Globalization of Education: An Introduction (review)

From Joel Spring, the author of numerous books on the globalization of education, comes this new book entitled Globalization of Education: An Introduction. Since I am someone who embodies a transnational life, this book strikes me as a timely contribution to the literature on globalization of education.

The book's objective is to provide a synthesis of current research and theories about the globalization of education by examining the answers to the following questions: What constitutes the global education superstructure? Who are the institutional players and stakeholders in this global superstructure? How do these different institutional players shape the educational agenda globally?

Spring's synthesis of research and theories on globalization of education are brought together in eight chapters that weave a detailed description of the different institutional players and their roles in shaping the global educational agenda. In the first chapter, Spring provides the introductory framework by distinguishing the field of globalization of education from comparative education and introducing different theoretical perspectives and models in globalization and education.

In the following five chapters, Spring introduces various institutional players and describes how they have shaped the educational agenda in different global contexts, namely the World Bank, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), UNESCO, multinational learning corporations, international nongovernmental organizations (INGOS), and religious/indigenous educational institutions.

I found these chapters fascinating as Spring maps out the points of convergence and divergence among these institutional players' goals, values, and ideologies related to educational initiatives in responding to societal and human needs. For instance, in comparing Chapters 2 and 3, I found it interesting that the educational policies of the World Bank and OECD, while similar in knowledge economy, focus on math and science, etc., differ with regards to social bonds because of the different recipients of their policies. Spring sums it well, "The World Bank is interested in instilling in developing nations a competitive spirit of individualism associated with market economies, while advanced OECD countries are concerned with conflicts between immigrant and resident populations, and crime" (p. 65).

Chapter 4 is of most interest to a higher education audience because Spring deals with multinational learning corporations, global testing services, and their interconnections with higher education. He discusses the growing trend in the commodification of educational services—exacerbated by global trade policies—by global corporations, universities, and governments.

Spring provides numerous examples of booming knowledge companies that are connected with global testing services, publishing industries, English language learning and testing services, and higher education service providers. Spring exposes how, in order to create global universities, universities are increasingly collaborating to share faculty, enhance student learning, engage in cooperative research, internationalize and share curricula, use e-learning, and hold virtual seminars. Spring concludes this chapter by raising cautionary questions about whom these commodified education services largely serve, namely English-speaking nations.

While previous chapters discussed external global actors and their role in shaping local educational agendas, Chapters 5 and 6 discuss alternative models of education that go beyond the human capital model and are locally situated.

In Chapter 5, Spring discusses the culturalist model as well as progressive models of education. Culturalists, who are mainly anthropologists, resist the idea that the global education superstructure is bringing about uniformity in the global education culture and argue that local contexts have the power to resist the global universal forms of education models, by adopting what they need and/or changing global flow of ideas about education within their local contexts. To this end, I found it notable that, in 2008, Japan began learning from and adopting educational models in India due to Japan's declining international test scores.

In Chapter 6, Spring focuses on the role of religious/indigenous models of education in global education, a topic that is rarely discussed by globalization of education books. These latter models of education resist their dominant counterparts as they are seen as being grounded in secular materialism and differ in their interpretation of what counts as knowledge.

In contrast, Chapter 7 moves beyond...