ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book shows similar processes of mediation between circulating global influences and local and national traditions and structures. In some countries like Australia and Canada, where there has historically been greater control of education at the state and provincial level, national governments have moved to try and exert greater power over educational policies in the states and provinces to bring them into greater alignment with the "Global Educational Reform Movement" (GERM). In other countries, such as in Diniz-Pereira's chapter on Brazil, although there is resistance to the GERM, there appears to be a stronger impact by global forces on schooling and teacher education. We have seen countries and education systems trying to deal with the tensions between global influences and the historical, cultural, and institutional traditions and practices in different ways and examples of contestation and resistance.
