Critically Theorizing the Global

Abstract

Globalization has unleashed profound changes in education. These include positivistic international school comparisons, a singular focus on schools as drivers of economic development, and the adoption of neoliberal market principles in school. These changes, however, generally go unexamined within the field and literature of global education. Global education too often focuses on aspects of the far-away life of others while not attending to how global forces manifest in the most local of institutions, the school. This article examines the interrelationships of these phenomena in a period of hyper-globalization and considers the potential for rethinking global education as a counter-practice.

Keywords:

• globalization
• global education
• international school comparisons
• positivism