A Contrasting Case : the U.S.A. and Its Weak Response to Internationalization Processes in Education Policy

Abstract

The impact of internationalization processes in education policy varies across the participating member countries. As explored in the previous chapters on Germany, Switzerland, England and New Zealand, countries reacted differently as regards the influence of international organization (IO) governance on national policy, politics, and polity in the field of education. National transformation capacities have modified the responses of countries to the international initiatives in the field of education (see Introduction to this volume). In Germany and Switzerland, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Study and the European Bologna Process led to comprehensive political initiatives—despite their institutional settings, which are unfavorable to reforms. The misfit between nationally guiding principles of education and orientational frameworks promoted by the two international initiatives was high enough to facilitate reform processes in education. In contrast, England and New Zealand had already initiated educational reform in the 1980s, before processes of internationalization driven by the PISA Study and the Bologna Process. Nonetheless, both countries are now addressing PISA and Bologna to some extent. The UK, however, has underestimated both processes as regards the comparative political dimension while New Zealand has used the PISA results in order to adopt measures to decrease performance disparities.