The Political Economy of Education in Comparative and International Education: Past Contributions and Future Prospects

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

[The following is a concept paper about the Political Economy of Education, an important, but somewhat forgotten area of research in comparative education. This paper is proposed to be presented as the basis of a panel discussion at CIES 2025. Since the theme of this year’s conference is education in a digital society, the concept paper also reviews political economy approaches to educational technology. Each of the four discussants will engage with the concept paper, highlighting various aspects, and then the four will engage in a discussion with the audience.]

The political economy of education has developed historically framed by two major themes (Carnoy, 2024). The first is that economic and political theory allow us to dig deeply into both the role that education plays in shaping social outcomes and how educational systems function. The second theme is that although educational systems have a certain degree of autonomy in all societies—for example, schools and universities as autonomous public and private institutions can be made more effective in delivering student learning in many different political-economic contexts —the knowledge that education produces, who gets that knowledge, and the social outcomes of transmitting that knowledge, cannot be separated from the social-economic-political power structure; how the that structure of power is manifested in economic and political institutions; and how power relations change over time.

In this regard, the political system—the State—provides the framework for a political economic theory of education and goes far in defining the structure in which individuals from different social classes, races, ethnicities, and gender make decisions (exercise agency) regarding education. That structure also helps define the economic opportunities facing different groups and how the State in market economies defines educational norms, standards, and access to education.

As early as the 1960s, and throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the neo-liberal paradigm of education as universally contributing to increased knowledge, economic development, and more equal social outcomes was challenged within the context of dependency theory (Cardoso & Falletto, 1971), social class reproduction theory (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977), class and race theories of the state (Dale, 1982; Carnoy & Levin, 1985; Carnoy, 1994; Marx, 1996; Ladson Billings &Tate, 1995), and feminist economic theories that included gender power relations (England, 1982; Strober &Tyack, 1980). In the 1990s and early 2000s, the discussion shifted to the impact of globalization on the role of the national State (Stromquist & Monkman, 2000; Kamat, 2011), and, in turn, how international agencies and the Washington Consensus influenced national educational policy (Mundy, 1998; Robertson & Dale, 2008; Kamat, 2012).

Part of this challenge was in the form of historical arguments and national case studies (Carnoy, 1974; Bowles and Gintis, 1975; Bourdieu and Passeron,1977); some, such as Willis’ Learning to Labor (1977) and Cobb and Sennett’s The Hidden Injuries of Class (1973), in the form of sociological studies of working class school age youth, some, in the form of critiques of pedagogical practice (Freire, 1970; Kozol, 1967), and some, as empirical methods of neo-classical economics of education critiquing neo-classical research itself (Bowles & Gintis, 1975; Reich, 1981; Klees, 2008; Klees, 2016). State theory was also the basis for comparing why educational systems in socialist societies increased access more rapidly and generally provided better learning outcomes for working class youth than capitalist societies (Carnoy & Samoff, 1989; Carnoy & Marshall, 2005).

More recently, some political economy scholars have focused on how the role of social movements and community organizing shape state society relations and schools. Educational scholarship on community organizing and social movements falls into two major areas: 1) research on informal learning and nonformal educational initiatives; and, 2) the impact of social movements on formal educational institutions (Foley, 1999; Tarlau, 2014). The literature on nonformal education initiatives examines how a diversity of social movements, including racial justice organizations (Kuk &Tarlau, 2020; Payne & Strickland, 2008), liberation theology movements (Berryman, 1987), and labor unions (Altenbaugh, 1990; Bleakney & Choudry, 2014), have developed educational offerings for movement participants.

Recent political economy-inspired research also explores how social movements transform formal schooling (Anyon, 2005; Tarlau, 2021). Scholars analyze how student activism and social movements shape universities (Rojas, 2007; Williamson-Lott, 2008). In Latin America, there is a long history of social movements transforming the formal educational sphere, including the community schools in guerrilla zones of El Salvador in the 1980s (Hammond, 1998), bilingual intercultural schools led by Ecuadorian Indigenous movements (Oviedo & Wildemeersch, 2008), and schools co-governed by the Brazilian Landless Workers’ Movement (Tarlau, 2019).

The role of global technology corporations in the education sector has been a subject of political economy analyses since the days of educational television. Despite the exponential growth of the ed-tech sector, research has shown that the “dream” of compensating for (or replacing) poorly trained teachers with centrally run educational television or individualized computer-based instruction has had little or no impact on student learning (Carnoy, 2002; Klees & Wells, 1983; Spreen and Kamat, 2018; Streibel, 1986). Rather, because these “solutions” to low levels and inequality of student learning are embedded in reproductive educational systems, they function just as poorly or well as the rest of the system and are as inequitable or equitable as the rest of the system (Werthein, 1977).

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Chair

• Martin Carnoy, Stanford University

Discussants

• Steven Klees, University of Maryland

• Rebecca Tarlau, Stanford University

• Sangeeta G. Kamat, Univ of Massachusetts Amherst

• Martin Carnoy, Stanford University