Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research

Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research 12-volume Book Series (Springer)

Series editor: Joseph Zajda (Australian Catholic University, Melbourne Campus)http://www.springeronline.com/sgw/cda/frontpage

Book series overview

The Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research book series aims to meet the research needs of all those interested in in-depth developments in comparative education research. The series provides a global overview of developments and changes in policy and comparative education research during the last decade. Presenting up-to-date scholarly research on global trends, it is an easily accessible, practical yet scholarly source of information for researchers, policy makers and practitioners. It seeks to address the nexus between comparative education, policy and forces of globalisation, and provides perspectives from all the major dis-ciplines and all the world regions. The series offers possible strategies for the effective and pragmatic policy planning and implementation at local, regional and national levels.

The book series complements the International Handbook of Globalisation and Education Policy Research. The volumes focus on comparative education themes and case studies in much greater scope and depth than is possible in the Handbook.

The series includes volumes on both empirical and qualitative studies of policy initiatives and developments in comparative education research in elementary, secondary and post-com-pulsory sectors. Case studies may include changes and education reforms around the world, curriculum reforms, trends in evaluation and assessment, decentralisation and privatisation in education, technical and vocational education, early childhood education, excellence and qual-ity in education. Above all, the series offers the latest findings on critical issues in comparative education and policy directions, such as:

Developing new internal strategies (more comprehensive, flexible and innovative modes •of learning) that take into account the changing and expanding learner needs

Overcoming ‘unacceptable’ socio-economic educational disparities and inequalities• Improving educational quality• Harmonizing education and culture• International cooperation in education and policy directions in each country•

For other titles published in this series, go to

www.springer.com/series/6932

Joseph ZajdaEditor

Globalisation, Ideology and Education Policy Reforms

EditorJoseph ZajdaAustralian Catholic UniversityMelbourne CampusAustraliaj.zajda@jnponline.com

ISBN 978-90-481-3523-3 e-ISBN 978-90-481-3524-0DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3524-0Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York

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Springer is part of Springer Science + Business Media (www.springer.com)

To Rea, Nikolai And Dorothy

vii

Preface

Globalisation, Ideology and Education Policy Reforms, which is the 11th volume in the 12-volume book series Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research, presents scholarly research on major discourses concerning globalisation and the politics of education reforms. It reviews some of the ideological imperatives fueling education reforms. It examines critically education reforms within their social, political and global dimensions. It provides an easily accessible, practical yet scholarly source of information about recent developments in globalisation, ideology and trends in education reforms. Above all, the book offers the latest find-ings to the critical issues concerning major discourses surrounding the nexus between ideology and education reforms in the global culture. It is a sourcebook of ideas for researchers, practitioners and policy makers in education, and schooling around the world. It offers a timely overview of current policy issues affecting education reforms globally. It provides directions in education, and policy research, relevant to progressive pedagogy, social change and transformational educational reforms in the twenty-first century.

The book critically examines the overall interplay between the state, ideology and current discourses of education reforms in the global culture. It draws upon recent studies in the areas of globalisation, academic achievement, standards, equity and the role of the State (Apple 2004; Carnoy 1999; Zajda et al. 2008). It explores conceptual frameworks and methodological approaches applicable in the research covering the State, globalisation and quality-driven education reforms. It demonstrates the neo-liberal ideological imperatives of education and policy reform, affecting schooling globally (see also Zajda 2005). Various book chapters critique the dominant discourses and debates pertaining to comparative education discourses on reforms and neo-liberal ideology in education. Using a number of diverse paradigms in comparative education research, ranging from critical theory to globalisation, the authors, by focusing on globalisation, ideology and democracy, attempt to examine critically existing inequalities in education, due to social inequality and social stratification (see also Apple 2004; Bowles and Gintis 1976; McLaren and Farahmandpur 2005).

The volume provides a more informed critique on the Western-driven models of education, and existing dimensions of inequality, defined by cultural capital and SES. The book draws upon recent studies in the areas of dominant ideologies,

viii Preface

power and stratification in education and society globally (Zajda and Rust 2009). The general intention is to make Globalisation, Ideology and Education Policy Reforms available to a broad spectrum of users among policy-makers, academics, graduate students, education policy researchers, administrators and practitioners in the education and related professions. The book is unique in that it:

Examines central discourses surrounding the politics of education reforms globally•Explores conceptual frameworks and methodological approaches applicable in •the research of education and policy reforms , with reference to the State, ideology and globalisationDemonstrates ideological imperatives of globalisation, neo-liberal ideology and •the State, affecting the nature and direction of reforms globallyProvides strategic education policy analysis on recent developments in educa-•tion reformsOffers suggestions for directions in education and policy changes, relevant to •democratic and empowering pedagogy in the twenty-first century.

