ABSTRACT
The complex interlinking of political groups in global and national education politics is illustrated by a session at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) titled: “International Benchmarking: Current Contributions and Future Directions for Policymakers and Researchers.”1 I am using this AERA session to illustrate the interconnections of global education politics and national politics. My intention is to show how this AERA session and its context are illustrative of the global political interconnections driving educational policy-making between the following:
• Global intergovernmental organizations: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank
• NGOs: global nongovernment organizations • National governments’ sponsorship of global interconnections • National governments’ response to global education policies • Global education associations • Education business
There are other political forces than those listed above which I will discuss later in the chapter. After this illustration of the complexity of global education decision-making, I will discuss each political player in detail.
