ABSTRACT
Educators worldwide have been caught in the middle of complex globalization debates. One such debate has centered on the role of international education “experts”—usually of Western origin—in the construction and dissemination of “best practices” globally. Whether advising national governments or consulting for international development agencies (such as the World Bank, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development or the United Nations), these “experts” have operated on the assumption that there exists a common and legitimate “blueprint” of educational policies and practices, which would lead (if implemented properly) to increased educational opportunities and improved educational quality worldwide. In the context of (neo)liberal globalization, they have been called upon to advise governments on such salient policy topics as education governance, teaching methods, curriculum reform, or (in the case of American international development assistance) anti-terrorism. More often than not, their advice has focused on the diffusion of global education policies and practices that, for many scholars in comparative education, have been central in analyses of the coercive spread of (neo)liberal education reforms such as standardization of curricula, decentralization and privatization of schools, or the introduction of national educational assessment and international testing (Dale, 2000; Apple, 2006, 2009; Arnove and Torres, 2007; Robertson, 2007; Torres, 2009; Rizvi and Lingard, 2010).
