This book brings together policymaker and practitioner knowledge, experiences, and perspectives on the interaction between the assessment and inclusion agenda to the fore. The book's analysis is built on comparative qualitative data from five different countries on four continents: Argentina, China, Denmark, England, and Israel. These countries have been chosen for their distinctive, and even contrasting, education policies, sociocultural and economic circumstances, and variations in performance across supranational and national standardised student assessments. In addressing these specific contexts, the book provides insights into the pitfalls and synergies which emerge as key stakeholders attempt to mediate these two educational concerns in both policy and practice.

This edited volume focuses on the historical role of the OECD (The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) in shaping global education policy. In this book, contributors shed light on the present-day perspective of Comparative Education as a logical addition to current scholarship on the history of international organizations in the field of education. Doing so, the book provides a deeper understanding of contemporary developments in education that will enable us to reflect critically on the trajectories and future developments of education worldwide.

This book critically analyses the current education political strategy of cultivating excellence in education. It shows how the new policy for selecting talented students in Denmark deconstructs the compromise from which the comprehensive school was built and reduces equal opportunities. It discusses how the current practice of measurement, selection and guidance of talented students brings about significant changes in education policies, in pedagogic practices, a restructuring of school organisations, and changed requirements of teachers. It explains how the internal differentiation of education systems based on self-selection and free choice, but also on new assessment techniques, tends to widen the inequality gap between students. The analysis clearly shows the relationship between the circulation of new ideas and normative frameworks at international level, and their transfer into national policies, while situating these developments in a socio-historical perspective. The book illustrates by means of a concrete case study with important empirical data that demonstrate the reality and influence of this new policy on the day-to-day work of teachers.

Testing and Inclusive Schooling provides a comparative perspective on seemingly incompatible global agendas and efforts to include all children in the general school system, thus reducing exclusion. With an examination of the international testing culture and the politics of inclusion currently permeating national school reforms, this book raises a critical and constructive discussion of these movements, which appear to support one another, yet simultaneously offer profound contradictions. With contributions from around the world, the book analyses the dilemma arising between reforms that urge schools to move towards a constantly higher academic level, and those who practice a politics of inclusion leading to a greater degree of student diversity. The book considers the types of problems that arise when reforms implemented at the international level are transformed into policies and practices, firmly placing global educational efforts into perspective by highlighting a range of different cases at both national and local levels. Testing and Inclusive Schooling sheds light on new possibilities for educational improvements in global and local contexts and is essential reading for academics, researchers and postgraduate students interested in international and comparative education, assessment technologies and practices, inclusion, educational psychology and educational policy.

Testing and Inclusive Schooling provides a comparative perspective on seemingly incompatible global agendas and efforts to include all children in the general school system, thus reducing exclusion. With an examination of the international testing culture and the politics of inclusion currently permeating national school reforms, this book raises a critical and constructive discussion of these movements, which appear to support one another, yet simultaneously offer profound contradictions. With contributions from around the world, the book analyses the dilemma arising between reforms that urge schools to move towards a constantly higher academic level, and those who practice a politics of inclusion leading to a greater degree of student diversity. The book considers the types of problems that arise when reforms implemented at the international level are transformed into policies and practices, firmly placing global educational efforts into perspective by highlighting a range of different cases at both national and local levels. Testing and Inclusive Schooling sheds light on new possibilities for educational improvements in global and local contexts and is essential reading for academics, researchers and postgraduate students interested in international and comparative education, assessment technologies and practices, inclusion, educational psychology and educational policy.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was established in 1945 with twin aims: to rebuild various institutions of the world destroyed by war, and to promote international understanding and peaceful cooperation among nations. Based on empirical and historical research and with a particular focus on history teaching, international understanding and peace, UNESCO Without Borders offers a new research trajectory for understanding the roles played by UNESCO and other international organizations, as well as the effects of globalization on education. With fifteen chapters by authors from cross-disciplinary and diverse geographical areas, this book assesses the global implications and results of UNESCO's educational policies and practices. It explores how UNESCO-approved guidelines of textbook revisions and peace initiatives were implemented in member-states, illustrating the existence of both national confrontations with the new worldview promoted by UNESCO, as well as the constraints of international cooperation. This book provides an insightful analysis of UNESCO's past challenges and also indicates promising future research directions in support of international understanding for peace and cooperation. As such, it will be of key interest to researchers, postgraduate students, academics in the fields of international and comparative education, education politics and policies, and to those interested in the historical study of international organizations and their global impact. The book will also appeal to practitioners, especially those who conduct research on or work in post-conflict societies.

