Externalisation and legitimacy in policy transfer
A case of standards for school leaders
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11920925 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Wei Wei (0000-0003-1852-2811, Research Institute for Education and Technology, Hitevision Co., Ltd, Beijing, Chaoyang, China, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 54 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 222-240 |
| Publication date | 2022-06-28 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Compare A Journal of Comparative and International Education (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0305-7925 • E-ISSN: 1469-3623 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/03057925.2022.2093158 |
| OpenAlex | W4283705239 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 38 |
There has been a transnational policy convergence in introducing professional standards for school leaders, and it constitutes a dominant discourse on school leadership. Focusing on the adoption of external references in policy transfer, this article presents a case in which the global leadership discourse was transferred to China, and the Chinese leadership policy was in turn used by the World Bank to promote the dissemination of its agenda. Proposing three types of external references (the dominant, comparison, and excellence), I conclude that policy actors strategically select the types of references depending on their self-positionalities and relationships with others. Driven by discourses that are embedded in specific contexts, comparative rankings are interpreted differently to justify respective policy agendas. This article also highlights the way in which a leadership policy from China was referenced by the World Bank to produce legitimacy as an unexpected consequence of policy transfer
China · Convergence (economics · Economic growth · Economics · Excellence · Legitimacy · Policy analysis · Policy transfer · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Sociology · Evaluation and Performance Assessment · Global Educational Policies and Reforms · Law · Policy Transfer and Learning · Public Administration
Postmodernism and Education
Seven strong claims about successful school leadership
Spatial Theorizing in Comparative and International Education Research
Confucianism, Chinese Families, and Academic Achievement
Discipline and Punish
The Chinese Model of Teacher Education
Crisis as a discursive legitimation strategy in educational reforms
Education Policy Borrowing
Pisa and education reform in Shanghai
The cultural production of the ‘quality citizen’
The ‘new Orientalism’
The knowledge-based versus student-centred debate on quality education
Developing a model of instructional leadership in China
Pisa, policy and persuasion
Governing by numbers
Confucius and the Moral Basis of Bureaucracy
Leaderism’
Jumping to Conclusions—The Pisa Knee-Jerk
Rule by Man" and "Rule by Law" in Early Republican China
The cultural politics of discourse on school leadership
| Citations per year | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |