Harmonizing the educational globe. World polity, cultural features, and the challenges to educational research

Abstract

We are immersed in a process of harmonization of the educational globe, in a “world polity”.  PISA represents its most distinguished instrument. This new global governance has its roots in a specific cultural milieu in the time of the Cold War. The failure of the educational initiatives led to a new governance model in which standardized large-scale testing emerged as the chief instrument in educational governance, such as PISA.  My concluding thesis is that precisely because the idea of global governance is rooted in a specific culture, its developed instruments run the risk of affecting only formal structures in other cultures. I will close my presentation by asking what challenges awaits research in education in the face of these developments.