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ANNUAL REVIEW OF COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION 2021

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INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON EDUCATION AND SOCIETY

Series Editor: Alexander W. Wiseman

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Series Editor from Volume 11: Alexander W. Wiseman

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INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON EDUCATION AND SOCIETY - VOLUME 42A

ANNUAL REVIEW OF COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION 2021

EDITED BY

ALEXANDER W. WISEMAN

Texas Tech University, USA

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

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Emerald Publishing Limited

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First edition 2022

Editorial matter and selection and Chapter 1 © 2022 Alexander W. Wiseman. Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

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ISBN: 978-1-80262-521-9 (Online)

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ISSN: 1479-3679 (Series)

Contents

About the Volume Editor

Alexander W. Wiseman, Ph.D., is Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy in the College of Education and Director of the Center for Research in Leadership and Education at Texas Tech University, USA. He holds a dual-degree Ph.D. in Comparative and International Education and Educational Theory and Policy from Pennsylvania State University, a M.A. in International Comparative Education from Stanford University, a M.A. in Education from The University of Tulsa, and a B.A. in Letters from the University of Oklahoma. He conducts comparative educational research on educational policy and practice using large-scale education datasets on math and science education, information and communication technology, teacher preparation, professional development and curriculum as well as school principal’s instructional leadership activity. He is the author of many research-to-practice articles and books, and serves as Senior Editor of the online journal, FIRE: Forum for International Research in Education, and as Series Editor for the International Perspectives on Education and Society Volume Series (Emerald Publishing).

About the Authors

Adeela Arshad-Ayaz is an Associate Professor of Educational Studies at the Department of Education, Concordia University. She obtained her Ph.D. from McGill University. In the overall context of neo-liberal globalization, her research examines the intersections of political economy, cultural pluralism, sustainability, citizenship, sociology of technology, hate speech/counter-extremism, and social justice in conjunction with the advancements in interactive technologies. She has published widely in the areas mentioned above. Her research has been funded by agencies including SSHRC, FRQ-SC, and Public Safety Canada and has also been featured in leading newspapers, including Le Devoir. She is the Co-convenor and Co-chair for the Annual International Symposium on Teaching about Extremism, Terror, and Trauma. She is a Fellow of Loyola College for Diversity and Sustainability and Simone de Beauvoir Institute and a member of the Education Innovation Lab at The Global Centre for Pluralism.

M. Ayaz Naseem holds a Ph.D. in Comparative and International Education from McGill University, Montreal. Currently, he is a Professor of Education at Concordia University. His research interests are situated on the cross section of education in pluri-cultural societies, internationalization of higher education, peace education, social media as space for peace education, teaching about extremism, terror, radicalization, and citizenship education. In 2013–2014, he held the First Georg Arnhold Research Professorship on Educating for Sustainable Peace at Georg Eckert Institute in Braunschweig, Germany. He has published widely including six books and over fifty articles and book chapters. His research has been funded by the SSHRC, FRQ-SC, Public Security Canada, Humboldt Foundation (Germany), and Georg Arnhold Foundation (Germany).

