Imagining the Future of Global Education ─ Dreams and Nightmares

Imagining the Future of Global Education examines the Grand Educational Narrative (GEN) and the major institutions that shape and disseminate it. The book focuses on national visions of education and the imaginary futures that nations seek to make reality. It critiques how the GEN policy implementation process frequently turns dreams of upward mobility into nightmares. In this way, the book takes a distinctly different approach than most comparative and international education studies. Rather than being oriented toward the past and asking how education systems around the world ended up where they are, chapters in this volume seek an understanding of how various educational visions from around the world inform the present and shape the future.

Following an introductory summary of important concepts from scholarship on "imaginary futures" and global education reform, the book is organized around three themes: "What Dreams are Made Of," illustrating, through three case studies, what the GEN looks like at the national level and how it operates across national boundaries; "A Dream within a Dream," considering some of the more novel trends in international education reform in order to provide insight into how dreams seem to function; and "Keeping Dreams from becoming Nightmares," comprising three thematic essays that describe trends in education policy in one or more countries. The book concludes with lessons for scholars and policymakers.

Yong Zhao is a Foundation Distinguished Professor at the University of Kansas, USA, and a professorial fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Health and Education Policy, Victoria University, Australia.

Brian Gearin is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Education Methodology, Policy, and Leadership (EMPL) at the University of Oregon, USA.