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The article presents two key concepts of sociological systems theory -- externalisation and structural coupling -- and applies them to explain (a) the exponential growth of international large-scale student assessments and (b) the rise of 'policy-relevant' educational research. The author concludes with a comparison between key concepts used in systems theory and those used in comparative policy studies. She identifies resemblances with concepts of pathways in historical institutionalism, the multiple-streams approach and the notion of punctuated equilibrium advanced in the advocacy coalition framework.

The article investigates how and when the two first movers in knowledge-based regulation – the OECD and the World Bank – developed policy brokerage as an instrument of global governance in the education sector. We also examine how their target clientele – national governments – responds to this instrument. Given the surplus of research evidence in today's digital economy, intergovernmental organisations have the challenge of standing out as trusted and credible knowledge brokers in a crowded space. The authors make the case for a comparative research programme – tentatively labeled 'Governance by Numbers 2.0' – that is informed by a multidisciplinary (history, political science, interdisciplinary policy studies) interpretive framework and that advances a transnational, relational method of inquiry which draws attention to the global/national nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank, the two largest global actors in the education sector, in their capacity as knowledge brokers. For these actors, positioning themselves between research and policy and circulating their versions of evidence has become a popular governance instrument to amplify their impact at the national level. To compare the strategies and targets of the OECD and the World Bank, we analyze three publication series: the OECD's Education Policy Outlook and Reviews of National Policies for Education and the World Bank's Systems Approach for Better Education reports. The results reveal significant differences between the OECD's and the World Bank's approaches to producing evidence and brokering knowledge. We interpret the differences against the backdrop of the idiosyncrasies of the two organizations: The World Bank sees itself as a transnational actor, and its knowledge production and brokerage are highly decontextualized transcending national experiences. By contrast, the OECD is an intergovernmental organization that views itself as a facilitator of cross-national peer exchange. Situating the findings within the broader framework of the global–national nexus, we argue that the World Bank's approach promotes vertical policy learning, while the OECD's approach pursues horizontal policy learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This inaugural article delineates the vision and scope of the new section "Qualitative Comparative Policy Studies" of the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis. The co-editors present the five key features of the section: the comparative, the transnational, the relational, the global, and the self-reflective. Concretely, they invite contributions on qualitative empirical research that (i) is comparative in its methods and interpretive framework, (ii) draws on the transnational dimension, (iii) considers the relational dimension of network governance, (iv) recognizes an unequal global setting, and (v) is self-reflective and interrogates international comparison as a governance tool. By definition, qualitative comparison is contextual comparison that differentiates between place and space and the temporalities of comparative policy analysis (period, timing, tempo, sequence, lifespan, and age). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study presents a bibliometric network analysis of the two most recent schools reforms in Norway. Two research questions have been pursued: First, do the government-appointed expert commission use (in Green Papers) the same type of knowledge as 'evidence' for their reviews and recommendations as the Ministry of Education and Research (as reflected in the White Papers)? How has the use of 'evidence' changed over the two reform periods? Second, which body of knowledge amassed by the expert commission has the Ministry of Education and Science actually used for policy formulation? The network analysis shows (i) distinct changes in reference patterns over the two reform periods (e.g., average number of references more than doubled and references to international texts increased significantly), and (ii) an unexpectedly low usage of the 'evidence' presented by the expert commissions. The Ministry of Education and Research only draws on 9.5 percent of the references presented by the expert commissions. Strikingly, almost all of the adopted references are from a commissioned report that locally adapted and translated OECD's Definitions and Selections of Competencies project. The authors suggest 'studying up' and paying more attention to how scientific 'evidence' is actually used, translated, and edited at the political level.

Because educational research has grown more global in nature over the course of the last few decades, researchers find themselves questioning how best to conceptualize content and establish distinct levels in educational research. Globalization has exacerbated the need to rethink culture and context, to understand how and why similar content are, for cultural reasons, interpreted and received differently. The symposium on "Rethinking Culture, Context, and Comparison in Education and Development" brought together several groups of noted scholars to discuss the issues of this phenomenon. Of those groups of scholars, author Gita Steiner-Khamsi sets her focus on two: those that utilize a disciplinary lens versus those that apply an interdisciplinary, or rather multidisciplinary approach to the comparative inquiry of education. Steiner-Khamsi begins this essay by dismissing the dichotomy between anthropology and comparative education as a false juxtaposition and proposes instead a reflection on the disciplinary versus the multidisciplinary approach to the comparative study of education. In this ongoing discussion, she argues that the method of comparison strongly relies on an interdisciplinary approach in order to understand and generalize findings on similarities and differences between educational practices, beliefs, and systems.

