Jeremy Rappleye

Between Faith and Science:World Culture Theory and Comparative Education

World culture theory seeks to explain an apparent convergence of education through a neoinstitutionalist lens, seeing global rationalization in education as driven by the logic of science and the myth of progress. While critics have challenged these assumptions by focusing on local manifestations of world-level tendencies, such critique is comfortably accommodated within world culture theory. We approach the debate from a fresh perspective by examining its ideological foundations. We also highlight its shift from notions of myth and enactment toward advocacy for particular models, and we show that world culture theory can become normative, while obscuring our view of policy convergence. Finally, we critique the methods and evidence in world culture research. We argue that such research, while failing to support its own claims, actually produces world culture, as its assumptions and parameters create the very image of consensus and homogeneity that world culture theorists expect scholars to accept—in faith—as empirically grounded.

Towards ‘thick description’ of educational transfer: understanding a Japanese institution's ‘import’ of European language policy

Globalisation and convergence in educational policy worldwide has reinvigorated, while rendering more complex, the classic theme of educational transfer. Framed by this wider pursuit of new understandings of a changing transfer/context puzzle, this paper explores how an ethnographic ‘thick description’ might complement and extend recent research. Specifically, it relates findings from extended ethnographic work on an attempt by a prominent Japanese university to ‘import’ the Council of Europes Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). This rare case of explicit ‘borrowing’ from a supranational space directly to the domestic institutional level, when approached in such a way, suggests new insights to help the field refine understandings of the processes, ‘shape-shifting’, and ‘success’ of international policy migration.

Catalysing educational development or institutionalising external influence? Donors, civil society and educational policy formation in Nepal

Recent pronouncements on the benefits of enlisting civil society in educational development have so far not attracted adequate scholarly analyses. This paper therefore seeks to present a critical perspective on this new trend by providing a fine-grained look at three concrete cases of NGO involvement in educational policy-making in Nepal. It also works to advance wider theoretical debates about the mechanisms of policy convergence and post-structural theories of de-politicisation and its possible effects, as well as commenting on the origins of the Maoist insurgency and providing a basic conceptual schema for much-needed research in other national contexts.

Education reform in Nepal: from modernity to conflict

In Nepal, the sudden arrival of ‘modernity’ through ‘development’ can be traced to a very specific historical moment. Free of the traumas, prejudices and preferences of colonialism, the Country opened its borders, at first tentatively, to a small band of international ‘experts’ who offered in an instant the fruits of a century of technical progress. What was delivered with optimism and determination was received with wonder and bewilderment. Consider the differences, for example, in the following two excerpts recalling events in Nepal in the 1950s bridged by a reference to air travel, an advance that allowed ‘development’ of all sorts to be extended for the first time to areas beyond Kathmandu. The first is from Hugh Wood of the University of Oregon and USAID who became Special Education Advisor to His Majesty’s Government, Nepal from 1953 to 1959; in effect the primary architect of Nepal’s ‘modern’ education system. Here, he recalls halcyon days introducing Mobile Normal Schools (MNS) to the Country:

A new global policy regime founded on invalid statistics? Hanushek, Woessmann, PISA, and economic growth

ABSTRACT Several recent, highly influential comparative studies have made strong statistical claims that improvements on global learning assessments such as PISA will lead to higher GDP growth rates. These claims have provided the primary source of legitimation for policy reforms championed by leading international organisations, most notably the World Bank and OECD. To date there have been several critiques but these have been too limited to challenge the validity of the claims. The consequence is continued utilisation and citation of these strong claims, resulting in a growing aura of scientific truth and concrete policy reforms. In this piece we report findings from two original studies that invalidate these statistical claims. Our intent is to contribute to a more rigorous global discussion on education policy, as well as call attention to the fact that the new global policy regime is founded on flawed statistics.

