Global Education Reforms Across Time and Space: Tendencies, Drivers, and Explanations In Comparative and Historical Perspective (Part 2)

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

In comparative policy studies and transfer research, the temporal dimension has always been key to analyzing why ideas, institutions, or reforms travel from one place to another. For the most part, studies have centered on the timing of adoption —when and why countries uptake a global reform— and the tempo, this is, the pace at which certain reforms diffuse (Porto de Olivera, 2021; Dolowitz et al., 2020). However, yet another ‘temporal turn’ in transfer research has brought into the spotlight the importance of the sequence of policy adoption and the institutionalization of these reforms – their lifespan and how they age (Steiner-Khamsi et al., 2024). Sequence matters, as policies interact with one another, yielding diverse effects on the ground (Béland & Howlett, 2020). Likewise, the continuity of reforms produces feedback effects that not only reshape them but that contribute to remaking politics, affecting the power relations of the agents involved by mobilizing interest groups, impacting administrative and bureaucratic capacities, encouraging or de-incentivizing the formation of coalitions, or shaping political participation (Mettler & SoRelle, 2018). To add another layer of complexity, each of these reforms encounters another temporal dimension: the cultural, political, and institutional history of adopting countries. Hence, this double panel centers on the interplay between this threefold analytical conceptualization of time: (i) the moments of adoption, and (ii) the institutionalization of policies, and with (iii) their encounter with local historical legacies across different territories.

Over time, different education ideas and reforms have been dominant in the global scene, diffusing widely across countries and contexts. Manpower planning dominated the 1960s and 1970s, and neoliberalism seemed inescapable during the 1980s and 1990s while coexisting with the Education-for-All movement and the imperative of educational access. In recent decades, dominant scripts have focused on educational standardization, accountability, and ‘datafication’ as part of quality assurance discourses (Grek et al., 2021), as well as liberal movements towards equity and inclusion in schools (Ydesen, 2023). However, in their spatial dissemination, reforms not only mutate but also evolve over time. Certain aspects gain prominence and increase their dissemination pace while others are left behind. In other words, discourses, scripts, and reforms have a lifespan in which certain aspects might become viral while others are neglected (Bromley et al., 2021). In parallel, when adopted, policies also have different trajectories. Certain policies remain in place, but are slowly ‘hollowed out’ (Morais de Sá e Silva & Porto de Olivera, 2023). Contrarily, other instruments like standardized assessments consolidate and gain further functions within education systems worldwide (Furuta, 2022).

The dimensions of adoption and institutionalization of global reforms are always intertwined and reassembled across localities. As historical institutionalism underscores, the processes of vernacularization of global education reforms are embedded in the historical configurations and administrative traditions of states —or subnational entities—, which influence contemporary processes of policy adoption and enactment (Barrett, 2017; Falleti et al., 2016; Mahoney & Thelen, 2010; Díaz-Ríos, 2024). This approach emphasizes how long-standing institutional patterns and historical trajectories create certain path dependencies, shaping the possibilities for current and future actions. The adoption and recontextualization of global reforms are thus shaped not only by institutional mechanisms but also by broader historical processes that reflect the interplay of global and local forces (Fioretos, 2017). This dual approach on the dual temporal dimensions of traveling policies and the broader historical dynamics and legacies in which they are situated provides rich opportunities for comparative and longitudinal analysis (Pierson & Skocpol, 2002).

This double panel explores the global diffusion and local adaptation of different education reform scripts—including those related to SAWA, LSAs, gender equality, data use, privatization, etc—, highlighting the diverse temporalities at play and the interplay between time and space. By engaging with the global transfer and evolution of education reforms, this double panel integrates insights from policy diffusion and mobilities, policy feedback theory, and historical institutionalism to explore how local and global forces interact in shaping the temporal trajectories of reforms. These analyses, set across a variety of national and regional contexts, reveal how historical legacies and institutional dynamics influence the adaptability and sustainability of education policies over time. Drawing on different methodological approaches, from statistical analysis of historical panel data on policy reforms, the qualitative comparative analysis framework (QCA), and qualitative contextual comparisons (Steiner-Khamsi & De Morais, 2024), the double panel includes a rich combination of medium-n comparative studies and in-depth case studies. In other words, the diverse methods used to explore traveling education reforms help us unpack the timing and tempo of global reforms as well as their institutionalization across diverse contexts. The temporal dimension analyzed in each presentation is read in light of changing spatialities considering the specific historical, political, and institutional contexts in which policies are adopted and evolve (Steiner-Khamsi & Morais de Sá e Silva, 2024). This theoretical and methodological diversity highlights the complexity of temporal dynamics in adopting, adapting, and recalibrating global education reforms.

This double panel brings together eight presentations that offer diverse perspectives on the evolution of education reforms, focusing on the interplay between global policy models and local contexts. Together, these papers address the following key questions:

* To what extent and how are global education reforms selectively adopted and evolve across different national and subnational contexts over time?

* What role do international organizations, policy coalitions, and instrument constituencies play in shaping these reforms?

* How are these reforms adapted or resisted within specific political, economic, and institutional landscapes?

* What are the drivers of policy change and policy endurance?

Each panel will have 4-5 presentations (12-15 mins each), followed by a discussion. The first panel analyzes global reforms from a historical perspective, looking at the pace and sequence of dissemination, the drivers substaining such policies from a cross-national perspective. The second panel takes stock in different temporalities of education reforms by exploring it through in depth cases.

Sub Unit

• Globalization & Education SIG

Organizer

• Tomas Esper, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Chair

• Marina López Leavy, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Individual Presentations

• Legacies in policy enactment: the bureaucratization of gender in universities in Catalonia - Alejandro Caravaca, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; Mauro C Moschetti, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

• The Adaption and Resistance towards SAWA Reform in Iceland 1991-2015: The process of hollowing out high-stakes testing in Iceland - Berglind Ros Magnusdottir, University of Iceland; Gita Steiner-Khamsi, Columbia University Teachers College & NORRAG

• Policy narratives to promote accountability in French-speaking Belgium - Annelise Voisin, University of Liege; Vincent Dupriez, UCLouvain; Virginie März, UC Louvain

• Data use in Italian schools: a qualitative study of how schools enact an increasingly institutionalized policy - Giulia Montefiore, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Discussant

• Claudia Milena Diaz-Rios, OISE University of Toronto