This article examines a particular type of public-private partnership (PPP) that is rarely studied in comparative educational policy studies: one in which a government funds privately run international schools. The aim of this PPP is to enrich and thereby improve the regular curriculum or to the quality of education in "public schools." As the exponential growth of International Baccalaureate (IB) illustrates, such forms of PPP have increased significantly over the past few years. The authors show that transnational accreditation holds a special appeal for the middle class that is committed to cosmopolitanism, international mobility, and global citizenship. However, international standards schools such as IB are not alone with advancing a transnational accreditation of their educational programmes. Symbolically, Programme in International Student Assessment also provides a transnational accreditation, albeit not on individual education programmes but rather on entire educational systems. The article examines the reasons for the popularity of this type of PPP, analyses the interaction between the private and public education sectors, and investigates how governments explain, and what they expect from, the close cooperation with private education providers.

This article focuses on why education is a lucrative business for private sector providers. It identifies the five most common strategies that education businesses apply when selling goods or services in the education sector. In addition, this study also cursorily presents examples of how public education has networked with, reframed its mission, and built institutional structures that resemble businesses. The author proposes that the interaction of the two types of providers--public sector versus private sector--should constitute the focus of academic inquiry. Nowadays, the two sectors react to, and compete with each other. As a result, changes in one sector impacts the other. The article provides examples of boundary work and translation in the two sectors.

The media analysis is situated in the larger body of studies that explore the varied reasons why different policy actors advocate for international large-scale student assessments (ILSAs) and adds to the research on the fast advance of the global education industry. The analysis of "The Economist," "Financial Times," and "Wall Street Journal" covers publications on 'PISA', 'TIMSS', and related search items over the period 1996-2016. The three media outlets vary in terms of ILSA reporting. "The Economist" and "Financial Times" tend to focus on PISA, whereas the "Wall Street Journal" pays greater attention to TIMSS than PISA. The content analysis of 59 articles yields interesting results about how the business-oriented readership of the three media outlets frames public education and why it sees education as a profitable business opportunity. The three most common narratives, reflecting the business logic, are the following: (i) public education is in crisis; (ii) there is no correlation between spending and education outcome; and (iii) school accountability, teacher performance, and decentralisation represent the most effective policies to improve the quality of education. Drawing on these three common narratives, the financial media outlets present a particular vision of how to improve education; a vision in which the private sector is supposed to play a major role.

The introductory article of the GSE special issue 'PISA for scandalization, PISA for projection: the use of international large-scale assessments in education policy making' contextualises the four articles of the special issue in the broader context of comparative policy studies in education. It reflects in particular on the question of why cross-national comparison is relevant for the study of ILSA (international large-scale assessment) policy reception and how 'methodological nationalism' may be avoided when using national education systems as units of analysis.

Sustainability strategies are closely tied to the logic of the donor in every institution. Philanthropies that are set up with a limited time-span tend to scale up their impact differently. The educational programs of the Open Society Institute, for example, prioritize institutionalization over any other sustainability strategy. This is how it works: a national foundation incubates an innovative practice in an area that is neglected by the government in the hope that the complementary project will, as soon as possible, become incorporated in state institutions and inscribed in educational policy. In practice this means that the national foundation initiates, designs, and monitors a project that, upon successful completion of the pilot stage, is to be implemented on a large scale. Preferably, it will be funded by the government or, if this is not possible, by other donors. Naturally, tensions do emerge with other international organizations, especially larger ones that also attempt to exert influence on national policy-making. How donor logic impacts the cooperation of donor organizations with governments as well as with other international organizations is a topic that deserves much more scrutiny. In this article, the author explores the characteristics of the "new philanthropies." (Contains 2 notes.)

The authors contend that the impact of the Cold War on multilateral organizations (especially UNESCO) as well as on the academic programs in Comparative and International Education or Development Studies in Education has been largely understudied. Both world-systems (USA and its allies, Soviet Union and its allies) laid claim on the project of world peace that UNESCO was meant to pursue. Furthermore, the boom in area, language and development studies in the 1960s was closely associated with the international race between the two world-systems over the patronage of those postcolonial countries that were viewed as "non-aligned" or neutralist. The salutary effects upon education policy in the United States are described, along with the portrayal of education as an inferior aspect of the capitalist system, behind the "iron curtain." The authors note the new research field of post-Cold War studies that emerged in U.S. academe over the past decade, and find that such studies are surprisingly scarce in comparative and international education which, by virtue of analyzing other educational systems, was at the center of the dichotomy.