Living on borrowed time: rethinking temporality, self, nihilism, and schooling

ABSTRACT Seeking to contribute to recent attempts to rethink the deepest foundations of the field, this paper offers news ways of contemplating time, specifically its relations to self, nihilism, and schooling. We briefly review how some leading Western thinkers have contemplated time before detailing Japanese scholars who have offered divergent, original, and arguably more sophisticated, theoretical accounts. We then illustrate these ideas by sketching how Japan ‘borrowed time’ following the abrupt political rupture of 1868, showing how Linear Time came to be disseminated and diffused, largely through modern schooling. Last, we spotlight the nihilism that has arisen as consequence. Our primary aim is not empirical elaboration, however, but instead disclosure of a complex of relations that the field of comparative education has yet to discuss. We offer both the experience-cum-thought of Japan and this complex itself as reconstructive resources for the field which remains shallow in its parochial presumptions and unwillingness to engage ontologically.

A PISA Paradox? An Alternative Theory of Learning as a Possible Solution for Variations in PISA Scores

Variations in mean PISA scores have not been adequately explained to date, suggesting the limits of our current understanding of the relationship between educational practices and students’ performance. In contrast to previous research that applies existing theories to explain observed variations, this study attempts to extend our existing theoretical horizon using PISA-derived data. We first introduce findings of PISA-Science data that run counter to the fundamental assumptions of both student-centered and teacher-centered learning theories; namely, countries having lower levels of students’ initiative to design and carry out their own projects had higher scores. We then propose an alternative theory of learning (Type II learning) to explain this counterexample by rethinking the learning process at its philosophical and ontological depths. We conclude by noting a surprising paradox: the Type II learning made visible through PISA data appears to undermine the core premise of the OECD’s whole approach to PISA itself.

Revisiting the metaphor of the island: challenging ‘world culture’ from an island misunderstood

This article revisits the newly ‘discovered’ island that world culture theorists have repeatedly utilised to explain their theoretical stance, conceptual preferences and methodological approach. Yet, it seeks to (re)connect world culture with the real world by replacing their imagined atoll with a real one – the island-nation of Japan. In descending to understand social and educational change on the ‘island’ that may appear – from afar – to be consensually convergent on purported world models, this article challenges the ways that world culture theory suggests we read both individual nations and the wider World.

Did the shift to computer-based testing in PISA 2015 affect reading scores? A View from East Asia

Results of PISA 2015 released December 2016 revealed a major oddity: reading scores in several of the ‘leading’ East Asian countries had apparently plummeted (Hong Kong —18 points, South Korea —19 points, Japan —22 points, Taiwan —26 points). Ministry officials across the region quickly explained the drop as a result of the mandatory shift from paper-and-pencil tests in PISA 2012 to computer-based tests (CBT) in 2015. For example, Japan’s Ministry immediately held a press conference, arguing that: ‘The unfamiliarity with questions and formats associated with the shift to computer-based testing was the most probable reason for the decline from PISA 2012’ (quoted in Mainichi News 2016). Major media outlets around East Asia largely echoed these sentiments. This ‘East Asia’ reaction was in stark contrast to discussions in Anglo-American government media, and scholarly circles where the issue of the CBT barely featured at all – a crucial point we unpack below. One major reason that the effects of the PISA 2015 shift would be immediately apparent in East Asia is that most of these countries do not rely on computers in schools. PISA 2009 questionnaire data showed that Japan, for example, virtually never utilizes computer-based technologies in reading classes. Data from PISA 2012 revealed that Japan, Taiwan, Korea and – interestingly – Finland have some of the lowest ratios of computers to students anywhere in the entire world. Moreover, an Index of ICT Use at School developed by the OECD that measured the percentage of students engaged in various ICT-related activities at least one time per week ranked Korea, Japan and China (Shanghai) as the lowest three countries in the world, with Hong Kong and Taiwan not far ahead (OECD 2015a, 53). Andreas Schleicher, the OECD Education and Skills chief, justified the PISA 2015 shift to CBT by arguing it was a necessary reflection of changes in cognition, skills and learning following in the wake of recent technological advances. His comments largely echoed those he made earlier at the 2015 launch of a major OECD report entitled Students, Computers, and Learning: Making the Connection (OECD 2015a):

Beyond the world culture debate in comparative education: critiques, alternatives and a noisy conversation

Different perspectives on how to ‘read’ the World have produced a dynamic debate about education and globalisation in the field of comparative education. Over the last decade or more, the central a...