Abstract
This study provides cross-national empirical evidence that substantiates the dialectic relationship between global and local contexts with regard to educational gender equity both as a national principle and as a priority for state action. Cross-national data on educational gender equity policies across 160 countries were gathered from comprehensive datasets compiled by the International Bureau of Education of UNESCO. A series of descriptive and multivariate analyses of the data suggest that a nation-state’s adoption of a formal educational principle regarding gender equity issues is largely influenced by global epistemic models of education, whereas state actions for educational gender equity are contingent upon a range of concrete socioeconomic conditions. Educational gender equity policy appears to be an illustrative case that exemplifies the structural duality of educational policy through which nation-states successfully incorporate and display elements that conform to world models of education and yet preserve considerable autonomy of state action.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Externalization is a central concept in the sociology of knowledge. According to Berger and Luckmann (1967), externalization denotes the ongoing process of human activity, both physical and mental, which leads to the social construction of objective realities shared by (and internalized in) people in a society. Similarly, the term externalization(s) used by Schriewer denotes processes or products of human activity, but it emphasizes how different patterns in externalization are possible due to “socio-logic[s] inherent in distinct intra-societal reflection processes” (Schriewer and Martinez 2004, p. 33).
Prior literature makes the distinction between ideological and procedural aspects of policy (Kratochwil 1984; McNeely 1995). In our study, we build on this distinction, but we use the terms, national principle and state action, to emphasize that they are loosely coupled to reflect external environments at different levels of abstraction.
An illustrative example of the symbiotic association between education and the notion of national progress is shown in many countries’ policy commitment to international student achievement testing over the past few decades. Despite the uncertain causal links between student achievement and economic growth (Wolf 2004), educational policies in most countries tend to assume the strong effect of education on national development.
Since educational gender equity discourses have been typically framed in terms of the educational rights of girls, we did not include boy as a keyword for our coding. However, the addition of boy as a keyword would not alter results, because in most cases where educational rights of boys were mentioned in WDE, educational rights of girls were also mentioned.
Square-root transformation was conducted to reduce the high kurtosis of the variable. The mean of the variable after square-root transformation was 5.26 with the standard deviation of 4.88. The construction of this variable was based on data for 1995 from the Union of International Associations’ Yearbook of International Organizations and the United Nations’ Treaty Collection Web site (http://treaties.un.org).
Alternatively, we replaced global gender discourses in Model 2a and Model 3a with the number of memberships in international nongovernmental organizations per 100,000 people (i.e., a variable not multiplied by ratifications of relevant international treaties). This alternative analysis also showed the same result pattern, although the significance level of the variable slightly decreased to the .10 level in both models. .
One might expect a significant interaction effect between global gender discourses and foreign aid on the adoption of educational gender equity as a national principle or as a current priory for state action, because both variables have to do with international mechanisms influencing educational policy formation and/or implementation. We conducted additional analyses to examine this possibility, but we did not find such an interaction effect.
References
Alexander, R. (2000). Culture and pedagogy: International comparison in primary education. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Anderson-Levitt, K. M. (Ed.). (2003). Local meanings, global schooling: Anthropology and world culture theory. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Baker, D. P., & LeTendre, G. K. (2005). National differences, global similarities: World culture and the future of schooling. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Ball, S. J. (1998). Big policies/small world: An introduction to international perspectives in education policy. Comparative Education, 34(2), 119–130.
Benavot, A., Cha, Y.-K., Kamens, D. H., Meyer, J. W., & Wong, S.-Y. (1991). Knowledge for the masses: World models and national curricula, 1920–1986. American Sociological Review, 56(1), 85–100.
Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1967). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. New York: Anchor Books.
Berkovitch, N. (1999). The emergence and transformation of the international women’s movement. In J. Boli & G. M. Thomas (Eds.), Constructing world culture: International nongovernmental organizations since 1875 (pp. 100–126). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Boli, J. (2005). Contemporary developments in world culture. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 46(5), 383–404.
Boli, J., & Thomas, G. M. (1997). World culture in the world polity: A century of international non-governmental organization. American Sociological Review, 62(2), 171–190.
Bradley, K., & Ramirez, F. O. (1996). World polity and gender parity: Women’s share of higher education, 1965–1985. Research in Sociology of Education and Socialization, 11, 63–91.
Colclough, C. (2008). Global gender goals and the construction of equality: Conceptual dilemmas and policy practice. In S. Fennell & M. Arnot (Eds.), Gender education and equality in a global context (pp. 51–66). London: Routledge.
Drori, G. S., Meyer, J. W., & Hwang, H. (Eds.). (2006). Globalization and organization: World society and organizational change. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fiala, R. (2006). Educational ideology and the school curriculum. In A. Benavot & C. Braslavsky (Eds.), School knowledge in comparative and historical perspective (pp. 15–34). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Frank, D. J., & Meyer, J. W. (2002). The profusion of individual roles and identities in the postwar period. Sociological Theory, 20(1), 86–105.
Goodson, I. (2006). Socio-historical processes of curriculum change. In A. Benavot & C. Braslavsky (Eds.), School knowledge in comparative and historical perspective: Changing curricula in primary and secondary education (pp. 211–220). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Guclu, N., Gumus, S., & Gumus, E. (2010). The relationship between women’s education and socio-economic development: The case of Turkey. International Journal of Learning, 17(4), 559–570.
Hafner-Burton, E. M., Tsutsui, K., & Meyer, J. W. (2008). International human rights law and the politics of legitimation: Repressive states and human rights treaties. International Sociology, 23(1), 115–141.