We hope that you will find the book useful in your teaching, future research and discourses concerning schooling, social justice and policy reforms in the global culture.

Melbourne, Australia Joseph Zajda

References

Apple, M. (2004). Ideology and curriculum (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge Falmer.Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (1976). Schooling in capitalist America: Educational reform and the

contradictions of economic life. New York: Basic Books.Carnoy, M. (1999). Globalization and educational reform: What planners need to know. Paris:

UNESCO, International Institute for Education Planning.McLaren, P., & Farahmandpur, R. (2005). Teaching against global capitalism and the new impe-

rialism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Zajda, J. (2005) (Ed.). The International handbook of globalisation and education policy research.

Dordrecht: SpringerZajda, J. Biraimah, B., & Gaudelli, W. (2008). (Eds.). Education and social inequality in the

global culture (pp. xvii–xxvii). Dordrecht: Springer.Zajda, J., & Rust, V. (2009) (Eds.). Globalisation, policy and comparative research: Discourses

of globalisation. Dordrecht: Springer.

ix

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the following individuals who have provided invaluable help, advice and support with this major research project:

Bernadette Ohmer, Springer

Harmen van Paradijs, Publishing Editor, Springer

Dorothy Murphy, Associate Editor, Educational Practice and Theory, James Nicholas Publishers

We also want to thank numerous reviewers who were prepared to review various drafts of the chapters. These include:

Helena Allahwerdi, University of Finland

Ari Antikainen, University of Helsinki

Alberto Arenas, University of Arizona

Karen Biraimah, University Of Central Florida

Malcolm Campbell, Bowling Green State University

Phil Clarkson, Australian Catholic University (Melbourne Campus)

Erwin Epstein, Loyola University Chicago

Kassie Freeman, Southern University and A&M College System

David Gamage, University of Newcastle

Haim Gaziel, Bar Ilan University

Mark Hanson, University of California (Riversdale)

Yaacov Iram, Bar Ilan University

Sheryl Lutjens, Northern Arizona University

Ljubo Majhanovich, Windsor University

Suzanne Majhanovich, University of Western Ontario

Kas Mazurek, University of Lethbridge

Marie-Laure Mimoun-Sorel, Australian Catholic University (Melbourne Campus)

Wolfgang Mitter, German Institute for International Educational Research

Adam Nir, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

x Acknowledgements

Carlos Ornelas, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana

Sev Ozdowski, University of Western Sydney

Val Rust, University of California (Los Angeles)

Margaret Secombe, University of Adelaide

Ken Smith, Australian Catholic University (Melbourne Campus)

Nelly Stromquist, University of Southern California

David Turner, University of Glamorgan

Rea Zajda, James Nicholas Publishers

We are particularly grateful to Harmen van Paradijs, Publishing Editor, Springer who supported this project, and who took the responsibility for the book production process, and whose energy and enthusiasm ensured that the book was published on time.

xi

Contents

Preface .............................................................................................................. vii

Acknowledgements ......................................................................................... ix

Globalisation, Ideology and Education Policy Reforms .............................. xiiiJoseph Zajda

Part I Main Trends and Issues

1 The Politics of the New History School Textbooks in the Russian Federation ......................................................................... 3Joseph Zajda

2 Constructing the Australian School History Curriculum: Ideology, High Politics and the History Wars in the Howard Years ................................................................................. 19Tony Taylor

3 Teachers, History Wars and Teaching History Grade 6 in Greece ..................................................................................... 39Stilianos Meselidis

4 Why Educational Reforms Fail: The Emergence and Failure of an Educational Reform: A Case Study from Israel ......................................................................... 49Haim H. Gaziel

5 Japanese National Curriculum Standards Reform: Integrated Study and Its Challenges ....................................................... 63Mohammad Reza Sarkar Aranil and Keisuke Fukaya

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6 Implementation of Education Reform Policies: The Issue of Structural and Cultural Discordance .............................. 79Suseela Malakolunthu

Part II Education Reforms: Implication for Democracy

7 Education in China: The Urban/Rural Disparity Explained .............. 89Patricia Ayoroa, Bethany Bailey, Audrey Crossen, and Macleans A. Geo-JaJa

