various recommendations that reference national Moroccan citizenship education, concluding that the discourse surrounding citizenship education tends to emphasize a disciplined conception of citizen formation, framing the student as apathetic and passive. Moreover, the article analyzes these recommendations within the social, cultural, economic, and political context of Morocco, offering insights on potential challenges in its implementation.

This study applies the notion of 'alternative futures' in globalisation and education by focusing specifically on the intersection between religion and education. Through an in-depth exploration utilising a case-study approach, we delve into the organisational dynamics of an Israeli school catering to a closed-off, traditional Jewish religious community while also proactively embedding specific forms of internationalisation. We identify and analyse the conflicting rationales and agenda maintained by this school based on interviews with the school's community, including teachers, superintendents, school leadership, and parents. We argue that the ideas of segregation, religionalisation, and nationalism are nurtured through the hybridity of the networks of influence, custom-tailored by the school's leadership to serve this unique community. In particular, we analyse the school's distinctive practices, norms, and routines designed to overcome the gap between the seemingly contradictory values of universalism vs particularity; globalisation vs nationalism; segregation vs unity; and religion vs modernity, and the ways that these dynamics play out in a country struggling for (self)-recognition as a Jewish and Democratic State, while being situated in an intractable internal and external conflict.

Considerable efforts have been made to better understand how global trends toward standards-based reforms have emerged in national education systems. Less well known, however, is the unfolding of standards-based reforms within and across federal education systems. In federal systems, national governments do not make policy unilaterally, but rather share authority with multiple orders of government. Using the concept of "global forms" to explore the pervasiveness of standards-based assessments across four diverse federations (Australia, Canada, Germany, and the United States), this article aims to illuminate the roles that subnational governments play in the assemblage of standards-based education reforms. We argue that three key roles played by subnational governments are apparent in each: (1) semiautonomous laboratories of innovation, (2) coproducers of policy, and (3) venues for nongovernment actors. Our work suggests that greater attention must be paid to subnational spaces to better understand the manifestation, development, and expansion of global policy trends affecting education.

Much attention has been given to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and its effects in different education systems, including the United States. This paper begins to address a major gap in this literature by focusing on the costs of participation in PISA. The paper draws on content analysis of official documents and budgets, as well as qualitative interviews with select government officials at federal and state levels. It details costs in three categories: direct overhead to the OECD, national implementation, and in-kind or human burden. As such, the paper details information on costs of PISA, important for eventual cost-benefit frameworks that may be useful for continued policy deliberations over US participation in PISA and other international large-scale assessments.

In this essay we develop the concept of 'cosmopolitan nationalism', offering a working definition and suggesting ways sociologists of education might draw on it in their future work. We show how it is a useful analytical lens through which to examine contemporary policies and practices that navigate global processes (ranking systems, mobility of people, expectations for futures) but also take account of nationalistic tendencies, as well as local and national attempts to challenge persistent inequalities within education systems. By using policy examples from three countries (South Korea, Israel and the US), we illuminate how cosmopolitan nationalism is evident across various initiatives in these countries, and the varied implications this has for education systems in terms of equality, access and quality.

Internationally, there has been a growing interest among educational systems in reassessing the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary for success in the 21st-century global world. This paper aims to add to the literature about how and to what extent the global emphasis in education is approached, framed, and practiced within different national contexts at the primary and secondary level. The focus is on the federal US education system, where internationalization pathways are established and shaped by a complex constellation of actors, as well as horizontal and vertical policy directions. Specifically, this article discusses recent US discourses and frameworks of internationalization and provides an overview of the ways in which the public school system in Washington, DC has pursued a comprehensive approach to internationalization, which is both locally responsive and inclusive.

Scholars and policymakers in the United States argue that developing global competence is essential to preparing K-12 students for the increasingly interconnected and interdependent world. Given this increased focus, considering implications for teachers is critical. This qualitative-interpretive study applies a sensemaking framework, drawing on interview data from teachers in the Washington, D.C. metro area to understand their cognitive interpretation of increasing calls to internationalize U.S. schooling. Findings present a multilayered picture of the ways in which a small group of invested teachers negotiate their own understandings, and grapple with policy and political messages related to internationalization and global education.

