Gita Steiner‐Khamsi
Biographic Data
| ID | 5819738 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gita Steiner‐Khamsi |
| GIVEN NAMES | Gita |
| FAMILY NAME | Steiner‐Khamsi |
| SIGNATURE | KHAMSI G S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Columbia University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9986-2150 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 128 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 31 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
The time ordeal for international organisations
The conceptual article examines the purpose and impact of international agendas (EFA, MDGs, SDGs) against the backdrop of three temporal units of analysis: sequence, future, and historical context. In sequence, each of the three international agreements built on the previous one by extending the years of compulsory schooling and broadening the range of social groups, with each new call for ‘universal access’. The future orientation of multi-year …
Learning from elsewhere
This article discusses four significant changes in lesson drawing, policy learning, or policy borrowing. Thematically , the issue of educational expansion has preoccupied policy-makers worldwide for the past hundred years. They have been eager to learn from experiences elsewhere, initially how others decentralized the finance and management of schooling to enable universal access and later how they addressed the fallout of decentralization reform…
A Comparative Policy Study of China’s School Reform Waves, 1979–2023
Comparing two transfer spaces over time and against a global script
The study compares the selective adoption of the global school-autonomy-with-accountability (SAWA) reform in two cantons of Switzerland (Zurich and St. Gallen) over the period 1995–2015. The authors dissect the SAWA reform into three aspects: its theory of change, its bundle of policies, and its preferred policy instruments to achieve and sustain change. Methodologically, the study draws on a database of over 1,200 policy-relevant documents and e…
Qualitative Comparative Policy Studies
This inaugural article delineates the vision and scope of the new section "Qualitative Comparative Policy Studies" of the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis. The co-editors present the five key features of the section: the comparative, the transnational, the relational, the global, and the self-reflective. Concretely, they invite contributions on qualitative empirical research that (i) is comparative in its methods and interpretive framework,…
Governance by numbers 2.0
The article investigates how and when the two first movers in knowledge-based regulationthe OECD and the World Bankdeveloped policy brokerage as an instrument of global governance in the education sector.We also examine how their target clientelenational governmentsresponds to this instrument.Given the surplus of research evidence in today's digital economy, intergovernmental organisations have the challenge of standing out as trusted and credibl…
Instruments of lesson-drawing
This study examines the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank, the two largest global actors in the education sector, in their capacity as knowledge brokers. For these actors, positioning themselves between research and policy and circulating their versions of evidence has become a popular governance instrument to amplify their impact at the national level. To compare the strategies and targets of the OEC…
Global governance of education
Externalisation and structural coupling
The article presents two key concepts of sociological systems theory – externalisation and structural coupling – and applies them to explain (a) the exponential growth of international large-scale student assessments and (b) the rise of ‘policy-relevant’ educational research. The author concludes with a comparison between key concepts used in systems theory and those used in comparative policy studies. She identifies resemblances with concepts of…
From science to politics
The study presents a bibliometric network analysis of the two most recent schools reforms in Norway. Two research questions have been pursued: First, do the government-appointed expert commission use (in Green Papers) the same type of knowledge as ‘evidence’ for their reviews and recommendations as the Ministry of Education and Research (as reflected in the White Papers)? How has the use of ‘evidence’ changed over the two reform periods? Second, …
Human Capital Index and the hidden penalty for non-participation in Ilsas
Pisa for scandalisation, Pisa for projection
The introductory article of the GSE special issue ‘PISA for scandalization, PISA for projection: the use of international large-scale assessments in education policy making’ contextualises the four articles of the special issue in the broader context of comparative policy studies in education. It reflects in particular on the question of why cross-national comparison is relevant for the study of ILSA (international large-scale assessment) policy …
Businesses seeing like a state, governments calculating like a business
This article focuses on why education is a lucrative business for private sector providers. It identifies the five most common strategies that education businesses apply when selling goods or services in the education sector. In addition, this study also cursorily presents examples of how public education has networked with, reframed its mission, and built institutional structures that resemble businesses. The author proposes that the interaction…
The emerging global education industry
This paper addresses the rise and consequences of an emerging global education industry (GEI), which represents new forms of private, for profit involvement in education across the globe. The paper explores the emergence within the GEI of new and varied, largely transnational, markets in education by focusing on three examples of the GEI at work. The first example addresses the issue of Charter Schools, what they have come to represent, how they …
The making of comparability
The authors examine indicator research over three periods and discuss shifts in policy usage over time. The study compares influential actors that reflect discursive shifts in how, and for what purpose, indicators were used: (1) Jullien de Paris, (2) faculty at Teachers College at Columbia University in the early-twentieth century (notably Paul Monroe and Isaac Kandel) and (3) UNESCO Institute for Statistics’ contribution to the debate on the 203…
The rise of international large-scale assessments and rationales for participation
This Forum discusses the significant growth of international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) since the mid-1990s. Addey and Sellar's contribution outlines a framework of rationales for participating in ILSAs and examines the multiple localised meanings attached to ILSA participation. This framework is discussed under seven headings: (1) evidence for policy; (2) technical capacity building; (3) funding and aid; (4) international relations; (5) nat…
New directions in policy borrowing research
Standards are good (for) business
The article examines how and why the method of comparison against standards has benefited non-state actors and businesses in the education sector. Drawing on brief examples from international standard schools in Qatar, Indonesia and Mongolia, the author examines how the global education industry uses the reference to ‘international standards’ as a selling point to roll out their own school reform package. Besides a critical examination of the sel…
Cross-national policy borrowing
The article examines two key concepts in research on policy borrowing and lending that are often used to explain why and how educational reforms travel across national boundaries: reception and translation. The studies on reception analyse the political, economic, and cultural reasons that account for the attractiveness of a reform from elsewhere. Translation, in turn, captures the act of local adaptation, modification, or re-framing of an import…
Multikulturelle Bildungspolitik in der Postmoderne
World Yearbook of Education 2012
The global/local nexus in comparative policy studies
The article analyses a phenomenon that has accompanied teacher salary reform in Mongolia: the import of two global education policies that were nearly identical to the already existing local bonus system (olympiads). To make sense of an import that appears superfluous, the author analyses the reception and translation of the triple bonus system over time. The interpretive framework draws on system theory and pays attention to: (1) developments wi…
The Politics and Economics of Comparison
Educational Import
This book addresses students, practitioners and scholars in educational policy studies. The authors use Mongolia as a case to illustrate how global influences shape domestic developments in education
The economics of policy borrowing and lending
The article draws on interpretive frameworks from diffusion research and social network analysis to explore one particular ‘travelling reform’—outcomes‐based education—that went global. The argument is made that by virtue of studying late adopters of a travelling reform one is examining globalisation. The cases in point for late adoption are Central Asian education systems (in particular Mongolia and Kyrgyz Republic) that borrowed outcomes‐based …
The rise of international large-scale assessments and rationales for participation
This Forum discusses the significant growth of international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) since the mid-1990s. Addey and Sellar's contribution outlines a framework of rationales for participating in ILSAs and examines the multiple localised meanings attached to ILSA participation. This framework is discussed under seven headings: (1) evidence for policy; (2) technical capacity building; (3) funding and aid; (4) international relations; (5) nat…
The emerging global education industry
This paper addresses the rise and consequences of an emerging global education industry (GEI), which represents new forms of private, for profit involvement in education across the globe. The paper explores the emergence within the GEI of new and varied, largely transnational, markets in education by focusing on three examples of the GEI at work. The first example addresses the issue of Charter Schools, what they have come to represent, how they …
The global/local nexus in comparative policy studies
The article analyses a phenomenon that has accompanied teacher salary reform in Mongolia: the import of two global education policies that were nearly identical to the already existing local bonus system (olympiads). To make sense of an import that appears superfluous, the author analyses the reception and translation of the triple bonus system over time. The interpretive framework draws on system theory and pays attention to: (1) developments wi…
Pisa for scandalisation, Pisa for projection
The introductory article of the GSE special issue ‘PISA for scandalization, PISA for projection: the use of international large-scale assessments in education policy making’ contextualises the four articles of the special issue in the broader context of comparative policy studies in education. It reflects in particular on the question of why cross-national comparison is relevant for the study of ILSA (international large-scale assessment) policy …
From science to politics
The study presents a bibliometric network analysis of the two most recent schools reforms in Norway. Two research questions have been pursued: First, do the government-appointed expert commission use (in Green Papers) the same type of knowledge as ‘evidence’ for their reviews and recommendations as the Ministry of Education and Research (as reflected in the White Papers)? How has the use of ‘evidence’ changed over the two reform periods? Second, …
Decentralization and recentralization reform in Mongolia
For the past 10 years the Ministry of Education of Mongolia has periodically oscillated between decentralization and recentralization policies. On paper, it has consistently and enthusiastically subscribed to decentralization, but in practice has given these policies low priority. This study attempts to explain the discrepancies between policy talk and actual implementation. Methodologically, the authors investigate local policy contexts and exam…
Governance by numbers 2.0
The article investigates how and when the two first movers in knowledge-based regulationthe OECD and the World Bankdeveloped policy brokerage as an instrument of global governance in the education sector.We also examine how their target clientelenational governmentsresponds to this instrument.Given the surplus of research evidence in today's digital economy, intergovernmental organisations have the challenge of standing out as trusted and credibl…
Human Capital Index and the hidden penalty for non-participation in Ilsas
Qualitative Comparative Policy Studies
This inaugural article delineates the vision and scope of the new section "Qualitative Comparative Policy Studies" of the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis. The co-editors present the five key features of the section: the comparative, the transnational, the relational, the global, and the self-reflective. Concretely, they invite contributions on qualitative empirical research that (i) is comparative in its methods and interpretive framework,…
The making of comparability
The authors examine indicator research over three periods and discuss shifts in policy usage over time. The study compares influential actors that reflect discursive shifts in how, and for what purpose, indicators were used: (1) Jullien de Paris, (2) faculty at Teachers College at Columbia University in the early-twentieth century (notably Paul Monroe and Isaac Kandel) and (3) UNESCO Institute for Statistics’ contribution to the debate on the 203…
Standards are good (for) business
The article examines how and why the method of comparison against standards has benefited non-state actors and businesses in the education sector. Drawing on brief examples from international standard schools in Qatar, Indonesia and Mongolia, the author examines how the global education industry uses the reference to ‘international standards’ as a selling point to roll out their own school reform package. Besides a critical examination of the sel…
Global governance of education
Businesses seeing like a state, governments calculating like a business
This article focuses on why education is a lucrative business for private sector providers. It identifies the five most common strategies that education businesses apply when selling goods or services in the education sector. In addition, this study also cursorily presents examples of how public education has networked with, reframed its mission, and built institutional structures that resemble businesses. The author proposes that the interaction…
Comparing two transfer spaces over time and against a global script
The study compares the selective adoption of the global school-autonomy-with-accountability (SAWA) reform in two cantons of Switzerland (Zurich and St. Gallen) over the period 1995–2015. The authors dissect the SAWA reform into three aspects: its theory of change, its bundle of policies, and its preferred policy instruments to achieve and sustain change. Methodologically, the study draws on a database of over 1,200 policy-relevant documents and e…
New paradigms and recurring paradoxes in education for citizenship
Euro-Patriotism
Der Aufsatz bezieht sich auf Länderfallstudien, die im Rahmen der IEA Studie zur politischen Bildung (1994-2002) entwickelt worden sind und fasst die wichtigsten Lehrplanreformen auf dem Gebiet der politischen Bildung zusammen. Unter den europäischen Lehrplanreformen werden die folgenden Entwicklungen besonders hervorgehoben: die Fusion von Politik und Wirtschaft, die Herausbildung eines «postnationalen Modells der Mitgliedschaft» (Soysal) in eur…
Decentralization and recentralization reform in Mongolia
For the past 10 years the Ministry of Education of Mongolia has periodically oscillated between decentralization and recentralization policies. On paper, it has consistently and enthusiastically subscribed to decentralization, but in practice has given these policies low priority. This study attempts to explain the discrepancies between policy talk and actual implementation. Methodologically, the authors investigate local policy contexts and exam…
Educational Import
This book addresses students, practitioners and scholars in educational policy studies. The authors use Mongolia as a case to illustrate how global influences shape domestic developments in education
The economics of policy borrowing and lending
The article draws on interpretive frameworks from diffusion research and social network analysis to explore one particular ‘travelling reform’—outcomes‐based education—that went global. The argument is made that by virtue of studying late adopters of a travelling reform one is examining globalisation. The cases in point for late adoption are Central Asian education systems (in particular Mongolia and Kyrgyz Republic) that borrowed outcomes‐based …
U.S. Social and Educational Research During the Cold War
(2006). U.S. Social and Educational Research During the Cold War: An Interview with Harold J. Noah. European Education: Vol. 38, Post-Cold War Studies in Education (I), pp. 9-18
An Interview with Beatrice Beach Szekely
The Development Turn in Comparative Education
(2006). The Development Turn in Comparative Education. European Education: Vol. 38, Post-Cold War Studies in Education (I), pp. 19-47
The Politics and Economics of Comparison
World Yearbook of Education 2012
The global/local nexus in comparative policy studies
The article analyses a phenomenon that has accompanied teacher salary reform in Mongolia: the import of two global education policies that were nearly identical to the already existing local bonus system (olympiads). To make sense of an import that appears superfluous, the author analyses the reception and translation of the triple bonus system over time. The interpretive framework draws on system theory and pays attention to: (1) developments wi…
