Does context matter? Importing US educational programs to schools overseas

Abstract

Countries reforming their education systems frequently look outside of their borders for best practice and seek to import policies, practices and programs that appear to incorporate it. In so doing they appear to contribute to the increasing globalization of education. Scholars of comparative education examining this process have focused on the borrowing and lending of educational policy at the decision‐making levels of national education systems. This study examines the importation of programs at the school level. It presents two case studies of the transference of US‐developed programs by independent schools abroad. The first case is that of a teacher leader preparation program developed by a US university for local urban and rural school districts and transferred to an international school system in Colombia. The second case focuses on the adoption and implementation of a US‐designed character education program by an international school in Kuwait with a predominantly Muslim student population. Discussion focuses on the forces driving program selection by the schools, including the effects of school accreditation by international agencies who are using increasingly standardized criteria. Also considered is the effect of culture on the interpretation of the underlying concepts and constructs that guided initial program development and design. Such effects may lead to program modifications, intentional or otherwise, producing varying program outcomes in different cultural contexts.

Keywords:

• globalization
• educational borrowing
• program selection
• international schools
• school accreditation