This paper addresses the rise and consequences of an emerging global education industry (GEI), which represents new forms of private, for profit involvement in education across the globe. The paper explores the emergence within the GEI of new and varied, largely transnational, markets in education by focusing on three examples of the GEI at work. The first example addresses the issue of Charter Schools, what they have come to represent, how they have been implemented, and, especially, the impact they have had on public schooling more broadly. While they have taken different forms in different places, they have succeeded in installing the idea of quasi-markets in education, which has been directly instrumental in opening up opportunities for private investment in education. The second example concerns the ways that the increasingly global standardisation of education policies, provision and practices, presents lucrative opportunities for investment and profit. The forms and consequences of such standardisation are described in the contrasting cases of Qatar, Mongolia and Indonesia. The third example concerns low-fee private schools in the Global South. Far from such schools being seen as local initiatives, the paper shows how they have become a major opportunity for profitable investment by international corporations.

The authors examine indicator research over three periods and discuss shifts in policy usage over time. The study compares influential actors that reflect discursive shifts in how, and for what purpose, indicators were used: (1) Jullien de Paris, (2) faculty at Teachers College at Columbia University in the early-twentieth century (notably Paul Monroe and Isaac Kandel) and (3) UNESCO Institute for Statistics' contribution to the debate on the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) indicators. Arguably, these periods reflect the broader agenda and usage of indicators: modernization/nation-building (Jullien), colonization/development (Monroe and Kandel) and standardization/globalization (SDGs). In this view, indicators make systems comparable, despite their differences: educational systems are not comparable "per se," they are made comparable through standardized measurement. Jullien crucially shaped empirical research through uniform questions that enable description, analysis and comparison educational systems' key features. Recently, policy analysts and researchers have referred to those standardised questions as indicators.

This Forum discusses the significant growth of international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) since the mid-1990s. Addey and Sellar's contribution ("A Framework for Analysing the Multiple Rationales for Participating in International Large-Scale Assessments") outlines a framework of rationales for participating in ILSAs and examines the multiple localised meanings attached to ILSA participation. This framework is discussed under seven headings: (1) evidence for policy; (2) technical capacity building; (3) funding and aid; (4) international relations; (5) national politics; (6) economic rationales; and (7) curriculum and pedagogy. It shows how ILSAs can serve multiple purposes--a flexibility that has contributed to the rapid growth of the phenomenon. Steiner-Khamsi ("Focusing on the Local to Understand Why the Global Resonates and How Governments Appropriate ILSAs for National Agenda Setting") focuses on the local to understand why the global resonates and discusses how governments appropriate ILSAs for national agenda setting. Lingard (International Organisations' Rationales for Large Scale Assessments") examines the rationales of international organisations and the contribution of media coverage to the increasing significance of ILSAs. Finally, Verger ("Theorising ILSA Participation") theorises rationales for ILSA participation according to three frames for understanding global education policy: rationalism, neo-institutionalism and political economy approaches.

Research on policy borrowing is a well-established research area of comparative education. Over the past 20 years or so it gained prominence among globalization scholars. Of great interest is not so much the question of which reforms "travel" internationally, and which ones are homebound, but rather why traveling reforms resonate in a given context and at a specific moment, and how they are subsequently translated or locally adapted. In addition to issues of reception and translation, questions on the politics and economics of policy transfer are central to this research area. Empirical studies have shown that borrowing reforms from other countries, from other sectors within a country, or from "international standards" broadly defined often help coalition-building in a country. Policy borrowing also helps to mobilize financial resources, especially when it is preceded by political talk of falling behind some international standards or "best practices." Therefore, the methods of inquiry used, the type of research questions asked, and the conclusions drawn in this body of research tend to address political and economic aspects of educational reform. Arguably, a transnational perspective is indispensable to carry out this kind of intellectual project. The academic preoccupation with policy borrowing has helped to formulate the contours of comparative policy studies. The article provides a brief overview of the main tenets of policy borrowing research and then focuses specifically on three aspects: policy reception, policy projection, and the rise of the global education industry as a new actor and beneficiary of global education policy.

The article examines how and why the method of "comparison against standards" has benefited non-state actors and businesses in the education sector. Drawing on brief examples from international standard schools in Qatar, Indonesia and Mongolia, the author examines how the global education industry uses the reference to "international standards" as a selling point to roll out their own school reform package. Besides a critical examination of the selling points, she also explores why governments find the purchase of products and services from businesses appealing. Finally, she analyses how governments justify the purchase of expensive educational products and services that they otherwise would receive for free or at a considerably lower price. The author frames her analyses against the backdrop of theories on policy borrowing/lending as well as methodological discussions in the field of comparative education.