Multikulturelle Bildungspolitik in der Postmoderne
Cross-national policy borrowing
The article examines two key concepts in research on policy borrowing and lending that are often used to explain why and how educational reforms travel across national boundaries: reception and translation. The studies on reception analyse the political, economic, and cultural reasons that account for the attractiveness of a reform from elsewhere. Translation, in turn, captures the act of local adaptation, modification, or re-framing of an import…
Standards are good (for) business
The article examines how and why the method of comparison against standards has benefited non-state actors and businesses in the education sector. Drawing on brief examples from international standard schools in Qatar, Indonesia and Mongolia, the author examines how the global education industry uses the reference to ‘international standards’ as a selling point to roll out their own school reform package. Besides a critical examination of the sel…
New directions in policy borrowing research
The emerging global education industry
This paper addresses the rise and consequences of an emerging global education industry (GEI), which represents new forms of private, for profit involvement in education across the globe. The paper explores the emergence within the GEI of new and varied, largely transnational, markets in education by focusing on three examples of the GEI at work. The first example addresses the issue of Charter Schools, what they have come to represent, how they …
The making of comparability
The authors examine indicator research over three periods and discuss shifts in policy usage over time. The study compares influential actors that reflect discursive shifts in how, and for what purpose, indicators were used: (1) Jullien de Paris, (2) faculty at Teachers College at Columbia University in the early-twentieth century (notably Paul Monroe and Isaac Kandel) and (3) UNESCO Institute for Statistics’ contribution to the debate on the 203…
The rise of international large-scale assessments and rationales for participation
This Forum discusses the significant growth of international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) since the mid-1990s. Addey and Sellar's contribution outlines a framework of rationales for participating in ILSAs and examines the multiple localised meanings attached to ILSA participation. This framework is discussed under seven headings: (1) evidence for policy; (2) technical capacity building; (3) funding and aid; (4) international relations; (5) nat…
Pisa for scandalisation, Pisa for projection
The introductory article of the GSE special issue ‘PISA for scandalization, PISA for projection: the use of international large-scale assessments in education policy making’ contextualises the four articles of the special issue in the broader context of comparative policy studies in education. It reflects in particular on the question of why cross-national comparison is relevant for the study of ILSA (international large-scale assessment) policy …
Businesses seeing like a state, governments calculating like a business
This article focuses on why education is a lucrative business for private sector providers. It identifies the five most common strategies that education businesses apply when selling goods or services in the education sector. In addition, this study also cursorily presents examples of how public education has networked with, reframed its mission, and built institutional structures that resemble businesses. The author proposes that the interaction…
Human Capital Index and the hidden penalty for non-participation in Ilsas
From science to politics
The study presents a bibliometric network analysis of the two most recent schools reforms in Norway. Two research questions have been pursued: First, do the government-appointed expert commission use (in Green Papers) the same type of knowledge as ‘evidence’ for their reviews and recommendations as the Ministry of Education and Research (as reflected in the White Papers)? How has the use of ‘evidence’ changed over the two reform periods? Second, …
Externalisation and structural coupling
The article presents two key concepts of sociological systems theory – externalisation and structural coupling – and applies them to explain (a) the exponential growth of international large-scale student assessments and (b) the rise of ‘policy-relevant’ educational research. The author concludes with a comparison between key concepts used in systems theory and those used in comparative policy studies. She identifies resemblances with concepts of…
Qualitative Comparative Policy Studies
This inaugural article delineates the vision and scope of the new section "Qualitative Comparative Policy Studies" of the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis. The co-editors present the five key features of the section: the comparative, the transnational, the relational, the global, and the self-reflective. Concretely, they invite contributions on qualitative empirical research that (i) is comparative in its methods and interpretive framework,…
Governance by numbers 2.0
The article investigates how and when the two first movers in knowledge-based regulationthe OECD and the World Bankdeveloped policy brokerage as an instrument of global governance in the education sector.We also examine how their target clientelenational governmentsresponds to this instrument.Given the surplus of research evidence in today's digital economy, intergovernmental organisations have the challenge of standing out as trusted and credibl…
Political science (22 works) · Global Educational Policies and Reforms (18 works) · Sociology (18 works) · Economics (13 works) · Global Education and Multiculturalism (13 works) · Law (10 works) · Politics (8 works) · Public Administration (8 works) · Economic growth (7 works) · Business (6 works)