In response to widening achievement gaps and increased demand for post-secondary education, local and federal governments across the US have enacted policies that have boosted high school graduation rates without an equivalent rise in student achievement, suggesting a decline in academic standards. To the extent that academic standards can shape…

This paper introduces and uses Lakatos' idea of research programmes to summarise and critically evaluate academic discourse towards knowledge capital theory. The analysis uses rational reconstruction to formulate the components of the hardcore and protective belt of knowledge capital theory. By critically surveying the literature, it challenges…

This paper considers the potential significance of a concept of lifelong learning in the context of digital disruption. Having noted some contemporary contrasts in the visibility of lifelong learning policy, it revisits the earlier more widespread dominance of the concept, identifying not only variety but also tensions that are inherent and…

This dissertation consists of three papers. In each, I use applied econometric methods and economic theory to study the American teacher workforce. The first paper evaluates a novel policy to address teacher shortages by promoting experienced school staff to be teachers of record. Controlling for demographics and baseline scores, I find that…

There has been a growing tendency to use humanistic and utopian goals in the naming and framing of education policies. The case of the Happiness Education Policy (HEP) in South Korea is illustrative and demonstrates the potential of such framing, combined with references to external authorities, to neutralise domestic opposition and generate…

Though government funding has shrunk, Nepal's higher education (HE) sector has expanded in the last three decades in terms of the establishment of new institutions and the implementation of a series of projects funded by the World Bank. Using neoliberal instrumentalism as a theoretical framework and critical policy sociology as a methodological…

International higher education in many developed countries and more particularly in the United States and Australia has become a great source of revenue for their economies from students of the developing and underdeveloped countries (Least Development Countries). Money together with the mobility of international students from Least Development…

This volume offers a critical examination of the Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA), focusing on its origins and implementation, relationship to other international large-scale assessments, and its impacts on educational policy and reform at national and cross-national levels. Using empirical data gathered from a research…

Human capital theory assumes that education determines the marginal productivity of labour and this determines earnings. Since the 1960s, it has dominated the economics, and policy and public understanding, of relations between education and work. It has become widely assumed that intellectual formation constitutes a mode of economic capital,…

In this paper, we explore how participation in the strategic partnerships of the European University Alliances (EUAs) facilitates university capacity in regional development. The study utilizes the Quadruple Helix theoretical model and contributes to the literature on transnational university alliances in regional innovation ecosystems. A…

In-country migration is widespread in South Asia, and the region hosts the world's largest number of out-of-school children. Yet the relationship between internal migration and inclusion in formal education has received only limited academic and policy attention. The Agenda 2030 pledge to leave no-one behind prompts us to argue that when it comes…

The article explores the potential of theory in expanding how we can think about a globalization that can encompass the affirmation of diversity. This happens at a critical time, when policy areas, including education, are constrained by a global mode of neoliberal predatory capitalism that is in turn confronted by a return to national(ist)…

It is argued that developing digital abilities is key for today's knowledge society. They facilitate engaging with pervasive information communication technologies and manipulating information. Governments have invested vastly in formal education aimed at developing digital abilities. Policies and directives driving this venture need to be…

Entrepreneurial and innovative higher education institutions of the 21st century have become the driving forces of social development, economic growth and global competitiveness by improving human capital through the educational and instructional services they offer, producing qualified scientific information through the scientific research they…

Sweden aspires to become 'the best in the world at utilizing the opportunities of digitalization' and is internationally recognized for its digital performance. Education has been identified as instrumental for the digital transformation of Swedish society, and efforts are made to accelerate the digitalization of the educational system. As…