Susan L Robertson
Biographic Data
| ID | 768539 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Susan L Robertson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Susan L |
| FAMILY NAME | Robertson |
| SIGNATURE | ROBERTSON S L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Bristol |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6757-8718 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 71 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 512 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 69 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1989 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
Contesting Injustice
Pre-service teachers’ perceptions of instructional design in a flipped learning course
As education faces unprecedented complexity, the traditional view of teachers as content deliverers is no longer sustainable. This study redefines teachers as adaptive learning designers by using student-informed evaluations to assess instructional strengths and gaps. Through Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and thematic analysis, critical insights into design competencies and blind spots were surfaced. In response, two frameworks are proposed: …
Digitalised higher education
Higher education is already profoundly digitalised. Students, academics, and university administrators routinely use digital technologies, many of which rely on data, including artificial intelligence. Universities aim to operate as data-powered organisations to support institutional efficiency and the personalisation of learning and student experience. These developments are occurring against the backdrop of university digital infrastructure mov…
Insights for the OECD's baby Pisa from Mexico's large-scale assessment of pre-schoolers
In 2018 the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) launched its International Early Learning Child Well-being Study (IELS), also known as Baby PISA. In the first round of data collection, the IELS focused on three OECD countries: England, Estonia and the United States. In this article we show that a similar study of pre-schoolers to IELS took place in Mexico – EXCALE for Pre-school – and argue there is much the research com…
Education, the new politics of differentiation and ordinal citizenship
In this paper, I argue a new politics of ordinal differentiation and its instruments for governing education aims to make invisible a 'low intensity civil war' against the labouring classes.It does this through the elevation and ubiquity of actuarial and quantitative measures aimed at producing a new form of differentiated belonging: that of ordinal citizenship.These measures: elevate individual agency, erasing the idea of social class as a nomin…
Civilisational ‘ideas’, state power, and globalising ‘realities’
In this paper we ask: what does 'the idea' of the Chinese university mean at the current time, especially when the sector has been shaped by endogenous and exogenous globalising dynamics? We explore this question, drawing on cultural political economy as a heuristic to make visible the links between culture, economy and politics. We identify three key dynamics: the constitutive powers of civilisational ideas; the power of the Chinese state; and t…
Introduction to special issue
Read the transcript Watch the video on Vimeo © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
The unbearable lightness of being” a post-industrial learner
In his 1984 allegorical novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera explores existential questions around freedom and identity, meaning and purpose, in a period of upheaval in Soviet dominated Czechoslovakia. In this paper we draw on the rich symbolism in Kundera’s novel to bring into view upheavals in the social relations underpinning contemporary societies, and the tensions between freedom and com- mitment, lightness and weight that…
Promises promises’
Promising lines of scholarship have emerged on how International Organisations (IO's) deploy anticipatory techniques aimed at colonising the future as a means of governing in the absence of sovereignty.It follows that securing hegemony over a vision of the future is important strategic work for IOs, and a source of legitimacy derived from authority beyond procedure and performance.This is called promissory legitimacy.Yet what happens when this pr…
New imperialisms in the making? The geo-political economy of transnational higher education mobility in the UK and China
Higher education (HE) mobility programmes around the globe have been key initiatives over the past thirty years, driven by combinations of supranational and national state-led knowledge economy policies, university strategies, and decisions made by individuals regarding employability, credentials, or academic tourism. In this paper we argue that mobility too often is understood through the prism of internationalism, itself umbilically tied to and…
Space, Place and Educational Settings
This open access book covers the topic of educational settings in space and place thereby adopting quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Free read!