This paper focuses on the OECD's PISA 2018 international framework for global competence. Given the growing national and international attention on educating for global competence, and absent of other measures, there is a need to scrutinise this framework. Our critical analysis is conceptually framed by academic literature related to (a) the OECD's influential role in facilitating neoliberal education policy trends, (b) disjuncture and debate surrounding global competence, and (c) how influence is garnered through measurement technologies. We conclude by encouraging the OECD to be transparent in the reporting of results and educational stakeholders to be cautious interpreters of forthcoming results and rankings.

This paper examines national-level strategies concerning internationalisation of education and the extent to which global citizenship is deployed in their discourse. We focus on a cross-national comparison of selected internationalisation strategies in Australia, Canada, Ireland, the UK and the USA, all countries with highly developed economies and a relatively high proportion of the market share of international students. We draw on a thematic textual analysis and the use of corpus technologies to explore the framing of discourses and language use in each strategy. Our comparative analysis of national strategies highlights a dominant approach to international education that is primarily competitive in its orientation, with national interest as the key driver. This cross-national comparison also revealed considerable variation in framing of strategic internationalisation on a discourse level. Based on findings, we argue that internationalisation strategies limit the possibilities of advancing central tenets of global citizenship.

What if every child could have a global experience? While such an idea might sound far-fetched, one school district is trying to change the narrative about access to study abroad through a large, fully-funded, district-wide global travel program.

Participation in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) has continuously expanded: from 43 systems in 2000 to 65 systems in the 2012 cycle, with 71 signed up for PISA 2015. There also has been a growth in sub-national participation, expanding PISA's reach beyond the nation-state. This paper explores sub-national PISA participation in Canada and the USA, asking "how" PISA is being used within sub-national education policy spaces. We draw on analysis of documents and data from interviews with officials at sub-national, national, and international levels. Findings illustrate some of the diverse motivations and uses of PISA, providing insights into the effects of PISA at the sub-national scale. As such, we argue that competitive comparison in education has deepened through the enhanced granularity of international large-scale assessment data to new scales beyond the nation-state.

This article presents findings from a recent study of the education policy uses and impact of international large-scale assessments, namely the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The paper focuses on two overlapping dimensions of PISA's education policy use in the context of Spain. These include political dimensions, such as the use of PISA to initiate and justify the 2012-2013 educational reforms; and technical dimensions, namely the use of PISA in the development of national-level indicators used to benchmark progress and guide education and curriculum reform. The study points to the growing dominance of PISA as a powerful policy tool. Findings from the paper add to the body of literature on the different ways in which international assessments are used to guide education policy within national spaces and the role of the OECD as an agent of transnational policy steering.

In recent years, many European education systems have embarked on a process of education policy and curriculum reform related to citizenship education. This article explores citizenship education reform in the context of Spain. It considers how and to what extent Spain's 2006 citizenship education addressed issues of national and global citizenship, as well as cultural diversity and immigration. Against a typology of four distinct approaches to national and global citizenship education, including traditional, skills-based, values-based, and reflexive approaches, the article draws on qualitative content analysis of Spain's recent Education for Citizenship and Human Rights curriculum and associated textbooks. Findings focus on themes of human rights, national and global citizenship, and cultural diversity and co-existence.

With globalization, the world has become more interconnected and interdependent, with people, capital, and ideas rapidly migrating across borders. Yet, along with greater global interdependence and increased diversity within societies, economic and social inequalities have deepened, making poverty one of the leading global problems. To lessen poverty around the world, better integrate immigrant groups into societies, and enhance stability, both societies and education systems are dedicated to fostering social cohesion as a key objective. Yet, still little is known about the extent to which immigration and socioeconomic status are predictive of social cohesion. Using cross-national data from the 2009 International Civic and Citizenship Study for 38 countries, this article further investigates the link between poverty, immigration, education, and social cohesion. Findings indicate that socioeconomic status is an important influence on social cohesion of immigrant students and that schools play an important role in fostering social cohesion.