8 The Academic Achievement Gap in Israel: Inequality in Education .......................................................................... 115Iris BenDavid-Hadar

9 Stories of Difference: Metropolitan and Rural Students’ Attitudes to University ............................................................................ 133Madeleine Mattarozzi Laming

10 Teachers Surviving to Teach: Implications for Post-Soviet Education and Society in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan ............................................ 153Sarfaroz Niyozov and Duishon Shamatov

11 The Politics of Education Reforms and Policy Shifts in the Russian Federation ............................................................ 175Joseph Zajda

Name Index ...................................................................................................... 193

Subject Index ................................................................................................... 197

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Globalisation, Ideology and Education Policy Reforms

Joseph Zajda

Globalisation, Social and Cultural Change, and Education Reforms

As argued recently in The Politics of Education Reforms (see Zajda and Geo-JaJa 2009), the term ‘globalisation’ is a complex cultural and social theory construct and a convenient euphemism concealing contested meanings and dominant per-spectives and ideologies, ranging from Wallerstein’s (1979, 1998) ambitious ‘world-systems’ model, Giddens’ (1990, 2000) notion of ‘time–space distantia-tion’ (highlighting the ‘disembeddedness’ of social relations and their effective removal from the immediacies of local contexts), and Castells’ (1989) approaches to globalisation by way of networking, proposing that the power of flows of capi-tal, technology and information constitutes the fundamental paradigm of an emerging ‘network society’, to a view of globalisation as a neo-liberal and bour-geois hegemony, which legitimates an ‘exploitative system’(see Apple 2004; Bowles and Gintis 1976; Carnoy 1974, 1984, 1989, 1999; Geo-JaJa and Mangum 2002; Ginsburg 1991; Ginsburg and Lindsay 1995; McLaren and Farahmandpur 2005; Ritzer 2005; Zajda 2008, 2009a).

We have suggested that globalisation, political and economic systems and the competitive market forces have generated a massive growth in the knowledge industries that are having profound differential effects on educational institutions and nations in general (Zajda and Geo-JaJa 2009). One of the effects of forces of globalisation is that educational organisations, having modelled its goals and strate-gies on the entrepreneurial business model, are compelled to embrace the corporate ethos of the efficiency, accountability and profit-driven managerialism. Hence, the politics of education reforms reflect this new emerging paradigm of standards-driven policy change (Zajda 2009b).

J. Zajda School of Education, Melbourne Campus (St Patrick’s), Australian Catholic University, 115 Victoria Parade, and Fitzroy VIC 3065 Australiae-mail: j.zajda@patrick.acu.edu.au

xiv Globalisation, Ideology and Education Policy Reforms

Academic Standards and Testing Reforms

It has been argued that the politics of education reforms surrounding national cur-ricula, standards, excellence and quality, as well as outcomes-based curriculum reforms have ‘largely come from Northern, often World Bank, ideologies’ (Watson 2000, p. 140; see also Zajda 2005; Zajda and Geo-JaJa 2009). At the same time, Michele S. Moses and Michael J. Nanna (2007) argue that high stakes testing reforms, driven by political and cultural ideology and concerns for efficiency and economic productivity, serve to impede the development of real equality of educa-tional opportunity, particularly for the least advantaged students (p. 56). While centralisation and decentralisation reforms in education reflect a neo-liberal ideol-ogy at work, they do not necessarily capture a complexity of forces fuelling educa-tional and policy change. Academic standards, performance and quality of schooling continue to dominate the reform agenda globally, especially the perfor-mance leagues tables. At the same time, there are also politically determined cur-ricular reforms affecting the nature and the content of history school textbooks.

Globalisation and Reforms of School History Textbooks

Recent research on globalisation and education policy has indicated that forces of globalisation, marketisation and accountability have affected the nature, and the value of school textbooks in Russia and elsewhere (Zajda 2005; Crawford and Foster 2006; Baques 2006; Pingel 2006; Taylor 2006; Han 2007; Janmaat 2007; Zajda 2007b, 2009). Recent research findings concerning the revised content on new history text-books demonstrate that the historiographies in the Russian Federation, engaging in nation-building process, continue to be essentially monolithic and intolerant to alter-native views as those of their communist predecessors, merely exchanging a com-munist ideological colouring for a national one (Zajda 2009; Janmaat and Vickers 2007). Since 2004, my research has demonstrated that the Russian Ministry of Education now controls the process of evaluation of all approved history textbooks, and other core textbooks in all other school subjects. Since then, the new history textbooks, which have the Ministry of Education seal of approval, have returned to traditional symbols of nation-building and patriotism.