Collective obituary for James D. Marshall (1937–2021)
Eulogy for Jim Marshall (read at the funeral)Michael A. PetersBeijing Normal UniversityMy deepest condolences to Pepe, Dom and Marcus and to Jim’s grandchildren. Tina and I spent a lot of time at t
Market making and the (re)production of knowledge in public universities
This collection of short essays presents and examines six vignettes of organisational change in British, New Zealand and European universities. Drawing on the social studies of economisation literature, formal research projects and auto-ethnographic insights, the authors detail profound changes in how knowledge is produced in universities. They examine policy documents, calculative techniques and management practices to illustrate how proliferati…
UK higher education, neoliberal meritocracy, and the culture of the new capitalism
Drawing on empirical data this paper explores how a new articulation of meritocracy has emerged over time in UK Higher Education. To this end, we analyze the five major HE reports produced in the UK over the past 2 decades (1997–2010). The proposed analytical design combines semantic mapping, natural language processing (NLP), and critical discourse analysis to identify the key actors in the sector, the nature of their agency, and changing roles.…
V-charged
A great deal has been written about the rise of the world-class university and global university rankings over the past two decades. Much of this work focuses on either the efficacy of the indicators used to measure world classness or on the purposes they serve regarding student choice in an international market. However, less attention has been paid to the ways in which spatial power, particularly the politics of sight and size, brings into view…
Guardians of the Future
This paper is a comparative analysis of the anticipatory practices deployed by two international organisations (IOs), UNESCO and the OECD, to govern education futures. I show how their coordination of education futures is mediated by: (1) their different histories, missions, resources and geo-political alliances; (2) use of different anticipatory practices; (3) ongoing tensions between the two organisations around who dominates future-making in e…
Erasures and equivalences
In 2014, the OECD-PISA’s Governing Board approved the addition of a set of global competence measures to its Programme of Student Assessment. In our paper, we explore whether and how there are discursive shifts between the two framing papers (2016/2018) and what the outcomes are for policy-shaping. To this end, we employ Network Text Analysis to map shifting semantic configurations. We show that (i) the concept of ‘global competence’ is radically…
Introduction to special section
The world of higher education today is saturated by expressions of size and greatness. Universities are described as global, world class and excellent and they are expressed in international rank depictions, as selected points and visualised flows on world maps, or in coloured circles of the U-Multirank ranking. Such sizing practices are not necessarily new, their proliferation, and the ways in which we encounter them in the contemporary academy …
On the ‘life of numbers’ in governing Mexico’s education system
There is now an extensive body of research concerning the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), and its recent additions and variations. Despite this, we argue that there is a paucity of theory-informed empirical research on the ways in which the PISA results about a nation’s education system both circulate within, and are engaged by, educators and policymakers at different levels of the education system. This paper report…
Authoritarian populism in Brazil
In this paper, we examine the rise of authoritarian populism in Brazil following the election in 2018 of Jair Messias Bolsonaro to the Presidency and reflect on the consequences of his far-right-wing politics for education. Our focus is broadly on three historical blocs (with five different presidents of the Republic) which make up the policy trajectory of Brazil over the period 1995–2019. We explore the complex cultural political economy surroun…
Introduction to special issue
The 2016 Brexit vote in the UK and the election of Donald Trump to the Presidency in the United States have acted as moments of rupture in debates on politics and societies, particularly in the Wes
Education cleavages, or market society and the rise of authoritarian populism
This paper explores how, in what ways, and with what outcomes, deep structural transformations have reconstituted higher education in England, and are deeply implicated in the rise of authoritarian populism. We focus particularly on the ways in which our understandings and lived experiences of class, social mobility, meritocracy, social inequality, and social justice have been transformed. We explore three transformations in higher education that…
Re-reading the OECD and education