Growing ethnic and cultural diversity within Europe has brought increased attention to the impact and inclusion of immigrant populations and has also presented societies with valuable opportunities for intercultural learning between diverse groups. Using the International Civic and Citizenship Study data from 24 European education systems, in this paper we explore whether fostering an atmosphere of inclusion in schools relates to select attitudes and behaviours typically associated with an inclusive society, particularly among immigrant students. Our study is able to tease out some of the differences related to social class among immigrant students, opening up important avenues for discussion and future research. According to our findings, first generation immigrant students from higher socio-economic status backgrounds tended to have significantly more negative attitudes toward their resident country. Findings also collectively suggest that local-level practices, such as improving immigrant student participation in schools and positive relations between immigrant students and teachers, could be significant factors in fostering an inclusive society. Based on these results, we describe several education policies and practices that can promote greater inclusion, such as encouraging increased civic participation within the school and community, and providing a forum where students can contribute to school governance.

There is increasing attention worldwide to advancing quality education. Beyond a rhetorical aim, many international organizations and national education systems have articulated a commitment to promoting measures of quality education through the development of educational indicators. This article broadly explores the global influences on national definitions and measures of quality education through examining select educational issues in Spain and Italy. Through an examination of select educational issues in these two illustrative national examples, there appears to be a connection between the ways in which educational quality indicators are used and defined at the national and international level. These examples provide insight into how the Organisation for Economic and Co-operation and Development (OECD) influences educational policy developments in quality education within the national space, particularly through its own "Education at a Glance" indicators and Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The authors argue that by including key international indicators of quality at the national level, the OECD wields considerable influence in national education policy spaces, and, furthermore, narrows what it means to develop quality education.

We examine the impact of school violence on immigrant populations internationally. To do so we apply three-level models to 2007 TIMSS data to investigate the extent to which immigrant students are affected by school violence, and whether school- and educational-system levels of immigration and violence are related to achievement. We find that, despite some variability across education systems around the world, a persistent pattern emerged: immigrant students are differentially affected by violence. School climate is associated with immigrants' outcomes in most educational systems. We discuss policy-relevant implications for academic achievement in an increasingly globalized world.

Given the primary role of teachers in affecting student achievement, U.S. policy makers and reformers have increasingly focused on monitoring and evaluating teacher effectiveness by emphasizing the links to student learning outcomes. Large-scale international assessments are frequently used as base examples to justify reform. But, relatively little is known about what other countries actually do. The authors wonder: How do other countries evaluate teachers? They have set out on a broad research effort, looking at whether top-performing countries use educational practices and reform initiatives in vogue in the U.S. They have compared Finland, Korea, Japan, Ontario in Canada, and Singapore, exploring in each system the role of high-stakes testing, policies used to motivate schools and teachers to improve student learning, and the organization of accountability for learning. They use Ontario because Canadian education policy is substantially decentralized to the provinces. In each area, they looked at the role of teachers and systems of teacher evaluation. Perhaps not surprisingly, they have learned: (1) Teacher evaluation is used for both accountability and instructional improvement in most school systems; however, teacher evaluation systems are organized differently depending on the model of accountability; (2) There is a growing trend to use student test results and metrics to inform accountability for schools, principals, and teachers, instructional improvement in classrooms and schools, and reform at the system level; and (3) In particular, standardized testing of students, a primary and growing component of teacher evaluation in the U.S., is generally administered and used differently in other countries. How is teacher evaluation linked with accountability and instructional improvement? Looking across systems, the authors see four primary approaches to accountability: professional, organizational, market, and parental/community. In this article, the authors discuss each approach that has strong implications for teacher evaluation and its use in instructional improvement. (Contains 1 figure.)

