Focusing on the historical development of the teaching profession, this book explores how the relationship between education and the formation of modern nation states has influenced both the status of the profession as a whole and the differential status accorded to different kinds of teachers within it. Addressing different national and international contexts with seven distinct case studies, the book provides a comparative analysis of the long-term trajectories that illuminate the nature of teaching as a public profession, and demonstrates the variety of forms that labour markets have taken in different contexts. Offering new and up-to-date international analysis at a critical time for the field of teacher research, when recruitment into the profession and retention are major challenges, the volume will be of interest to scholars, researchers and doctoral students engaged in teacher research and comparative and international education more broadly. Those involved with education policy and politics will also benefit from reading this volume.

Globalization has become one of the most recurrent concepts in social and political sciences. More often than not, however, the concept is handled without much of a properly articulated theory capable of explaining its historical origin and expansion. For education researchers attempting to elucidate how global changes and processes affect their field of study, this situation is problematic. The Oxford Handbook on Education and Globalization brings together in a unique way leading authors in social theory and in political science and reflects on how these two distinct disciplinary approaches deal with the relation between globalization and education. Part I develops a firmer and tighter dialogue between social theory, long concerned with theories of globalization, and education research. It presents, discusses, and compares three major attempts to theorize the process of globalization and its relation to education: the neo-institutionalist theorization of world culture, the materialist and domination perspectives, and Luhmann's theory of world society. Part II analyses the political and institutional factors that shape the adoption of global reforms at the national and local level of governance, emphasizing the role of different contexts in shaping policy outcomes. It engages with the existing debates of globalization mainly in the field of public policy and comparative politics and explores the social, political, and economic implications of globalization for national systems of education, their organizations, and institutions.