Fazal Rizvi

Educational Policy and the Politics of Change

Governments around the world are trying to come to terms with new technologies, new social movements and a changing global economy. As a result, educational policy finds itself at the centre of a major political struggle between those who see it only for its instrumental outcomes and those who see its potential for human emancipation. This book is a successor to the best-selling Understanding Schooling (1988). It provides a readable account of how educational policies are developed by the state in response to broader social, cultural, economic and political changes which are taking place. It examines the way in which schools live and work with these changes, and the policies which result from them. The book examines policy making at each level, from perspectives both inside and outside the state bureaucracy. It has a particular focus on social justice. Both undergraduate and postgraduate students will find that this book enables them to understand the reasoning behind the changes they are expected to implement. It will help to prepare them to confront an uncertain educational world, whilst still retaining their enthusiasm for education.

Towards cosmopolitan learning

In recent years, the idea of cosmopolitanism has variously been explored as a political philosophy, a moral theory and a cultural disposition. In each of these cases, this new interest in cosmopolitanism is based upon a recognition that our world is increasingly interconnected and interdependent globally, and that most of our problems are global in nature requiring global solutions. In this paper, I argue that this recognition demands new resources of learning about how our lives are becoming re-shaped by global processes and connections, and how we might live with and steer the economic, political and cultural shifts that contemporary forms of global connectivity represent. In the context of these global shifts, learning itself needs to become cosmopolitan. This requires the development of a new approach around the old idea of cosmopolitanism, interpreting it not so much as a universal moral principle, nor as a prescription recommending a particular form of political configuration – nor indeed as a transnational life-style – but a mode of learning about, and ethically engaging with, new social formations.

Working with/against globalization in education

This article argues against the juggernaut view of globalization, suggesting that much depends on how we engage with the forces of globalization to mitigate their worst consequences and use them to advantage. The task of democratic nation building, within which education plays an important role, is seen as pivotal to the process of engagement. In exploring how it might be possible to work with and against the pressures of globalization in education, the article looks in particular at aspects of educational governance and purposes.

Debating globalization and education after September 11

This article examines some of the ways in which debates about globalization and education have changed since the tragic events of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath. From a postcolonial perspective, I argue that while some of the claims about the world ‘changing for ever’ are clearly simplistic and grossly exaggerated, there are at least three ways in which new elements have been introduced to the debates about globalization. First, there has emerged a new narrative of security, which has major implications for thinking about issues of mobility across national‐boundaries, both of people and of capital. Second, the view that the authority of the nation states is in decline has been shown to be overstated since nation states are now required to perform a range of new administrative, cultural and coercive functions. And finally, the antagonistic relationship between the West and Islam has become a major impediment to the realization of cosmopolitan objectives. Each of these developments has implications ...This article examines some of the ways in which debates about globalization and education have changed since the tragic events of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath. From a postcolonial perspective, I argue that while some of the claims about the world ‘changing for ever’ are clearly simplistic and grossly exaggerated, there are at least three ways in which new elements have been introduced to the debates about globalization. First, there has emerged a new narrative of security, which has major implications for thinking about issues of mobility across national‐boundaries, both of people and of capital. Second, the view that the authority of the nation states is in decline has been shown to be overstated since nation states are now required to perform a range of new administrative, cultural and coercive functions. And finally, the antagonistic relationship between the West and Islam has become a major impediment to the realization of cosmopolitan objectives. Each of these developments has implications for thinking about education, and for imagining educations role in the promotion of global democracy and justice.

Postcolonialism and education: negotiating a contested terrain

This paper sets the context for those that follow in this special issue of Pedagogy, Culture & Society. In so doing, it provides a brief overview of postcolonialism as theory, politics and practice. It considers postcolonialism’s ambivalent reception amongst differing constituencies, a sign both of desire and danger, as Stuart Hall has put it. Criticisms of postcolonialism have come from both the left and the right and from indigenous scholars as well. In traversing the nature of postcolonialism, the paper considers the work, albeit briefly, of a number of major ‘foundational’ thinkers, namely Fanon, Said, Bhabha and Spivak. The need for a more liberatory rather than conciliatory postcolonialism is argued for, as is the need to integrate postcolonialism with an understanding of contemporary globalization. Postcolonial insights can help overcome the ahistoricity of much globalization theorizing and also its reification. Against this backdrop, the paper then provides a summative account of all of the contributions in this special issue, all of which demonstrate how new cultural practices and policy imperatives in education are linked to colonial and postcolonial formations.

Epistemic virtues and cosmopolitan learning

For them the talk of global interconnectivity is both remote and highly abstract. The social processes that many globalization theorists describe have little sense to them. But should this really be the case? Just because they are not globally networked, can we assume that global processes do not also affect them? Is it possible for the life style and options of those who do not travel to remain unaffected by those who do? Is it possible for the social constitution of their communities to remain unaltered? Can we even imagine places beyond the reach of the global media, and the new institutions of global exchange? Let me explain what I mean here with an example.

Postcolonialism and Globalization in Education

In this short article, the author explores the complex relationship between globalization and postcolonialism. He argues that the contemporary processes of globalization are often described in ahistorical terms, whereas much of recent literature on postcolonialism is reduced largely to apolitical analyses of literary texts, disconnected from issues of current and shifting configurations of power. The author argues for the need to understand global processes in education historically and suggests that intellectual postcolonial resources of postcolonialism can be most helpful, but only if postcolonialism is viewed as a political intervention.

Imagination and the globalisation of educational policy research

A number of theorists, including Charles Taylor, Arjun Appadurai and Dilip Gaonkar all associated with the University of Chicago based journal, Public Culture, have developed the idea of social imaginary. Their notion of imagination departs significantly from traditional philosophical and sociological analyses that view imagination as an individual capacity, located within the aesthetic realm. Instead, Public Culture theorists interpret imagination as a collective social fact that, in the era of globalisation, has become a critical part of everyday life, a form of labour in the formation of subjectivities. This paper will explore the major implications of this contention for thinking about educational policy research.

Social equity and the assemblage of values in Australian higher education

The paper argues that the policy concept of social equity cannot be adequately understood in a generalised abstract manner, but is better viewed as an assemblage that brings together a number of contrasting, and sometimes competing, values. Our use of assemblage is somewhat eclectic and is designed to underscore the performative character of policy in attempts to bring together a range of considerations that might not normally be aligned. We use this idea of assemblage in order to examine the concept of social equity embedded in a recent report on higher education for the Australian government – the Bradley Report. We show how the Report’s notion of social equity is assembled across a number of related concepts such as excellence, autonomy and efficiency, as well as a set of governmental techniques associated with a neo‐liberal approach to politics, including a focus on the market and policy as numbers.

Rethinking “Brain Drain” in the Era of Globalisation

This paper discusses a range of issues concerning the idea of “brain drain” within the context of recent thinking on transnational mobility. It argues that the traditional analyses of brain drain are not sufficient, and that we can usefully approach the topic from a postcolonial perspective concerned with issues of identity, national affiliations, and deterritorialisation of cultures. Based on interviews conducted with international students from India and China in Australian and American universities, this paper analyses the ways in which student subjectivities and career aspirations relate to the dilemmas of globalisation: the opportunities provided by the new knowledge economy and global labour markets on the one hand, and the perceptions of national and community loyalties on the other.