Purpose: The primary objective in this paper is to examine the role of small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in promoting and/or hindering educational opportunities to adult employees in the UK. Design/methodology/approach: The paper draws on 12 case studies of SMEs in England and Scotland, which form part of a larger European Sixth Framework Programme research project. Interviews were conducted with employers, line managers and employees participating in formal educational programmes, and were contextualized with policy documents and literature on lifelong learning and workplace education. Findings: This paper highlights and explores findings related to human resource management (HRM) and the participation of employees in formal education, and the experiences of companies in providing educational opportunities to employees in England and Scotland. The paper argues that employers have a key role to play in driving and investing in employee training and development. However, the current focus of employers on formal educational opportunities appears narrowly focused on job-specific, in-house training. Originality/value: The paper's value lies in its illustration of the restricted focus of the lifelong learning policy agenda on the development of human capital, which not only limits the development of portable skills and qualifications for employees, but also undermines the broader aims of lifelong learning. (Contains 1 table.)

This article explores the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) with particular emphasis on the European Union's (EU's) involvement in the regional portion. Using the ICCS, the EU actively combines hard measures with soft power, allowing the EU to define and steer cross-national rankings of values of EU citizenship. The authors contend that once hard measures of citizenship are produced, they become an efficient "truth" that can be legitimated through evaluation and ranking. As measures are represented in comparative tables, the conversation shifts to "Why are we ranked here?" rather than "How/why were we ranked?" This shift requires critical discussion, one which is often difficult, given the politics of agreement and funding patterns underlying assessment.

The paper draws on the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2007 data for nearly 60 educational systems to explore the characteristics and patterns of school violence across a number of countries and the extent to which measures of violence are associated with achievement in mathematics and science. Using a multi-level modelling approach, we examine the relationship between school violence and mathematics achievement. Findings from the international model indicate the extent to which violence at and across different levels impacts achievement in a cross-country, large-scale assessment. This paper suggests significant policy-relevant issues about school and national violence and the implications for academic achievement in an increasingly global world. (Contains 7 figures, 1 table and 2 notes.)

This paper examines the Europeanization of citizenship education policy through a comparative analysis of two European states, Germany and Spain, with strong traditions of regional control of education policy. While previous studies have tended to focus on national responses to and implementation of EU initiatives, they often disregarded the complex relationship regional actors have with national state and supranational actors. Using evidence from interviews and a detailed framing analysis of citizenship education curricula, textbooks, and policy documents, this paper looks specifically at Catalonia and Bavaria to explore the conception of the "ideal citizen" within and across local education practice(s), regional policy imperatives, central state-level citizenship education policy, German and Spanish federal policy related to citizenship and immigration, and EU educational initiatives. (Contains 1 table and 6 notes.)

The paper aims to explore the relationship between globalization and education through an investigation of educational policy development in the specific context of the Asia Pacific. The paper's primary focus is on data collected from the World Bank, OECD, IMF and UNESCO to look primarily at three interrelated trends in education: increasing enrollments at all educational levels, issues of gender equality, and changes in public expenditure. In the paper, we argue that developments in education are increasingly impacted by a particular conception of globalization, which is illustrated in the overarching pressure of efficiency on educational aims. Although both efficiency and equality aims of education are present in recent policy developments in the Asia Pacific, the importance attached to education's capabilities of advancing human capital development have brought about a fundamental tension between two purposes of education: one relating to efficiency and one underlying education's potential to advance goals of access and equality. (Contains 2 tables and 1 note.)

This paper examines educational policy production through an exploration of the shifting policies of educational decentralisation in Catalonia, Spain. It seeks to illuminate how in the era of globalisation, policy is produced through multiscalar processes involving a range of intersecting factors. This analysis shows that policy concepts surrounding educational decentralisation are not only formed in relation to national-regional dynamics but are influenced more broadly by a more complex set of supranational and global considerations. This article thus maps how decentralisation policies in Catalonia are in a constant state of flux, rearticulated through contrasting pressures on state arrangements and educational governance structures.

In recent literature, there has been extensive work revolving around the process of neoliberalism, its implications for the unfolding of state spaces, and its dramatic impact on processes of policy production. Some of this literature offers a periodized trajectory of neoliberalization, by first discussing the consolidation of the Keynesian welfare state (KWS) in the 1950s and 1960s, its subsequent erosion in the 1970s and 1980s, and the restructuring and dramatic rescaling of the state in the 1990s. Utilizing examples of Spanish educational policy in the post-Franco era, this paper explores some of the complex ways in which neoliberal pressures are impacting states situated outside these KWS templates.