Stephen A. Bahry has been a teacher, educator, teacher educator, and researcher in/on Canada, China, and Central Eurasia. His research focuses on policy and practices for quality education in complex multilingual contexts, mainly for non-dominant groups in rural and remote areas of Eurasia (Afghanistan, Central Asia, and northwest China) but also issues affecting immigrant and refugee children and youth in contemporary urban societies such as Toronto, Canada. He has published on education policy, practices, and reform; peace, reconciliation, and community schooling; and language and literacy issues, multilingualism, and plurilingualism in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, northwest China, and Central Asia as a whole, alone and with scholars of Central Asian comparative education, and has recently taught at Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan. In particular, he published with Prof. Niyozov on the role of research in sustainable education reform in Tajikistan. He is currently studying immigrant and refugee children and youth in contemporary urban Toronto, Canada, and is part of a project implemented by Nazarbayev University to explore stakeholders’ perspectives on quality education in schools in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Courtney D. Bailey is an Ed.D. candidate in K-12 Leadership at Bethel University and the Middle School Principal at Cairo American College in Cairo, Egypt. He has 25 years of experience working with students around the world in education, coaching and mentoring. He has worked as an Educator in Toronto, the American School of Kinshasa, DROC, and the International School of Tanganyika. He was the Athletic Director at the International Community School of Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire for eight years and the International School of Phnom Penh, Cambodia as well as Head of Department at the Western Academy of Beijing. He has done consultancy work with the US Marines in Abu Dhabi and Dubai and given a presentation to the African American Diaspora in Cairo, Egypt and at the Junior Model United Nations, in Istanbul, Turkey. The topic of his dissertation focuses on the ways in which international school leaders cope during times of crisis. He is a member of the NESA Middle School Principal Association and the Experienced Principal Summit in Miami, Florida.

Runchana Pam Barger, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of TESOL/Program Director of the English Partnership Programs in the Applied Linguistics and International Department at Wheaton College. She received a US Fulbright Scholar Grant researching and lecturing in the Faculty of Education at Chiang Mai University. Her research focuses on cross-cultural research, internationalization, technology, religion, and gender in education. She is the author of Religious Influences in Thai Female Education (1889–1931). She has also written articles/chapters on “Democratization of Education through Massive Open Online Courses in Asia” and “On Teaching and Learning: Integrative Reflections on Intercultural Competence through Dialogue Education.”

Avis Beek is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada where she teaches in the International Education Studies Program. Her areas of research include international teacher education, education programs for refugee children, and STEM pedagogy. She received her Doctorate in Curriculum and Learning at the University of Calgary with a focus on student international mindedness. Prior to joining the academic community at Laurier, she was a teacher in Nunavut, Malawi, Bahrain, Malaysia, Japan, Greece, and the Czech Republic.

Joshua Beneite-Martí is an Associate Lecturer in the Faculty of Philosophy and Educational Sciences at the University of Valencia. He combines this job with a position as occupational therapist at a functional diversity care center. In 2017, he defended a Doctoral thesis on Ecological Philosophy and has written articles on intergenerational justice, political ecology, ecological ethics, and post-ecological thinking. His work and academic interests focus on international cooperation for educational development, but also encompass questions of philosophy, politics, and bioethics. His greatest pleasure at present is observing the educational process through the eyes of his daughter.

Karen L. Biraimah is a tenured Professor of Comparative Education in the College of Community Innovation and Education at the University of Central Florida (UCF). She also works with UCF Global, where she serves as Campus Liaison for the Fulbright Program. Previously she was a member of the Faculty of Education at the University of Ife, Nigeria and served as a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the University of Malaya, Kenyatta University, Nairobi and the University of Namibia, Windhoek. Prior to these higher education experiences, she served as a peace corps volunteer teacher in Takoradi, Ghana, and later as a social studies and math teacher in the public schools of Detroit, Michigan and Niagara Falls, New York. Her academic and research interests focus on issues of educational equity based on factors of race, ethnicity, class, and gender within the context of comparative and international education. She holds a Doctorate in Comparative and International Education, two Masters’ degrees in Educational Foundations and African Area Studies, and a Bachelor’s degree in International Studies. She is Past-President of the Comparative and International Education Society.

Liyun Wendy Choo is a Professional Teaching Fellow at the Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Auckland. Her research seeks to understand young Myanmar citizens’ citizenship and investigates how Myanmar citizenship is produced. It takes a broad view of education and examines the educative process of citizens beyond formal schooling. She has been working with a Yangon-based NGO Teach for ASEAN since 2017 to develop training programs for the youth volunteers and the English curriculum for T4A’s beneficiaries.