Haller, M., & Hoellinger, F. (1994). Female employment and the change of gender roles: The conflictual relationship between participation and attitudes in international comparison. International Sociology, 9(1), 87–112.
Ham, S.-H., & Cha, Y.-K. (2009). Positioning education in the information society: The transnational diffusion of the information and communication technology curriculum. Comparative Education Review, 53(4), 535–557.
IBE-UNESCO. (2003). World data on education (5th ed.). Geneva: IBE-UNESCO.
IBE-UNESCO. (2007). World data on education (6th ed.). Geneva: IBE-UNESCO.
Kamens, D. H., & McNeely, C. L. (2010). Globalization and the growth of international educational testing and national assessment. Comparative Education Review, 54(1), 5–25.
Kratochwil, F. (1984). The force of prescriptions. International Organization, 34(4), 685–708.
Lewis, M. A., & Lockheed, M. E. (2006). Inexcusable absence: Why 60 million girls still aren’t in school and what to do about it. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development.
Maslak, M. A. (2003). Daughters of the Tharu: Gender, ethnicity, religion, and the education of Nepali girls. New York: Routledge Falmer.
McNeely, C. L. (1995). Constructing the nation-state: International organization and prescriptive action. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
McNeely, C. L., & Cha, Y.-K. (1994). Worldwide educational convergence through international organizations: Avenues for research. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 2(14), 1–12.
Meyer, J. W., Boli, J., Thomas, G. M., & Ramirez, F. O. (1997). World society and the nation-state. American Journal of Sociology, 103(1), 144–181.
Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. (1977). Institutional organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 83(2), 340–363.
Mundy, K. (2007). Education for all: Paradoxes and prospects of a global promise. In D. P. Baker & A. W. Wiseman (Eds.), Education for all: Global promises, national challenges (pp. 1–30). Oxford: Elsevier.
Paine, L. W., & Fang, Y. (2006). Reform as hybrid model of teaching and teacher development in China. International Journal of Educational Research, 45(4), 279–289.
Phillips, D. (2004). Toward a theory of policy attraction in education. In G. Steiner-Khamsi (Ed.), The global politics of educational borrowing and lending (pp. 54–67). New York: Teachers College Press.
Ramirez, F. O. (2006). From citizen to person? Rethinking education as incorporation. In D. P. Baker & A. W. Wiseman (Eds.), The impact of comparative education research on institutional theory (pp. 367–387). Oxford: Elsevier.
Ramirez, F. O., & Cha, Y.-K. (1990). Citizenship and gender: Western educational development in comparative perspective. Research in Sociology of Education and Socialization, 9, 153–173.
Ramirez, F. O., & Ventresca, M. J. (1992). Building the institution of mass schooling: Isomorphism in the modern world. In B. Fuller & R. Rubinson (Eds.), The political construction of education: The state, school expansion, and economic change (pp. 47–59). New York: Praeger.
Robertson, R. (1995). Glocalization: Time-space and homogeneity-heterogeneity. In M. Featherstone, S. Lash, & R. Robertson (Eds.), Global modernities (pp. 25–44). London: Sage.
Schofer, E., Ramirez, F. O., & Meyer, J. W. (2000). The effects of science on national economic development, 1970–1990. American Sociological Review, 65(6), 877–898.
Schriewer, J. (2003). Globalization in education: Process and discourse. Policy Futures in Education, 1(2), 271–283.
Schriewer, J., & Martinez, C. (2004). Constructions of internationality in education. In G. Steiner-Khamsi (Ed.), The global politics of educational borrowing and lending (pp. 29–53). New York: Teachers College Press.
Silova, I., & Magno, C. (2004). Gender equity unmasked: Democracy, gender, and education in Central/Southeastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Comparative Education Review, 48(4), 417–442.
Stromquist, N. P. (1998). The institutionalization of gender and its impact on educational policy. Comparative Education, 34(1), 85–100.
Suarez, D. F. (2007). Human rights and curricular policy in Latin America and the Caribbean. Comparative Education Review, 51(3), 329–352.
Tiano, S. (1987). Gender, work, and world capitalism: Third World women’s role in development. In M. M. Ferree & B. Hess (Eds.), Analyzing gender: A handbook of social science research (pp. 216–243). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
True, J., & Mintrom, M. (2001). Transnational networks and policy diffusion: The case of gender mainstreaming. International Studies Quarterly, 45(1), 27–57.
Vidovich, L. (2004). Global-national-local dynamics in policy processes: A case of ‘quality’ policy in higher education. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 25(3), 341–354.
Weick, K. E. (1976). Education organizations as loosely coupled systems. Administrative Science Quarterly, 21(1), 11–19.
Wolf, A. (2004). Education and economic performance: Simplistic theories and their policy consequences. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 20(2), 315–333.
Wotipka, C. M., & Ramirez, F. O. (2008). World society and human rights: An event history analysis of the Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. In B. A. Simmons, F. Dobbin, & G. Garrett (Eds.), The global diffusion of markets and democracy (pp. 303–343). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Zhang, Y., Kao, G., & Hannum, E. (2007). Do mothers in rural China practice gender equality in educational aspirations for their children? Comparative Education Review, 51(2), 131–157.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ham, SH., Paine, L.W. & Cha, YK. Duality of educational policy as global and local: the case of the gender equity agenda in national principles and state actions. Asia Pacific Educ. Rev. 12, 105–115 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12564-010-9128-7
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12564-010-9128-7