This article introduces the Special Issue ‘Re-reading the OECD and education: the emergence of a global governing complex’. Its distinctive contribution is related to its dual epistemological aims: to explore how different conceptual lenses and methodological approaches add to our understanding of the OECD as an intergovernmental organisation; and second, to understand the ways in which the strategic activities and priorities of the OECD have bee…
Provincializing the OECD-Pisa global competences project
In 2018 the OECD added a set of global competence measures to its PISA programme, and reported on the outcomes in November 2020. In this paper I explore the provenance of the idea of global competence underpinning the OECD-PISA Global Competence framework and measure. The official account by the OECD references the OECD PISA Governing Board, Expert Panels, National Teams and Consortia engaged in the creation and delivery of this assessment tool. …
Space, Place and Educational Settings
Re‐imagining and rescripting the future of education
Using critical discourse analysis as a methodology for analysis, this paper sets out the nature and form of the challenges directed to the compulsory schooling sector by the knowledge economy that is contained in key policy and related documents put out by the OECD, the World Bank and the UK government. The OECD and the World Bank’s policy agendas are increasingly important in setting policy and programme agendas for the developed and developing …
Placing Teachers in Global Governance Agendas
This article examines the focus on teacher policies and practices by a range of global actors and explores their meaning for the governance of teachers. Through a historical and contemporary reading, I argue that an important shift in the locus of power to govern has taken place. I show how the mechanisms of global governance of teachers are being transformed from "education as (national) development" and "norm setting" to "learning as (individua…
Towards a ‘critical cultural political economy’ account of the globalising of education
This paper outlines the basis of an alternative theoretical approach to the study of the globalisation of ‘education’ – a Critical, Cultural Political Economy of Education (CCPEE) approach. Our purpose here is to bring this body of concepts – critical, cultural, political, economy – into our interrogation of globalising projects and processes within what we will refer to as the ‘education ensemble’ as the topic of enquiry, whose authoritative, al…
The new spatial politics of (re)bordering and (re)ordering the state-education-citizen relation
Reimagining the new pedagogical possibilities for universities post-Covid-19
Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to ‘normality’, trying to stitch our future to our past and refusing to acknowledge the rupture. But the rupture exists. And in the midst of this terrible despair, it offers us a chance to rethink the doomsday machine we have built for ourselves. Nothing could be worse than a return to normality. Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their worl…
Guardians of the Future
This paper is a comparative analysis of the anticipatory practices deployed by two international organisations (IOs), UNESCO and the OECD, to govern education futures. I show how their coordination of education futures is mediated by: (1) their different histories, missions, resources and geo-political alliances; (2) use of different anticipatory practices; (3) ongoing tensions between the two organisations around who dominates future-making in e…
A origem das parcerias público-privada na governança global da educação
Durante a última década, a globalização da governança educacional por meio de parcerias público-privadas (PPP) tem gerado considerável debate quanto ao seu significado, propósito, status e resultados. Este debate é particularmente aquecido no setor da educação por causa da ampla aceitação da educação como atividade complexa, social e política que deve permanecer, em grande parte, se não totalmente, no setor público, servindo a interesses públicos…
Provincializing the OECD-Pisa global competences project
In 2018 the OECD added a set of global competence measures to its PISA programme, and reported on the outcomes in November 2020. In this paper I explore the provenance of the idea of global competence underpinning the OECD-PISA Global Competence framework and measure. The official account by the OECD references the OECD PISA Governing Board, Expert Panels, National Teams and Consortia engaged in the creation and delivery of this assessment tool. …
The EU, ‘regulatory state regionalism’ and new modes of higher education governance
Jayasuriya's conceptualisation of ‘regulatory regionalism’ is particularly useful for examining the presence, significance and effect of new higher education governance mechanisms in constituting Europe as a competitive region and knowledge‐based economy. In particular he argues that we need to take sufficient account of the role of domestic political economies in constituting regions, on the one hand, and the role of governance mechanisms, on th…
Interview with Boaventura de Sousa Santos