Erwin H. Epstein is Professor Emeritus of Cultural and Educational Policy Studies at Loyola University Chicago and has been a Visiting Professor at universities in Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Brazil, and South Africa. He is a Past President of the Comparative and International Education Society and the World Council of Comparative Education Societies and was for 10 years the Editor of the Comparative Education Review. His research interests include such varied topics as the imposition of US educational policy in the Caribbean after the Spanish–American War, schoolchildren’s sense of nationality in socio-culturally marginal communities, the role of education in globalization and democratization, and theory shifts and boundaries in comparative education. He is the author or editor of scores of books, book chapters, and journal articles. His most recent edited book is North American Scholars of Comparative Education: Examining the Work and Influence of Notable 20th Century Comparativists. He has been a consultant or project reviewer for 26 universities, governmental, and non-governmental organizations in the USA and abroad.

Burcu Erdemir received her B.A. in English Language and Literature from Hacettepe University, M.S. in European Studies from Middle East Technical University (METU), and Ph.D. in Educational Administration and Planning from METU. She worked for many years as an English Language Instructor teaching general and academic English at different universities in Turkey. During her M.S., as a Jean-Monnet scholar, she carried out studies at University of Rome, La Sapienza, and during the Ph.D., as an Erasmus student at UCL, IOE Center for Leadership. She works as an Adjunct Assist. Prof. at METU, Educational Sciences Department, Turkey. She has given two different undergraduate courses on Ethics, and others on Psychological Abuse (Mobbing at Work), and Turkish Education System and School Management, Introduction to Education, and a graduate course on Leadership. She completed her Post-doctoral studies on higher education at New York University, Steinhardt Institute. Her academic interests are on leadership, higher education and educational policies, social justice, equity and access in (higher) education, organizational ethics and culture, and psychological abuse (mobbing) in academia.

Sonia M. Fonua is Papālangi (New Zealand European) and was born and raised in Aotearoa New Zealand. She is married to her Tongan husband and their sons are her inspiration to improve the education system for all Pacific peoples. She has been working in higher education for 20 years, recently completing her Ph.D., Ha’otā: Transforming science education in Aotearoa New Zealand for Tongan students, in Critical Studies in Education within the Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Auckland. Her research interests focus on ethnic disparities in education and embedding Moana/Pacific knowledge and ways of being in science teaching and learning spaces.

Ericka L. Galegher has a Ph.D. in Comparative and International Education from Lehigh University. Using qualitative and quantitative methods, she conducts research on international and private education, internationalization/localization in curricula and education policies, and teacher preparation and education for diverse and marginalized populations. She is a member of a research collaborative focusing on education for refugee and immigrant students and conducts research on host country nationals in international schools. She has a M.A. in Middle East Studies from the American University in Cairo, Graduate Diploma in Secondary Education from the College of New Jersey, and a B.A. in International Affairs from the George Washington University. She has worked in the education sector in Egypt for over 14 years as a teacher, administrator, and researcher. She resides in Egypt as an independent researcher and provides professional development seminars to educators using her research on international schools and humanitarian im/migrants.

Annette Korntheuer, Ph.D., is a Professor for Social Work at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Germany. She has been engaged in various comparative projects on refugee integration in Germany and Canada. She is member of the Executive Board of the German Network for Forced Migration Studies (Netzwerk Fluchtforschung). She did hold a temporary professorship position for inclusion and disability at the University of Kassel and was employed by the City of Munich as Educational Consultant and Coordinator for newcomers. Her research interests relate to equity and social justice in diverse societies and to diversity and intersectionality in social work practice.

Brianna Kurtz is an Assistant Professor of Teacher Education at Mary Baldwin University. She received her Ph.D. in Mathematics Education at the University of Central Florida. Her research interests focus on issues of global and international education, especially within mathematics and statistics. Prior to her Doctoral studies, she was a Mathematics and Statistics Instructor for over a decade at Daytona State College. She has a variety of experiences in the international sector, having presented her research on three continents on issues regarding mathematics and statistics education. A Fulbright-Hays Program participant, she traveled to Botswana and Namibia to investigate the meaningful integration of statistical information across the curriculum in government schools. She has received specialized training in international diplomacy through the United Nations Intensive Summer Institute, sponsored by UNA–USA and Seton Hall University. She is a two-time recipient of a TriO Excellence in Instruction award for her work with first-generation college students and served as the Co-Principal Investigator on a National Science Foundation Grant to fund underrepresented populations in their first two years of their collegiate STEM field pursuits. Her publications can be found in state and international journals.

