Constructed world culture instruments for European Higher Education Area global diffusion

ABSTRACT

Global educational reforms and policy trends suggest a growing convergence in educational systems worldwide, often attributed to the culturally embedded nature of nation-states and world-society models. However, in this article, we argue that these explanations are insufficient to fully account for the global diffusion of certain policies, as they often overlook the influential role of powerful actors in global policy dissemination. We analyse the European Bologna Process (BP) as a global case, highlighting instruments devised by the EHEA actors to actively promote BP reforms and philosophies worldwide. Drawing on World Culture Theory and analysing 25 BP documents, we argue that education policy diffusion occurs because of a well-coordinated structure and established instruments by policy actors for global policy dissemination.

KEYWORDS:

• Global education policy
• world culture theory
• Bologna Process
• policy diffusion
• policy instruments

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).