Boaventura de Sousa Santos is Professor of Sociology, School of Economics, University of Coimbra and Distinguished Legal Scholar, Law School, University of Wisconsin‐Madison. He is also director of
Corporatisation, competitiveness, commercialisation
This paper examines the changing form and scope of higher education in the UK with a specific focus on contemporary ‘globalising’ developments within the sector and beyond. Situated within an analysis of transformations under way in the wider global and regional economy, and drawing on Jessop’s strategic relational approach (SRA), I examine the way higher education in the UK has been restructured through the mobilisation of three key logics (corp…
Promises promises’
Promising lines of scholarship have emerged on how International Organisations (IO's) deploy anticipatory techniques aimed at colonising the future as a means of governing in the absence of sovereignty.It follows that securing hegemony over a vision of the future is important strategic work for IOs, and a source of legitimacy derived from authority beyond procedure and performance.This is called promissory legitimacy.Yet what happens when this pr…
The dynamics of ‘market-making’ in higher education
This paper examines what to some is a well-worked furrow; the processes and outcomes involved in what is typically referred to as ‘marketization’ in the higher education sector. We do this through a case study of Newton University, where we reveal a rapid proliferation of market exchanges involving the administrative division of the university with the wider world. Our account of this process of ‘market making’ is developed in two (dialectically …
Absences and imaginings
In his paper ‘Grassroots globalization and the research imagination’, Arjun Appadurai challenges academics to develop ways of researching and engaging with the victims of globalisation. A key objective of Appadurai's is to sketch out the problematic and build up the terrain on which a democratisation of research about globalisation might take place. I argue that in order to proceed in ways that are productive for developing a critical research im…
Local States of Emergency
In the present paper, we argue that neo-liberal governance regimes are deeply contradictory and that these contradictions are increasingly evident within the education sector. Drawing on a case study of the consequences restructuring in education in New Zealand, arguably a paradigm case of neo-liberal governance, we suggest the state is faced with a dilemma about how best to manage these tensions and contradictions within the framework of the pol…
Critical response to Special Section
Over the past two decades a range of spatial metaphors have emerged – from ‘flows’ to ‘liquid modernity’ and ‘tipping points’ – which simultaneously propel, and capture, the zeitgeist; a world of a
Education cleavages, or market society and the rise of authoritarian populism
This paper explores how, in what ways, and with what outcomes, deep structural transformations have reconstituted higher education in England, and are deeply implicated in the rise of authoritarian populism. We focus particularly on the ways in which our understandings and lived experiences of class, social mobility, meritocracy, social inequality, and social justice have been transformed. We explore three transformations in higher education that…
A estranha não morte da privatização neoliberal na Estratégia 2020 para a educação do Banco Mundial
O artigo trata da estranha "não morte do neoliberalismo" (Crouch, 2011), referencial ideológico que permanece entre as prioridades das políticas do setor educacional do Banco Mundial (BM). Analisam-se, para exemplificar esse fenômeno, dois relatórios da estratégia do setor educacional, Education Sector Strategy 1999 (Banco Mundial, 1999) e Education Strategy 2020 (Banco Mundial, 2011), usados para orientar as operações do BM na área da educação. …
Stirring the lions
In many parts of the world, higher education is viewed as a prime ‘motor’ for the development of a knowledge‐based economy. Under the banner of this ‘new economy’, higher education policies, programmes and practices have been increasingly co‐opted and shaped by wider geo‐strategic political and economic interests. This paper explores three, interlinked, higher education policy spaces – in Europe, the United States, and Australia. It explores how …
Authoritarian populism in Brazil
In this paper, we examine the rise of authoritarian populism in Brazil following the election in 2018 of Jair Messias Bolsonaro to the Presidency and reflect on the consequences of his far-right-wing politics for education. Our focus is broadly on three historical blocs (with five different presidents of the Republic) which make up the policy trajectory of Brazil over the period 1995–2019. We explore the complex cultural political economy surroun…
Colonising the future
The social condition of higher education
