National and World-System Explanations of Educational Reform

Since the mid-1970s in every region of the world we have witnessed extensive rhetoric and activity identified as "educational reform" in nations characterized as "developed" and "developing," as "capitalist" and "socialist," and as "democratic" and "totalitarian."' This is not to suggest that educational reform is only a recent phenomenon; indeed, such rhetoric and activity has a long, if not always remembered, history.2 Nor is it to posit that what has been labeled "educational reform" is always concerned with changing, let alone improving, education. Rather, as the quotation marks indicate, the practices, purposes, and consequences of "educational reform" must be treated as problematic, worthy of investigation and deconstruction.3 Thus, in this article we seek to enhance our understanding of phenomena that have been subsumed under the rubric of "educational reform."

自20世纪70年代中期以来，在世界各个地区，我们目睹了在被称为“发达”和“发展中”、“资本主义”和“社会主义”以及“民主”和“极权”的国家中，存在大量被认定为“教育改革”的言论和活动。这并不是说教育改革只是近期才出现的现象；实际上，这类言论和活动有着悠久的历史，尽管人们并不总是能记起。也不是说被贴上“教育改革”标签的事物总是与改变教育有关，更不用说改进教育了。相反，正如引号所表明的，“教育改革”的实践、目的和后果必须被视为有问题的，值得研究和解构。因此，在本文中，我们试图增进对被归入“教育改革”范畴的现象的理解。