Post-crisis perspectives refer to scenarios after a crisis, possible options of dealing with them, and the importance for defining these scenarios. This anthology seeks to identify paths and perspectives that go beyond the contemporary economic crisis. In searching for a post-crisis perspective it is necessary to deduce how the world/society/economics/institutions could/should be set up/organized on the other side of the economic crisis. What are the viable lines of continuation and stability? Which functions are beneficial and which are not? How should we think about money, debt, institutions, politics, and the Common? The contributions which make up this anthology offer valuable concepts and frameworks for thinking about all these questions and post-crisis society.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was established in 1945 with twin aims: to rebuild various institutions of the world destroyed by war, and to promote international understanding and peaceful cooperation among nations. Based on empirical and historical research and with a particular focus on history teaching, international understanding and peace, UNESCO Without Borders offers a new research trajectory for understanding the roles played by UNESCO and other international organizations, as well as the effects of globalization on education. With fifteen chapters by authors from cross-disciplinary and diverse geographical areas, this book assesses the global implications and results of UNESCO's educational policies and practices. It explores how UNESCO-approved guidelines of textbook revisions and peace initiatives were implemented in member-states, illustrating the existence of both national confrontations with the new worldview promoted by UNESCO, as well as the constraints of international cooperation. This book provides an insightful analysis of UNESCO's past challenges and also indicates promising future research directions in support of international understanding for peace and cooperation. As such, it will be of key interest to researchers, postgraduate students, academics in the fields of international and comparative education, education politics and policies, and to those interested in the historical study of international organizations and their global impact. The book will also appeal to practitioners, especially those who conduct research on or work in post-conflict societies.

This book critically analyses the current education political strategy of cultivating excellence in education. It shows how the new policy for selecting talented students in Denmark deconstructs the compromise from which the comprehensive school was built and reduces equal opportunities. It discusses how the current practice of measurement, selection and guidance of talented students brings about significant changes in education policies, in pedagogic practices, a restructuring of school organisations, and changed requirements of teachers. It explains how the internal differentiation of education systems based on self-selection and free choice, but also on new assessment techniques, tends to widen the inequality gap between students. The analysis clearly shows the relationship between the circulation of new ideas and normative frameworks at international level, and their transfer into national policies, while situating these developments in a socio-historical perspective. The book illustrates by means of a concrete case study with important empirical data that demonstrate the reality and influence of this new policy on the day-to-day work of teachers.

This edited volume focuses on the historical role of the OECD (The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) in shaping global education policy. In this book, contributors shed light on the present-day perspective of Comparative Education as a logical addition to current scholarship on the history of international organizations in the field of education. Doing so, the book provides a deeper understanding of contemporary developments in education that will enable us to reflect critically on the trajectories and future developments of education worldwide.

Addressing Greenlanders, the German minority, problem children, as well as immigrants and refugees. Through historical and sociological studies of welfare work understood as statecrafting practices, which are strengthened by the presence of the other within the Danish welfare nation-state, the authors present critical analyses of the humanitarian imperialism and the civilizing missions addressing the other. The book thus challenges the idealization of the Nordic welfare state model and characterizes Danish welfare universalism as being intertwined with national integrationism and understandings of cultural superiority. At its core, the book helps us to understand the inner workings of a much-celebrated welfare nation-state, what its implications are in an era of globalization and migration, and how we could think about it differently.