This article aims to discuss the relationship between higher education (HE), globalisation and regionalism projects focusing on HE in Latin America and Brazil. It is claimed that HE has predominantly taken the diverse, yet concerted and co-ordinated routes of globalisation and regionalisation and, by doing so, been profoundly transformed. The first section considers a set of theoretical categories in relation to the phenomena of globalisation and…
O processo de Bolonha da Europa torna-se global
O artigo examina a interligação progressiva dos espaços da política de educação superior no mundo, focalizando em particular a Europa e o seu projeto de globalização da educação superior, assim como as implicações do mesmo para outras economias nacionais e regionais. O trabalho começa com o Espaço Europeu de Educação Superior, esboçando as principais características do competitivo projeto europeu na educação superior. Apresenta-se como o Processo…
New imperialisms in the making? The geo-political economy of transnational higher education mobility in the UK and China
Higher education (HE) mobility programmes around the globe have been key initiatives over the past thirty years, driven by combinations of supranational and national state-led knowledge economy policies, university strategies, and decisions made by individuals regarding employability, credentials, or academic tourism. In this paper we argue that mobility too often is understood through the prism of internationalism, itself umbilically tied to and…
Re-reading the OECD and education
This article introduces the Special Issue ‘Re-reading the OECD and education: the emergence of a global governing complex’. Its distinctive contribution is related to its dual epistemological aims: to explore how different conceptual lenses and methodological approaches add to our understanding of the OECD as an intergovernmental organisation; and second, to understand the ways in which the strategic activities and priorities of the OECD have bee…
Reform and Reaction in Australian Education
In Australia the "New Right" has made the needs of the economy thecriterion for rationalizing schooling
Taking the Queen's Shilling∗
∗We wish to acknowledge our indebtedness to Eva Cox, Fran Hausfield and Sue Wills whose original paper “Taking the Queen's Shilling: Accepting Social Research Consultancies in the 1970's”, was the source of inspiration for reflection on the links between academic research and social policy in the 1990's
Coordination in Youth Affairs
One of the components associated with the widely heralded shift to ‘new managerialism’ in the public sector has been an increased emphasis on coordination between government departments as a means to enhance effective service provision. This article examines the capacity for coordination to fulfil this objective. Drawing upon a case study of coordination in youth affairs in Western Australia, the article examines the process by which the coordina…
Curriculum fragmentation impedes students’ understanding of technology and the environment
This paper uses secondary school students’ understanding of the technology/environment interface to highlight the problems associated with curriculum fragmentation. It identifies the structure of the school day as a strong factor in forcing students to create boundaries between subjects and implicates the unitization of the curriculum in Western Australia in further strengthening the compartmentalisation of students’ knowledge. It considers ways …
Teacher Activism in the 1990s
Banning Voluntary Labour
We would like to thank our anonymous reviewer for detailed comments on the paper, including a suggested change of title. These have been extremely helpful in refining the paper
Risky business
This article addresses the increasing importance of 'risk' for understanding the changing nature of community governance in New Zealand education. Risk, as a dynamic, is viewed both as a risk mentality arising from a particular attitude toward the future and an administrative tool of government and technology of governance. Drawing upon the 'risk society' hypothesis advanced by Beck, Giddens and Lash and the work of the governmentality theorists,…
Teachers' labour, class and the politics of exchange
In this article questions are raised about the adequacy of our theoretical frameworks for analysing teachers as class workers and actors, and as an occupational group. The problem of adequacy stems from using labour process theory and production relations as the only sphere for determining class location and class relations and in doing so fails to capture the complex way in which class relations are formed. Following Marx, the author observes th…
Gats and the Education Service Industry
One consequence of the hype around globalization and education and debates on global political actors such as the World Bank, IMF and WTO-is that there has not been sufficient attention paid by education theorists to the development of a rigorous set of analytic categories that might enable us to make sense of the profound changes which now characterize education in the new millennium. 1 This is not a problema confined to education. Writing in th…
Local States of Emergency
