Global "diffusion", banal nationalism, and the politics of policy legitimation: A genealogical study of "zest for living" in Japanese education policy discourse

Abstract

In recent years, education policy scholars have documented the considerable influence that supranational organizations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and DeVelopment (OECD) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) exert on national education policy-making (Bieber and Martens, 2011; Lingard and Rawolle, 2011; Martens, 2007). In particular, OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has become a powerful policy reference for advanced industrial nations. Through "soft tools"-the production and dissemination of comparative indicators and expert advices-these organizations have "become one of the most significant players in matters of education" (Martens, 2007, p. 44), "clearing the way for greater convergence and commitment amongst states to uniform models of best practices" (p. 54). Though whether or not the increasing presence of such supranational organizations results in the global convergence in education policy is unclear (see Rappleye, 2012; Takayama, 2012), there is no question that national-global interactions have become more intensified in today's national education policy-making (Lingard and Rawolle, 2011).