Migrating metaphors: the globalization of flexibility in policy

Abstract

Trends towards greater flexibility are to be found in the reform of post-school education and training around the globe. They are part of a wider profile of changes to workplaces and labour relations within which greater flexibility is pursued. This paper charts our journey, through which we have sought to locate flexibility as a globalizing and globalized policy metaphor. Drawing on recent policy texts, we illustrate the multiple meanings of flexibility. The latter is explored within the growing debates about the globalization of education policies and the metaphors which have been deployed to frame these practices. Finally, we outline the role that metaphors have in policy texts and the readings to which they are subject. We argue for metaphorical readings of the texts of flexibility and globalization as a way of countering attempts to inscribe certain meanings and in order to sustain policy openings.