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Globalisation — the deepening interconnectedness of societies, economies, and cultures across the world — has reshaped education systems everywhere, and it is the topic on the AQA specification that most directly invites you to think beyond the school gate and the nation state. The argument at its heart is that education is no longer made purely within national borders: international league tables, the policies of global organisations, the operations of multinational companies, and the pressure to produce a workforce that can compete globally all press in on what governments do. This lesson examines how globalisation shapes education policy through international comparisons (PISA), policy borrowing, human capital theory, neoliberalism, the global education industry, and the impact on developing countries — and treats the disagreement between those who see globalisation as raising standards and those who see it as narrowing and commodifying education as the engine of evaluation. The skill examiners reward is the ability to connect this material synoptically to theory, stratification, and methods rather than describing global trends in isolation.
Key Definition: Globalisation is the growing interconnectedness of societies through the movement of goods, capital, people, information, and ideas across national boundaries. In education it manifests through international testing regimes, policy borrowing, the involvement of multinational corporations, and the pressure to produce internationally competitive workers.
Spec Mapping: This lesson maps to AQA A-Level Sociology (7192), Paper 1, Section A: Education — specifically the requirement to understand and evaluate the impact of globalisation on educational policy, and the connected themes of marketisation, privatisation, and the relationship between education and the economy. It extends the policy material of Lesson 8 to the international level and is assessed through 10-mark "applying material from the Item, analyse two…" questions and 30-mark "applying material from the Item and your knowledge, evaluate…" essays.
Synoptic Links: Globalisation is the unit's most synoptic topic. Neoliberalism connects to beliefs in society (ideology as a way of shaping consent — Althusser's ISA, Lesson 1) and to the New Right; the "competition state" and human-capital theory connect to stratification (the global reproduction of class advantage through credential inflation) and to the relationship between education and work. The validity of PISA links directly to research methods and Methods in Context — issues of operationalisation, reliability, representativeness, and comparability across cultures. The impact on developing countries connects to global development debates about the World Bank, the IMF, and the legacy of colonialism.
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), conducted by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), has become one of the most influential forces in global education policy. Every three years since 2000, PISA tests 15-year-olds in reading, mathematics, and science across a large number of countries, and the results are published as international league tables that rank countries by the measured performance of their pupils.
PISA has been hugely influential in shaping national policy. When the UK's PISA standing declined in the 2000s, this was used to justify major reforms — including the introduction of the EBacc, increased testing, and the expansion of academies and free schools. Countries that perform strongly in PISA — such as Finland, Singapore, South Korea, Shanghai (China), and Estonia — are routinely held up as models to emulate. The mechanism by which a test becomes a driver of policy can be set out as a loop, which a strong essay can use to organise the critique:
flowchart TD
A[OECD publishes PISA league table] --> B[National media report the country's rank]
B --> C[Political pressure: 'we are falling behind']
C --> D[Government borrows policies from higher-ranked systems]
D --> E[More testing, accountability, marketisation]
E --> F[Schools focus on the measured PISA domains]
F --> A
However, the influence of PISA has been widely criticised:
A direct consequence of PISA and other international comparisons is policy borrowing — adopting educational policies from other countries:
| Borrowed policy | Source system | English example |
|---|---|---|
| Free schools | Sweden; US charter schools | Coalition free-school programme (Lesson 8) |
| Systematic synthetic phonics | USA, Australia | Statutory phonics screening check |
| Mathematics "mastery" | Singapore, Shanghai | Maths Hubs and mastery textbooks |
Phillips and Ochs (2003) warn that policy borrowing is often simplistic: a policy that works in one cultural, economic, and social context may not transfer successfully to another. The success of Finnish education, for example, is bound up with its specific social conditions — low inequality, high social trust, and a highly respected, well-qualified teaching profession — which cannot be reproduced simply by copying a policy lever. This is a powerful evaluation point: governments chase the policies of admired systems while ignoring the social conditions that produced the results.
Key Definition: Human capital theory holds that investment in education and training raises the productive capacity of individuals and of the economy as a whole, so education is valued primarily for its contribution to economic growth and international competitiveness.
Human capital theory, associated with economists such as Schultz (1961) and Becker (1964), underpins much of the global education-policy agenda. From this perspective the purpose of education is to produce skilled, productive workers who can drive economic growth and help the nation compete. Governments that adopt it tend to prioritise:
Critique (AO3). Marxists argue that human capital theory reduces education to a servant of capitalism, ignoring its potential role in personal development, critical thinking, and social justice — an instrumental view that fits Althusser's account of education as an Ideological State Apparatus. Brown, Lauder, and Ashton (2011) argue that the global expansion of higher education has produced an "opportunity trap": more people hold degrees, but the number of high-quality jobs has not risen proportionally, leading to credential inflation (degrees are worth less) and an intensified competition that, far from levelling the field, advantages those with the most cultural and economic capital. The theory also assumes a direct link between education and economic success, when in reality that link is mediated by class, discrimination, and the structure of the labour market.