Neema Landey is a second year Ph.D. student in Education, at Concordia University. Her specialization is in Educational Studies. Her research interests include girls and women studies, education inequalities, adolescent’s reproductive health, and HIV/AIDS. Her primary research focuses on girl’s participation in formal education among the Maasai communities from Tanzania. Her research uses young girls’ personal stories to investigate social-cultural practices that hinder their participation in formal education. In her research, she is using feminist theory and ethnographic approach to ensure girls’ voices are heard. She is also interested in exploring the linkages between gender inequalities, education, and empowerment among the pastoralist communities in Tanzania. By examining whether the power of positive change in a community can emerge from women and girls formal learning in the process of ensuring self empowerment. She holds M.Sc. in Rural development from Van Hall Larenstein, University of Applied Science, The Netherlands, and also a M.S. in Global Health Policy and Management from Brandeis University, USA.

Giang Nguyen Hoang Le is currently a Doctoral candidate in the Joint Ph.D. in Educational Studies Program at Brock University, Canada. In 2015, at Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia, he earned his first Master’s degree in English as a second language. After this first graduate degree, he decided to return to Vietnam and became a college Lecturer in English language education at a Vietnamese teachers’ training college. In 2018, he completed a Master of Education (M.Ed.) at Thompson Rivers University, British Columbia, Canada. He was granted full funding to pursue his Ph.D. in Educational Studies at Brock University right after his M.Ed. His research interests cover in/equity in international education with a focus on international students in global contexts, visual autoethnography in educational research, queer theory, queer performances in school spaces, global celebrity influencers, and English language teaching in an era of globalization and neoliberalism. His publishing record includes Transitions: Journal of Transient Migration, APA Journal of Traumatology, and Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies, book chapters with Sense and Routledge, and presentations at international conferences, including the American Educational Research Association and Canadian Society for the Study of Education.

Joe Tin-Yau Lo is an Adjunct Associate Professor at The Education University of Hong Kong. He has published extensively in the areas of comparative education, social science education, history education, citizenship education, and China studies. His recent publications have appeared in Comparative Education, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, The Pacific Review, Research in Comparative and International Education, Chinese Education and Society, Research in Social Education Series, Routledge Research in International and Comparative Education Series, among others.

Larissa Malone, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the University of Southern Maine in the Teacher Education Department. She earned a Doctorate in Cultural Foundations of Education from the School of Foundations, Leadership, and Administration at Kent State University, a M.A. from Walsh University, and a B.A. in International Studies from Case Western Reserve University. She also holds a Primary Teacher Certification from the American Montessori Internationale and taught early childhood and early elementary grades, as well as served as an administrator in a bilingual community-based school, before joining the ranks of higher education. A critical race theorist, her research centers on the minoritized experience in schooling, inclusive of students, parents, and teachers. She is particularly interested in how the marginalized navigate educational institutions, identity development, and race and religion in schools. Her aim in her research, praxis, and service is toward creating educational spaces that are more equitable.

Alex McCormick, PhD, leads the Masters of Education (International Stream) at the University of Sydney, and works as a Researcher and Lecturer, coordinating and teaching comparative and international education undergraduate and Masters units, foundation courses in the sociology of education and international development studies. Her primary research, as a Consultant and at the University, is into multi-level education policy processes globally, with a focus on actors and activities in South East Asian and Pacific contexts. Her work has been framed and informed by her mixed, “pluri-local” background, and insights from critical globalization theories, with decolonial, postcolonial, and feminist approaches and theories. Alex holds a Masters degree in International Studies and taught in primary and secondary schools and non-school education contexts in Australia, China, and Japan, prior to joining the University in 2008.

