From Global to Local: Policy Vernacularization as Assemblage, Refoulement, and Meld

Abstract

The chapter explores complex sociopolitical and policy processes surrounding the “localization” of globalized trends in teacher education. It draws in particular on the concepts of “vernacular globalization” (Appadurai, Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization, University of Minnesota Press, 1996) and “glocalisation” (Robertson, Global modernities, Sage, 1995) to explore the ways in which “travelling policies” meet “embedded contexts” (Jones & Alexiadou, 2001). This emphasizes the importance of “context” in policy critique and taking account of historical paths, sociopolitical structures, and of national and international forces in how these shape local policy assemblage. It proposes a model to explore the process of policy vernacularization and illustrates and critiques the process using case examples at the European level (Modernization of Teacher Education Project in Russia 2014–2918 and affects of the Sahlberg Review in Ireland). Through these, we argue that a nexus of unique, sociohistorical contexts positions national policy actors differently as to what can be done, and how globalized ideas can be adopted and “practiced” locally – including how they enter the field, which ideas become prioritized and mediatized, and what imaginary for teacher education they shape. We close with an argument to pay attention in educational research to the positional values and interests of policymakers, at the “local” level as these inevitably catalyze vernacular revision and reimaginings that invest the reform agenda and policy action.