Joined-Up Policy: Network Connectivity and Global Education Policy

• In Event: New Research on Global Policy Processes in Education

Abstract

This paper will present a worked through example of a contemporary global education policy network and the various connectivities which structure and animate the network. These connectivities are social, discursive, facilitative and financial. They make possible the flow of policy ideas, policy modalities and policy technologies and the dissemination of ‘causal stories’ (Stone 1989) and silver bullet solutions (to entrenched policy problems) and the articulation of a ‘moral economy of hope’ (Rose 2007). The paper will seek to explore and analyse the processes of networking through these connectivities – how the networks are formed and how they evolve; the nature of the relationships among the participants; and the role of nodal actors and moments of ‘meetingness’ – when participants come face to face. This paper goes beyond the existing body of work on policy networks in a number of ways.

The example will focus on a set of US and UK based philanthropies, foundations, businesses and social enterprises (ARK, Teach First, Teach for America, PEAS, Pearson) and their connections to policy experiments and initiatives (and to local partners) in Africa and India. The paper will draw on a combination of internet searches, social media (twitter, facebook, blogs etc) and interviews with network participants.

Venture philanthropies of various sizes and complexion are now operating in and on education policy in countries around the globe (Ball and Junemann 2012) (Ball 2012). Entrenched problems of educational development and educational quality and access are now being addressed by the involvement of social enterprises and edu-businesses in the delivery of educational services, both privately and on behalf of the state. The shifts and moves involved here are made up of and driven by a complex set of political and economic processes involving advocacy, business interests (new profit opportunities), ‘new’ philanthropy, and changes in the form and modalities of the state. Each of these elements needs to be attended to in the analysis of the new global education policy paradigm.

This paper reports on two ongoing research studies, one funded by The Leverhulme Foundation, the other by the British Academy, that explore the formation, activity and effects of education policy networks, involving Philanthropic actors, in India and sub-Saharan Africa. Using social network mapping techniques, web searches and interviews the studies indicate the increasing participation of US philanthropies both as direct agents of policy and in support of local philanthropic actors, in global policy networks. These networks operate within and between nation states, in new sites, using new methods. They indicate a high degree of social connectivity and provide means for the flow of resources and discourses.

References

Ball, S. J. (2012). Global Education Inc. New policy Networks and the Neoliberal Imaginary. London, Routledge.

Ball, S. J. and C. Junemann (2012). Networks, New Governance and Education. Bristol, Policy Press.

Author

• Stephen J. Ball, Institute of Education - London