ABSTRACT
In a world increasingly influenced by the actions of global social movements, the strengthening of education movements led by teachers is likely to continue. In its goals for international education the UNESCO Charter advocates concepts of democracy, equality of opportunity and peace education as global goals of education. In particular, the UNESCO charter emphasises the need to preserve ‘the independence, integrity and fruitful diversity of the cultures and the educational systems’ of the world (Cohen ed. 1971, 163). The pursuit of these goals over the next decades may well be driven more by grassroots education movements than formal school authorities, who increasingly subscribe to the dominance of neo liberal economic, human-capital-oriented national policies in schooling, which seems to be a world-wide trend. In many locations, educational reform movements, lead by teachers, have taken up the challenges of reform towards an education for a global culture of peace such as advocated by UNESCO (see Ginzburg 1991; Synott 2000).
