Overview and introduction

The chapter analyses current emerging research trends in education reforms globally. The chapter critiques and evaluates a neo-liberal and neoconservative education policy reforms It discusses meta-ideological hegemony and paradigm shifts in education, dominated by standards-driven culture and students’ academic achievement. It analyses discourses of globalisation processes impacting on education and policy reforms, both locally and globally, designed to promote economic competitiveness, national identity and social equity through education reforms. The chapter critiques standards-driven and outcomes-defined policy. The analysis of education policy reforms, and the resultant social stratifications in the global culture, demonstrates a complex nexus between globalisation, ideology and education reforms – where, on the one hand, democratisation and progressive pedagogy is equated with equality, inclusion, equity, tolerance and human rights, while on the other hand, globalisation is perceived, by some critics at least, to be a totalising force that is widening the inequality, and the socio-economic status (SES) gap and cultural and economic capital between the rich and the poor, and bringing power, domination and control by corporate bodies and powerful organisations.