Dania Mohamad is a first-year Ph.D. student in Education at Concordia University. She is specializing in Educational Studies, with her main research interests being power relations between Global North and South, decolonial theory, and women’s ways of knowing and education. For her Ph.D. work, she is interested in evaluating the impact of Northern, primarily Canadian, educational aid on the Southern women. She is using critical theory, pedagogy, and critical development studies through a feminist lens to raise and answer questions on the Global South holding the Global North accountable for international development projects targeting women’s empowerment. She has published two peer-reviewed articles and has presented at several conferences including Comparative and International Education Society.

Darshini Nadarajan is a doctoral researcher at the University of Oxford who is interested in scholarship that interrogates and problematizes the production of knowledge and power within the intersection of gender, race, and class. Her research interests are influenced by her diverse educational experiences from the East and the West. Prior to coming to Oxford, she was a Teacher Educator for the Ministry of Education Malaysia where she trained in-service English language teachers, designed and developed face-to-face and blended language courses, edited policy blueprints, as well as wrote speeches for Ministers. She graduated from Macquarie University, Australia with a B.Ed. TESOL and was subsequently awarded a Fulbright scholarship where she majored in Creative Writing and American Literature at Michigan State University. She then read her Masters in both TESOL from the University of Nottingham Malaysia and Educational Leadership and Management from the National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan.

Sarfaroz Niyozov is an Associate Professor of Curriculum Studies and Teacher Development, and Comparative, International and Development Education at OISE, University of Toronto. He has (co)authored or edited over 70 articles, chapters, books, editorials, and reviews on teaching, education reform in post-Soviet and developing countries context and on the education of marginalized communities in Canada. He teaches courses on cross-cultural teacher development, religious education, comparative education, and researching in the Global South and has held a number of leadership positions at OISE (Co-chair of Curriculum and Pedagogy Program of CTL, July 2019–present), Director of the Institute for Educational Development at the Aga Khan University, and Co-director of CIDE Program (2013–2019), an Acting Associate Dean, Academic Program (2021–present). He leads and co-leads education interest groups at OISE (South Asia Education, Muslim Education, and Central Eurasia Education) and is on the Steering Committee of the World Congress of Comparative, International Education Societies. His most recent publications include co-edited volumes: Learning from Implementation of Education Reforms in Pakistan: Implications for Policy and Practice, Oxford University Press (2018); Education Policies in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, Lexington Books (2017); Globalization in the Margins. Education and Post-Colonialist Transformations in Central Asia, IAP Publishing (2020), and Critical Perspectives on Islamic Education, Special Issue, Religions, 2020.

Suyan Pan is an Associate Professor at the Department of Social Sciences, The Education University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include higher education, international relations, citizenship education, and China studies in the comparative contexts. Her publications have appeared in Comparative Education, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, Oxford Review of Education, The Pacific Review, Journal of Studies in International Education, Higher Education Policy, Citizenship Studies, Routledge Research in International and Comparative Education Series, among others.

Wenxin Qi is a graduate student in the Institute of International and Comparative Education, Beijing Normal University. Her main research area is international education, including the internationalization of basic education, teacher development in international schools, and curriculum construction in international schools.

Leon Roets is the Program Convener of the Postgraduate Program of Social and Behavior Studies (HIV/AIDS) within the Department of Sociology and the University of South Africa. He is also Project Leader of Tirisano Collaboration and Community Engagement projects focusing on advocating for diversity, inclusion, and well-being within the ODeL University. He is a member of NADESO, Sociology Association of South Africa, and several other national and African education and research association. He has a Masters degree in Sociology and is busy pursuing a Ph.D. in Public Health focusing on men’s health. He has received a teaching and learning award in 2019 for most innovative teaching and sits on several research ethics committees.