Current debates in Russia, around the main issues in historiography and the role of historical narratives in the nation-building process, echo similar controversies in the UK in the 1980s (Phillips 1998), in the USA during the 1990s (Nash et al. 2000), as well as recent debates in Japan, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, the Ukraine, Korea and China. In the USA, for example, on January 18, 1995, the ‘History Wars’ erupted on the floors of the US Congress. Research on Russian history textbooks has demonstrated that school history textbooks play a significant role in political socialisation, promoting patriotism and the nation-building process. The role of history textbooks in the nation-building process has

xvGlobalisation, Ideology and Education Policy Reforms

been already discussed widely by other scholars globally (Macintyre and Clark 2003; Pingel 2006; Taylor 2006; Han, 2007; Janmaat 2007; Zajda 2007a, 2009c). In Russia, far more emphasis is now placed on national identity and the need to become familiar with the history of one’s country (Zajda 2009).

International research on school history globally, and in Europe in particular, has been done by the UN, and the Council of Europe (see Nicholls 2006). The Council of Europe has played a major role in funding projects to improve teaching history and history textbooks in Europe, and especially in the Russian Federation between 1999 and 2003. Its recent publication is History Education in Europe: Ten Years of Cooperation Between the Russian Federation and the Council of Europe (2006). It was stressed that no single version of history should be considered as final or cor-rect. However, Zajda, (2007a, b, 2009a, b) research findings indicate that despite the Council of Europe warnings against the ‘misuse of history’, and declaring that history teaching should not be ‘an instrument of ideological manipulation, of pro-paganda or used for the promotion of intolerant and ultra-nationalistic, xenophobic, racist or anti-Semitic ideas’ (Council of Europe 2006) new textbooks in Russia have returned to traditional images of nationalism and patrtiotism (not unlike in the USSR) – promoting the cult of Stalin, as a great war leader and a war hero.

Some scholars have examined structural forces and processes exerted by the state and other major stakeholders in defining a ‘new direction for history education’ (Erokhina and Shevyrev 2006). Yet, Vera Kaplan (2007) in her study of Russian school textbooks notes that they pay little attention to the Soviet repressions and mass deportations of ethnic groups. Furthermore, many Russians do not like to know of the Red Army’s wartime atrocities and about complete indifference to human life by the Soviet high command. Hence, textbooks de-emphasise Russian imperialism, the Red Terror, war losses and wartime atrocities, to name a few. Recent and continuing public and political debates in the USA, China, Japan and elsewhere, dealing with under-standings of a nation-building and national identity, point out to parallels between the political significance of school history and the history debates globally (see Smith 1991; Nash et al. 2000; Macintyre and Clark 2003; Taylor 2003; Kaplan 2005; Taylor 2006; Sherlock 2005; Nicholls 2006). Due to these ongoing debates, history educa-tion has become a high profile topic of national and global significance.

National History Curriculum and Standards

Standards-driven education policy and curriculum reforms in Europe and elsewhere have impacted on publishers and publishing. A State-mandated National Curriculum in the UK (1988), the Core Curriculum in the Russian Federation (1993), National Curricula in France, the Russian Federation and Japan, to name a few, supported by a rigid regime of examinations, accountability, standards, quality and value-added schooling, has meant that education publishers were responding to the demands of state-controlled and examination-driven accountability-defined education system (see Zajda 2009c).

xvi Globalisation, Ideology and Education Policy Reforms

The emergence of National History Curriculum, State/Federal Standards in History and increased emphasis on examinations in schools and higher education institutions has meant that education textbook publishers ‘are now acutely aware of the demands of the examination boards’ and produce prescribed textbooks for the state-defined and controlled curricula (Crawford and Foster 2006, p. 94). Debate in the USA, England, Germany, Japan, Greece, the Russian Federation, China and elsewhere, were particularly intense during the 1990s and after 2000, concerning how and what history particular history narrative and ideological perspective should be included in schools. In England, for instance, the debates surrounding the New English National Curriculum and the proposed school history curriculum in the late 1980s and early 1990s were ‘particularly acrimonious’ (Crawford and Foster 2006, p. 94). Similarly, in France, due to its highly centralised education system, school history textbooks are published, according to prescribed history cur-ricula and national examinations. In this sense, history in French schools has the status of a ‘compulsory discipline’, being placed ‘behind French and mathematics’ in the hierarchy of school disciplines (Baques 2006, p. 105).