Key Definition: Neoliberalism is a political-economic ideology favouring free markets, privatisation, deregulation, reduced state intervention, and individual responsibility. In education it manifests through marketisation, competition between schools, parental choice, accountability through testing, and the growing involvement of the private sector.
The global spread of neoliberal education policy is one of the most significant consequences of globalisation for education. Ball (2012) argues that neoliberalism has become the dominant ideology shaping education worldwide, promoted by powerful international organisations such as the World Bank, the IMF, and the OECD.
| Feature | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Marketisation | Schools compete for pupils and funding | League tables, open enrolment, formula funding |
| Privatisation | Private-sector involvement in education | Business-sponsored academies, PFI, Pearson providing qualifications |
| Accountability | Schools held to account through testing and inspection | SATs, Ofsted, performance-related pay |
| Choice | Parents treated as consumers choosing between schools | Open enrolment, prospectuses, comparison websites |
| Performativity | Education measured through quantifiable outputs | Exam results, league-table position, Ofsted grades |
Ball (2003) argues that neoliberal performativity has fundamentally changed what it means to be a teacher. Teachers are increasingly judged not by the quality of their relationships with pupils or the depth of their teaching but by measurable outcomes — exam results, progress data, and Ofsted grades — creating a "terror of performativity" in which staff prioritise what can be measured over what is educationally valuable. This is a direct route by which a global ideology reshapes the local classroom, connecting this lesson to the in-school processes of Lesson 6.
It is important to evaluate the neoliberalism thesis rather than simply describe it. Supporters from the New Right argue that competition, choice, and accountability are genuinely effective at raising standards and exposing failing schools, and that the worldwide spread of these policies reflects their success, not merely the power of an ideology. Critics respond on two fronts. First, Marxists argue that neoliberalism is not a neutral set of "what works" reforms but an ideology that serves capital by reframing education as a private investment and a market commodity rather than a public good — a global extension of the legitimation function. Second, sociologists such as Ball and Gillborn argue that the evidence for the standards claim is weak once we look beyond the headline metrics: performativity narrows the curriculum to what is tested, intensifies the triage that disadvantages the hardest-to-teach pupils, and drives teacher stress and attrition. The fact that powerful, unelected international bodies — the World Bank, IMF, and OECD — actively promote these policies worldwide is itself, for critics, evidence that neoliberalism is a project of global economic governance rather than a disinterested pursuit of educational quality.
Ball (2007, 2012) has documented the growth of what he calls the "Global Education Industry (GEI)" — a worldwide network of private companies, consultancies, and organisations that sell educational products and services for profit. It includes:
Ball argues the GEI represents a fundamental shift in the relationship between education and the state: education is increasingly treated as a commodity to be bought and sold rather than a public good available to all regardless of ability to pay — the process of commodification introduced in Lesson 8.
The Private Finance Initiative (PFI), introduced by the Conservatives in 1992 and expanded under New Labour, let private companies build and maintain schools in exchange for annual lease payments over 25-30 years. New buildings could be erected without upfront public expenditure, but long-term costs were often far higher than direct government borrowing, and schools were locked into inflexible contracts; the collapse of Carillion (2018) exposed the risks of depending on private firms for public infrastructure. Ofsted, established in 1992, inspects and grades schools (Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement, Inadequate); a school graded Inadequate may be forced to convert to academy status under a Multi-Academy Trust. Critics argue Ofsted inspections breed anxiety and "teaching to the inspection": Perryman (2006) described schools preparing for inspection as existing in a state of "panoptic performativity", constantly self-monitoring in anticipation of being watched.
Globalisation has also reshaped education in developing countries, often through the conditions attached to international finance. The World Bank and IMF have promoted Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) requiring borrowing countries to cut public spending — including on education — as a loan condition, leading to:
Tooley (2009) has championed low-cost private schools, arguing they often provide a better education than underfunded state schools in poor countries. Critics counter that such schools frequently employ unqualified teachers, charge fees that exclude the very poorest, and represent a retreat from the principle of free, universal public education. This debate connects the topic to global development and to long-standing arguments about the legacy of colonialism and Western economic dominance.
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