Guillermo Ramón Ruiz is Senior Professor at the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina) of Theories of Education and Politics of Education, and Researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina (CONICET). He holds a PhD in Education from the University of Buenos Aires and M.A. in Education from the University of California Los Angeles; he was a Fulbright Scholar. He conducts comparative education research on educational policies, mainly on the right to education. He is author of several articles and books, and he has served as Senior Editor of the Latin American Review of Comparative Education and of the Foro de Education Journal. His current research work centers on educational reforms with specific interests in policy transfer, and the role of State in reproducing and challenging educational and social inequality at the secondary education and at the teacher education.

Rebecca Spratt is from Aotearoa-New Zealand and is a Researcher-Practitioner with 20 years’ experience in international aid policy and programming in the Pacific region. Her research interests are in education aid and development cooperation explored from a decolonial perspective, and the relations between forms and spaces of educational governance, practices, and subjectivities. She holds a Masters’ degree in Development Studies from University of Auckland and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Australian Catholic University.

Jun Teng is Professor and Associate Director of the Institute of International and Comparative Education, Beijing Normal University; Finance Committee Member of WCCES; Assistant Secretary General of CESA; and Secretary General of CCES. She has long been engaged in comparative education research. Her main research areas include international organization and global education governance, 21st century skills, global competencies, and international schools. She maintains close exchanges and cooperation with UNESCO, the World Bank, the United States, Finland, and other countries. She has hosted and participated more than 30 international, national, and provincial projects and published more than 80 papers in peer reviewed journals. Her Doctoral dissertation, “The Discourse Evolution of UNESCO’s Education Policy,” was nominated for the 2012 National Outstanding Doctoral Thesis and her latest monograph, Preparing to Work in International Organizations, was published by Shanghai Education Press in 2018.

Stefan Thomas (Ph.D. and Dipl.-Psych.) is Professor of Social Research Methods and Social Work at the Department of Social and Educational Sciences at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, Germany. He has a broad experience in conducting research in the field of migration, youth, and education combining quantitative, qualitative, and participatory methods. He combines participatory action research with a citizen science perspective.

Trang Le Thuy is currently a Doctoral student at the School of Education, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. Prior to that, she works as a Full-time Lecturer of English Department at Ho Chi Minh City University of Education, Vietnam. She obtained a Master’s degree with distinction in Applied Linguistics from the Australian institution, Curtin University, in 2015. She has presented in various international TESOL and educational conferences such as TESL Ontario 2018 Conference in Canada, International Mobile Learning Festival Conference in 2017, International Conference on Applied Linguistics and Language Teaching in 2016, 14th Annual International TESOL Conference in Philippines in 2015, and TESOL Regional Conference in Singapore in the same year. Besides, she also has an accepted paper in AERA annual conference in the USA, along with a published paper on international education journal in 2021. Her professional interests lie in international and comparative education, curriculum and pedagogies, and intercultural competence development.

Vuong Tran is currently the lecturer at HUTECH University. He is a Doctoral student in the Ph.D. Education Sustainability at Nipissing University, Ontario, Canada. He earned his first Master of Business Administration at Webster University, Missouri, USA, in 2013. He then returned to Vietnam, worked in the financial industry for financial institutions, and became a Part-time Lecturer for universities in Vietnam. In 2019, he accomplished a Master of Education (M.Ed.) at Thompson Rivers University, British Columbia, Canada. His M.Ed. graduation research project focused on financial literacy education for international students in Canada. He was offered Ontario Graduate Scholarships to pursue his Ph.D. in Education Sustainability at Nipissing University in 2020. His research interests lie in international and comparative education, equity and inclusion for education, social justice, gender and sexual minorities equity, and financial literacy education. He has published articles in the Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies, OCUFA’S Journal of Higher Education, and Journal of Comparative and International Higher Education. He also has accepted papers at international conferences, including the American Educational Research Association, Canadian Society for the Study of Education, and Gender, Citizenship and Ethnicity Conference.