Recent reforms and debates on the nature of history in prescribed history school textbooks are examined in The Politics of the New History School Textbooks in the Russian Federation (Joseph Zajda, Australian Catholic University (Melbourne Campus), followed by Constructing the Australian School History Curriculum: Ideology, High Politics and the History Wars in the Howard Years (Tony Taylor, Monash University), and Teachers, History Wars and Teaching History Grade 6 in Greece (Stilianos Meselidis, RMIT). The authors offer three different yet compli-mentary perspectives on the nexus between ideology and dominant themes in school history textbooks. The authors note images of politically correct nation-building and national identity.

Issues in Trends in Current Education Reforms

The nature and the politics of education reforms in Israel is examined by Haim H. Gaziel (Bar Ilan University), in his work ‘Why Educational Reforms Fail: The emergence and failure of an educational reform’ (see also Zajda 2003b). Gaziel argues that reforms tend to fail to achieve their stated goals due to the economical model employed. He concludes that since educational reforms are part of ongoing struggles between ideological groups over power, resources and values (equity and unity, vs inequity and diversity), the success of reforms will be in doubt. The trend towards centralization of curricula and standards in Japan is examined by Mohammad Reza Sarkar Arani and Keisuke Fukaya (Ritsumeikan University) in their study ‘Japanese National Curriculum Standards Reform: Integrated Study and its Challenges’. The authors believe that the national curriculum standards reform in Japan could offer various types of opportunities for learning to meet the indi-vidual needs in classroom teaching. Education reforms in schools, in order to suc-ceed during the implementation stage need teachers’ and principals’ support.

xviiGlobalisation, Ideology and Education Policy Reforms

Suseela Malakolunthu (University of Malaya), suggests that organizational factors, especially the issue of structural and cultural discordance might be a huge stum-bling block on the path of the Malaysian school principals trying to implement curriculum and instructional reform policies at the local level.

One of the goals of all education reforms is to provide quality schooling for all – by improving access and equality of educational opportunity. This has not happen in a number of countries. In China, for instance, despite education reforms and the expansion of the higher education sector, there exists a rural/urban disparity in access to quality education. Macleans A. Geo-JaJa (Brigham Young University) and his co-authors argues that as China has continued to modernize, growth gener-ated has not translated into social well-being; rather it has caused social exclusion, poverty, unemployment and income disparity in the western region, particularly among the ethnic minorities in the rural areas. Similarly, in Israel, there continues to exist a pronounced and entrenched inequality in academic achievement, which Iris BenDavid-Hadar (Bar Ilan University), attributes to traditional dimensions of social stratification in education and society – class, status, occupation and income. Educational reforms, even when they target disadvantaged social strata are unlikely to succeed without corresponding macro-social reforms. Madeleine Mattarozzi Laming (Australian Catholic University) observes that in Australia young adults, from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, disadvantaged regions and rural areas, have less incentive to enrol in the higher education sector.

Teachers play an important role in the implementation process of education reforms. In ‘Teachers Surviving to Teach: Implications for Post-Soviet Education and Society in Central Asia’, Sarfaroz Niyozov (University of Toronto) and Duishon Shamatov, present a complex picture of teachers’ life and work in Central Asia. They examine how teachers live and work during the decades of reforms in education and society, and how they are seeking various means for survival and coping with the multiple challenges they face in their everyday practices, as result of dislocation due to radical nature of social change.

Joseph Zajda (Australian Catholic University) offers additional recent research on the politics of education reforms and policy shifts in the Russian Federation. He demonstrates that Putin’s policy reforms in education were essentially ideological, as they continued to stress nation-building, nationalism, patriotism and global com-petitiveness (see Apple, 2004; Zajda 2008, 2009a, b). He argues that the new neo-liberal model adopted by the higher education sector in Russia has highly elitist and anti-egalitarian dimensions, where the best higher education is available for young adults from the privileged strata. In the USSR, it was available for intelligentsia and professional families’ children.