In the present paper, we argue that neo-liberal governance regimes are deeply contradictory and that these contradictions are increasingly evident within the education sector. Drawing on a case study of the consequences restructuring in education in New Zealand, arguably a paradigm case of neo-liberal governance, we suggest the state is faced with a dilemma about how best to manage these tensions and contradictions within the framework of the pol…
WTO/Gats and the global education services industry
(2003). WTO/GATS and the global education services industry. Globalisation, Societies and Education: Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 259-266
Interview with Robert W. Cox
Interview with Boaventura de Sousa Santos
Boaventura de Sousa Santos is Professor of Sociology, School of Economics, University of Coimbra and Distinguished Legal Scholar, Law School, University of Wisconsin‐Madison. He is also director of
Re‐imagining and rescripting the future of education
Using critical discourse analysis as a methodology for analysis, this paper sets out the nature and form of the challenges directed to the compulsory schooling sector by the knowledge economy that is contained in key policy and related documents put out by the OECD, the World Bank and the UK government. The OECD and the World Bank’s policy agendas are increasingly important in setting policy and programme agendas for the developed and developing …
Absences and imaginings
In his paper ‘Grassroots globalization and the research imagination’, Arjun Appadurai challenges academics to develop ways of researching and engaging with the victims of globalisation. A key objective of Appadurai's is to sketch out the problematic and build up the terrain on which a democratisation of research about globalisation might take place. I argue that in order to proceed in ways that are productive for developing a critical research im…
Brain drain, brain gain and brain circulation
The term ‘brain drain’, popularised in the 1950s with reference to immigration to the United States, has, in the past 10 years, become an important if not controversial political and economic issue
Stirring the lions
In many parts of the world, higher education is viewed as a prime ‘motor’ for the development of a knowledge‐based economy. Under the banner of this ‘new economy’, higher education policies, programmes and practices have been increasingly co‐opted and shaped by wider geo‐strategic political and economic interests. This paper explores three, interlinked, higher education policy spaces – in Europe, the United States, and Australia. It explores how …
Reflections on education, democracy and social change
Making Europe’
It is now commonplace to argue that important aspects of education policymaking and processes are taking place within, as well as beyond, national borders, and that policy itself is produced or med
Education plc. Understanding private sector participation in public sector education
by Stephen Ball, London, Routledge, 2007, 216 pp., £22.99 (paperback), ISBN 0‐41‐539941‐6 What kind of future do we want for education and what role might privatisation and the private sector have
Parcerias público-privadas, empresas digitais e a produção de um espaço educacional neoliberal em escala européia
On-Line Papers – Copyright This online paper may be cited or briefly quoted in line with the usual academic conventions, and for personal use. However, this paper must not be published elsewhere (such as mailing lists, bulletin boards etc.) without the author’s explicit permission. If you copy this paper, you must: • include this copyright note. • not use the paper for commercial purposes or gain in any way. • observe the conventions of academic …
The shifting politics of governance, sovereignty and citizenship
O processo de Bolonha da Europa torna-se global
O artigo examina a interligação progressiva dos espaços da política de educação superior no mundo, focalizando em particular a Europa e o seu projeto de globalização da educação superior, assim como as implicações do mesmo para outras economias nacionais e regionais. O trabalho começa com o Espaço Europeu de Educação Superior, esboçando as principais características do competitivo projeto europeu na educação superior. Apresenta-se como o Processo…
Regulatory regionalism and the governance of higher education
The University of New South Wales (UNSW) in the antipodes is signatory to the European‐based Bologna Process. In taking this step, a senior university official noted that, ‘it is much easier for ou
Goodbye, thank you, and welcome
When we first conceived the possibility of developing and launching Globalisation, Societies and Education and began to think about the critical editorial expertise we might assemble to help launch
Political science (52 works) · Sociology (49 works) · Law (40 works) · Global Educational Policies and Reforms (34 works) · Law (32 works) · Economics (31 works) · Politics (30 works) · Global Education and Multiculturalism (27 works) · Political economy (17 works) · Epistemology (16 works)