Mainland China's domestic academic literature on foreign issues can be regarded as a reference for its policymaking since the early stages of the "Reform and Opening Up". This investigation constructs a multi-theoretical framework for examining and interpreting mainland China's domestic academic narrative surrounding higher education…

Several concurrent trends are increasing the likelihood that short courses, microcredentials, and flexible learning pathways will become a regular and even dominant feature of education and training globally. This policy paper reflects on these trends with special reference to the post-secondary education sector, and explores ways to organize…

Histories of statistics and quantification have demonstrated that systems of statistical knowledge participate in the construction of the objects that are measured. However, the pace, purpose, and scope of quantification in state bureaucracy have expanded greatly over the past decades, fuelled by (neoliberal) societal trends that have given the…

This dissertation utilizes performance-based funding for higher education in Europe as the mechanism through which to interrogate broader relationships between universities and their external resource environments. Structured as three distinct journal-length articles, I first explore the emergence of performance-based funding systems for higher…

This article explores the idea that effective education policymaking necessitates an improved understanding of how students, as micro-scale actors, position themselves in operational terms in the globalised context. The article introduces the concept of perceived operational space as an analytical and methodological perspective to support this…

It is rare in contemporary times to encounter international education policy reports that inspire hope and excitement for the future, such as we are offered in the 1972 report of the International Commission on the Development of Education set up by UNESCO in 1971 and chaired by Edgar Faure. "Learning to be: The world of education today and…

The literature regarding the social organisation of 'adult' learning opportunities throughout the life course postulates different significations of policy concepts such as 'lifelong education', 'permanent education', 'recurrent education', and 'lifelong learning' in the 1970s. This paper examines policy formation processes in France during the…

The present analysis examined the relationship between PISA results and their influence on policy development within a select group of European nations which included Estonia, Italy, France, and Finland. These countries reflect four distinct outcomes in relation to PISA results: (1) high achievement and high equity (Estonia); (2) stagnant…

Intersectionality highlights that different aspects of individuals' identities are not independent of each other. Instead, they interact to create unique identities and experiences, which cannot be understood by analysing each identity dimension separately or in isolation from their social and historical contexts. Intersectional approaches in this…

This paper examines transnational circulation of political and pedagogical ideas associated with "éducation permanente" with particular reference to post-war Western Europe. It offers a socio-historical reconstruction of pan-European dissemination and reception of policy repertoires articulated by governmental and non-governmental policy…

Since the 1980s, right-wing extremism, radicalism, and populism have emerged as transformative forces in European politics. This unexpected resurgence has triggered an interdisciplinary scholarly effort to refine our understanding of the far right. Educationalists, however, have largely been absent from this endeavour, leaving us unable to…

This article builds upon Robert Cowen's (1996) work on educational coding in transitological settings and post-spaces by deciphering the efficacy of political and economic compressions in Tunisia from the French protectorate period to the 2011 post-Jasmine revolution. First, I diachronically decrypt and elucidate the specific experiences and…

Module A of the OECD Higher Education Policy Survey (HEPS) 2022 elicited information on policies to promote digitalisation of higher education in OECD member and accession countries. In total, 30 jurisdictions responded, providing comparative information on various areas of digitalisation policy, from regulation and governance to financial and…

Intergovernmental regional cooperation is one of the defining characteristics of political Europe. This article investigates it in the area of higher education and research. Specifically it explores what types of intergovernmental regional alliances exist and to what extent their member countries coordinate their higher education and research…

Europe's knowledge economies need high-level skills, the capacity to innovate and to support democratic societies. In this perspective, the main objective of this study is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the relevance of higher education and how this is promoted in various countries in Europe and beyond. The evidence, conclusions and…