In Russia, streaming by ability, competitive entrance examinations, elite universi-ties and restricted entry into the higher education sector (unless one is a full fee-paying student), typical of capitalist democracies, is the new dysfunctional outcome of the reform that is inherently unequalizing, despite the proffered policy of curricular equivalence, state standards and state exams. Differentiation in the higher education sector, as demonstrated by diversity in the higher education nomenclature – state and private 5-year universities, academies, institutes and colleges, and a new division

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between private and state higher education institutions, may well increase inequality and limit access to students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Current on-going higher education reforms in Russia are likely to consolidate an emerging social inequality and stratification in the higher education sector, which mirror capitalist democracy. Power, occupation, class, wealth and cultural capital play increasing roles in a new socially stratified society in the Russian Federation. It will have serious implications for equity, social justice and human rights in the future.

Globalisation and Education Reforms: Evaluation

Globalisation, with its evolving and growing in complexity social stratification of nations, technology and education systems, has a potential to generate further polarisation and socio-economic divisions in society, that are likely to create dis-content and social conflict. The above analysis demonstrates an existence of the nexus between ideology, the state and education reforms globally. Nation-building, as depicted in historical narratives of the more recent school textbooks, is charac-terised by new ideological biases and omissions. These have been detected in text-books in Japan, the Russian Federation, Greece and elsewhere. For instance, a growing and preferred ‘Europeanization ‘of history textbooks in the EU is an example of western-dominated Grand Narrative of pluralist democracy, multicul-turalism and human rights, according to the canon of a particularly European dimension. Both the ‘Europeanization’ of history textbooks and politically-moti-vated reforms in history curricula and textbooks, as depicted in the three chapters that open this volume, demonstrate a new dimension of political socialisation, and the nation-building process currently taking place in the global culture.

Recent and continuing public and political debates in the USA, China, Japan and elsewhere, dealing with understandings of a nation-building and national identity, point out to parallels between the political significance of school history and the history debates globally (Han 2007; Janmaat 2007; Macintyre and Clark 2003; Nicholls 2006; Pingel 2006; Smith 1991; Taylor 2006; Taylor and Young 2003; Zajda 2007b). Due to these ongoing debates concerning the role of history teaching in schools, its content and delivery, history education has become a high profile topic of national and global significance. The above analysis demonstrates that the issue of national identity and balanced representations of the past continue to domi-nate the debate surrounding the content of history textbooks. On the one hand, in many countries undergoing an all too-familiar process of nation-building, the three most significant issues defining an ideological re-positioning of the politically cor-rect historical narratives are – preferred images of the past (reminiscent of Anderson’s ‘imagined community’), patriotism and national identity. On the other, competing and contested discourses in historiography, together with a diversity in interpretations of events, and a trend towards a more analytical and critical approach to the critique of both the process and content of history in school textbooks, offer new pedagogical challenges to both students and teachers alike, who have been

xixGlobalisation, Ideology and Education Policy Reforms

exposed to traditional, linear, descriptive and authoritarian views of the politically correct historical narrative. These competing discourses and diverse ideologies will continue to define and shape the nature and significance of historical knowledge, dominant ideologies and the direction of values education in history textbooks.

Current research on globalisation, social stratification and education reforms demonstrates the need to understand and analyse both the intended and the unin-tended effects of globalisation on economic competitiveness, educational systems, the state and relevant policy changes – as they affect individuals, educational insti-tutions and policy-makers. Recent ducation policy research also reflects a rapidly changing world where citizens and consumers are experiencing a growing sense of uncertainty, loss of values and loss of flexibility. Research indicates that cultural capital, as a significant dimension of educational inequality, continues to shape and influence students’ academic achievement and destinies globally. Cultural capital, as coined by P. Bourdieu, defines dominant conceptions of what constitutes knowl-edge, knowing and social value. Educational systems, by upholding a single ‘gold standard’ defining knowledge, excellence and quality in education, reinforce the differentiated achievement status of privileged social strata, but also reward those who are conversant with implicit rules of dominant ideology.

Conclusion

The above analysis of education reforms in the global culture shows a complex nexus between globalisation, ideology and education reforms – where, on the one hand, democratisation and progressive pedagogy is equated with equality, inclu-sion, equity, tolerance and human rights, while on the other hand globalisation is perceived (by some critics at least) to be a totalising force that is widening the SES gap between the rich and the poor, and bringing power, domination and control by corporate bodies and powerful organisations. Hence, we need to continue to explore critically the new challenges confronting the global village in the provision of authentic democracy, social justice and cross-cultural values that genuinely pro-mote a transformative pedagogy. We need to focus on the crucial issues at the centre of current and on-going education reforms, if genuine culture of learning, and trans-formation, characterised by wisdom, compassion and intercultural understanding, is to become a reality, rather than rhetoric.

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