Eliška Walterová has more than 50 years of professional experience in education working with research and university-based education programs, professional associations, and teachers in schools. She contributed to the transformation process in Czech education and associated political strategies. She is a Professor at the Faculty of Education, Charles University in Prague, and a member of the Institute for Research and Development of Education and its former Head. Her areas of expertise concern comparative education, education policy, school education, curriculum development, and teacher profession. She completed study stays and lecturing at universities in Finland, the Netherlands, and other countries. She is also frequently an invited speaker at conferences. She is a member of the WCCES Executive Board, a member of seven scientific boards, and a member of five editorial boards of educational journals. She was recognized by the Czech Republic Ministry of Education (2018) for important contributions to educational science. Her selected publications include: Curriculum: Changes and Trends in International Perspective (1994), Dictionary of Education (7 editions), Comparative Education: Development and Changes in Global Context (2006), Education – (non) public matter? (2010), Two Worlds of Basic School (2011), School Education in Russia (2013), and School Education in China (2021).

Zhiyong Zhang is a Professor and the Executive Director of the China Education Policy Research Institute, Beijing Normal University. He served as National Inspector of Ministry of Education and Vice President of the Chinese Society of Education (CSE). He also serves as a member of the National Education Examination Steering Committee, Deputy Director of the Basic Education Teaching Steering Committee, Director of the Family Education Professional Committee of the Ministry of Education, member of the National Teacher Education Expert Advisory Committee, member of the Teacher Professional Certification Expert Committee of the Ministry of Education, Director of High School New Curriculum Implementation Expert Committee of CSE, and Chairman of the Branch Committee of Moral Education of Primary and Secondary Schools of CSE. He is mainly devoted to the research area of education policy and education governance, basic education reform, and teacher team construction.

Preface

The Annual Review of Comparative and International Education 2021 documents, explores, and interrogates many of the most important and complex phenomena in the field of comparative and international education. Likewise, the period leading up to 2021 and following it marks some of the most devastating as well as innovative educational change in the modern era worldwide. The COVID-19 pandemic dominated the landscape of global education, as well as every other sector, in 2020, but in 2021 the pandemic ebbed and flowed in ways that at times suggested the move to a more endemic phase and at other times surged anew with different variants of the virus and changing attitudes, politics, and science related to ways that students, educators, community stakeholders, and advocates for education and development worldwide were able to interact with one another both in and out of the formal education environment.

In addition, 2021 sits at the intersection of more traditional and often discriminatory attitudes and behaviors related to race and gender and more progressive and all-encompassing perspectives, which rival some of the most significant changes in perspectives on race and gender seen in the past 100 years. These shifts are marked by the ongoing “me too” movement, which recognizes the role of gender discrimination and (dis)advantage in every sector, including education. But, the racism of politics, industry, and society, which is often embedded in educational organizations, policies, and practices, was also highly visible in 2021 through the polemics in political systems governing education worldwide as well as the energies and outcomes of race and ethnicity visible in ongoing refugee, asylee, and immigrant crises broadly speaking and in relation to education, in particular. Further still, the role of race and gender in education worldwide was even further politicized in 2021 in the curricular debates that have arisen around issues such as critical race theory and other ways of understanding the histories and activities that both comprise and reflect the values and norms of society through education.

As such, the 2021 volume of the Annual Review of Comparative and International Education comparatively examines the intersections of the pandemic, racial and gender inequality, and political influences on education both between and within educational systems worldwide. Not surprisingly, there is a lot to observe and examine about comparative and international education in 2021. This has resulted in a first for the Annual Review of Comparative and International Education. This year’s annual review is divided into two full volumes. This volume, Volume A, begins with an examination of broad trends and directions in the field of comparative and international education, especially those related to the COVID-19 pandemic, racial and gender inequality, and the political polemics of education. Volume A then continues and concludes with several deep comparative and international examinations of area studies and regional developments in educational practice as well as impact. A second volume, Volume B, closely examines the conceptual and methodological directions that research in comparative and international education followed in 2021, investigates the application of comparative and international education research to practice in both global as well as local contexts, and concludes with an examination of several new developments in comparative and international education.

