Guorui Fan Thomas S. Popkewitz Editors Handbook of Education Policy Studies School/University, Curriculum, and Assessment, Volume 2 Handbook of Education Policy Studies Guorui Fan • Thomas S. Popkewitz Editors Handbook of Education Policy Studies School/University, Curriculum, and Assessment, Volume 2 Editors Guorui Fan Thomas S. 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Cover image © Xiaolong Wu This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore Introduction: Education Policy and Reform in the Changing World Since the emergence of the public education system, worldwide education reforms are still in the ascendant and increasingly in remarkable progress. Reforms with a spectrum of foci, including “progressive education movement,” “curriculum and instruction reform,” “educational system reform,” “education choices,” “educa- tional equity,” “inclusive education,” “lifelong education,” and “smart education,” have been fostering the advancement of education in countries and regions all over the world and providing a wide range of opportunities for people from different countries, regions, and cultures to communicate with each other and learn from each other, resulting in worldwide reflection and discussion on the common challenges that education is faced with and the common value that education reforms share. Modern education entails a continually complex set of relations with society. The study of the relationship between education and society relies on our knowledge and understanding of the relationships between the two. Over a century ago, in his review of Plato (Πλάτeων, 428/427–348/347 BC)’s education philosophy, Dewey (1916: 97) commented, “The breakdown of his philosophy is made apparent in the fact that he could not trust to gradual improvements in education to bring about a better society which should then improve education, and so on indefinitely.” Similarly, Durkheim ([1977]2006: 166–167) believes “Educational transformation are always the result and the symptom of the social transformation in terms of which they are to be explained. In order for a people to feel at any particular moment in time the need to change its educational system, it is necessary that new ideas and needs have emerged for which the former system is no longer adequate.” It is in this stand in view with the relationship between education and society that Dewey (1900: 20) emphasized “Whenever we have in mind the discussion of a new move- ment in education, it is especially necessary to take the broader, or social view.” A social system or an education system is a constantly evolving ecosystem, where its components coexist (Fan 2000, 2011). Hence, when studying the reform and development concerning education, we cannot conduct the research without setting it with the broader context of social life, reform, and the problem of change. These relations take on a distinct quality since the mid-twentieth century with the post-war efforts of recovery, reconstruction, and the reimagining of societies and v vi Introduction: Education Policy and Reform in the Changing World education. The relationship between education and society has begun to reveal a quality of mutual interaction and mutual promotion. In addition, increasingly rich and diversified education policy studies have enhanced the advancement of educa- tion policies and education reforms in practice. Education Change and Development in the Social Change Greek philosopher Heraclitus (c. 535–475 BC) illustrated the constant change of everything in his renowned statement “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” Indeed, every individual is constantly changing as well, so it is with the natural and social environment that we depend on for living. Undoubtedly, education, ever since its birth, has been chang- ing in terms of its form, function, and mechanism. Whether in the West or East, education, at least in its initial form, was a private matter when most educational activities were limited to individual families with the goal to pass on the work and life experience and social norms, while in coexistence with some forms of political and moral education only for the candidates of state functionaries and the offspring of dignitaries. Those forms of private education generated some reflections on per- sonalized education. Not surprisingly, relevant reflections at that time focused only on the micro-level teaching and learning activities (Confucius et al. 1885/1967; Comenius [1632]1967) and the teacher–student relationships. At that stage, educa- tion theory was taken as “the whole art of teaching all things to all men” (Comenius [1632]1967). Obviously, those reflections on specific education processes scarcely have relevance with the education reform at the macro level. With the development of the modern society and the emergence of modern countries, the institutionalized modern school system has been established and is under constant improvement, and the compulsory education has been developed and scaled up as well. As a result, the connection between education and society is becoming increasingly close and the interaction between the two has become increasingly frequent and complex (Enarson 1967; Green 2013; Marshall et al. 1993). The global architecture after World War II has undergone tremendous changes, and a series of major events have triggered worldwide competition for talents and in education among countries. The successful launch of satellites by the former Soviet Union in 1957 intensified the technology and arms race between the United States and the former Soviet Union. The United States passed the National Defense Education Act of 1958, whose purpose was “to provide substantial assistance in various forms to individuals, and to States and their subdivisions, in order to insure trained manpower of sufficient quality and quantity to meet the national defense needs of the United States” (The 85th United States Congress 1958). For the first time in its history, the United States related educational development to its national security. After the 1960s, the rise of and the independence of the third world nations (Tiers Monde) in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and the emergence of the two major camps of the United States and the Soviet Union generated great turbulence, Introduction: Education Policy and Reform in the Changing World vii division, and restructuring in the international community when a new pattern of the coexistence of “three worlds” began to emerge (Solarz 2012), and consequently education was granted the mission of the liberation, independence, and develop- ment of a nation. In the following half century, education reforms have been increas- ingly reflecting the will of a nation and the power of administration which employ education as an important mechanism for safeguarding national security and inter- ests and achieving national development. After the 1980s, with the revolutions of 1989 in Central and Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the Soviet Union (1991), the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union generally ended, while other events including China’s Reform and Opening up, the European integration, Russia’s economic development plans, and Japan's rapid economic development have led the world moving towards multipolarity. In this process, state-to-state competition has shifted from competi- tion in the military sphere to competition in the economic, technological, and com- prehensive national strength, and education has been entailed as a crucial component of each country’s capacity to improve or even maintain its economic welfare (Benjamin 1998). Society keeps on developing in constant conflicts. Jacques Delors has described a range of tension in the society caused by technological, economic, and social changes, including the tension between the global and the local; the universal and the particular; tradition and modernity; the spiritual and the material; long-term and short-term considerations; the need for competition and the ideal of equality of opportunity; and the expansion of knowledge and our capacity to assimilate it (Delors 1996).