Volume A of the Annual Review of Comparative and International Education addresses some of the larger issues in 2021, including the intersection of the pandemic, race, and gender in Larissa Malone and Pam Barger’s investigation of the syndemic of these phenomena from cultural comparative perspectives. This is closely connected to the emphasis that several chapters reflect on forced migration. The phenomenon of forced migration and its impact on education worldwide is examined as an ongoing trend and direction in the field of comparative and international education in two research essays. The first of which by Annette Korntheuer and Stefan Thomas looks at refugee youth participation in Germany’s VET system, while the second by Avis Beek examines the intersection of refugee education with the simultaneously morphing educational landscape due to COVID-19.

The research and discussion essays presented in Volume A, however, are largely dedicated to the continuing and transformational impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education. Ericka L. Galegher and Courtney D. Bailey look closely at the challenges of reopening schools during the global pandemic, with a particular focus on ways that international schools approached this contentious policy-to-practice dilemma. Eliška Walterová examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in schools, especially in Eastern Europe and the Czech Republic as its effects were both mitigated and exacerbated by formal education policies, public expectations regarding schooling, and political or policy messaging and decision-making at the national and even international levels. Joe Tin-Yau Lo and Suyan Pan reflected on the ways that the pandemic affected the internationalization of higher education with a special focus on international higher education within the broader global context. M. Ayaz Naseem, Adeela Arshad-Ayaz, Dania Mohamad, and Neema Landey investigate the ways the citizenship education is both an integral component of surviving the pandemic, but also an area of education that is neglected and disadvantaged by the ways that the pandemic influences political socialization as well as the incorporation of individuals into social, economic, and cultural communities. Darshini Nadarajan examines the “zombification” of education policy as a result of the pandemic, especially in ways that influence teachers.

A special and important focus on the role and effect of race and ethnicity in both comparative and international education research and practice is examined by Erwin H. Epstein’s discussion essay on school choice and equality. This focus serves as an appropriate lead in to several discussion essays that deeply examine the field of comparative and international education within the broader pandemic, race, and gender contexts of 2021, such as Liyun Wendy Choo’s reflection on the nexus of research and practice in comparative and international education, Sonia M. Fonua, Alex McCormick, and Rebecca Spratt’s examination of the challenges and promises of the challenges and promises of becoming CIE practitioner-researchers in Oceania, and finally Vuong Tran, Giang Nguyen Hoang Le, and Trang Le Thuy’s introspective and contemplative reflections on their own international and transnational educational shifts as Vietnamese doctoral students.

The second half of Volume A focuses on area studies and regional developments in the field of comparative and international education. Sarfaroz Niyozov and Stephen A. Bahry focus on the ways that Tajikistan reflects the intersection of policy, research, and practice both in the nation-state specifically, but in Central Asia more broadly. Burcu Erdemir investigates higher education policies for Syrian refugees in Turkey. Joshua Beneite-Martí explains how education, colonialism, and necropolitics intersect in West Papua. Guillermo Ramón Ruiz interrogates the “right to education” in South American countries through a constitutional lens. Brianna Kurtz, Leon Roets, and Karen L. Biraimah reveal the ongoing resegregation of education by race and ethnicity both in post-desegregation USA and post-apartheid South Africa. And, Zhiyong Zhang, Jun Teng, and Wenxin Qi provide a detailed overview of the shift to online learning in China during the pandemic, which reveals both the challenges of a nationwide safety mandate as well as its implications for teaching and learning in a large national education system.

These research essays, discussion essays, and in-depth chapters provide both an overview of the challenges presented to comparative and international education in 2021, but also the ways that these challenges both mirrored earlier and ongoing inequalities as well as provided unique solutions to facilitate increased learning and improved access to quality education worldwide. In other words, the story of education in 2021 is complex and reflects both the best and the worst that education may have to offer, but the authors in Volume A of the Annual Review of Comparative and International Education 2021 have provided an insightful window in to the year’s challenges and promises.

Alexander W. Wiseman

Series Editor