Robin Shields

• PhD in Education (UCLA)
• Professor at University of Bristol

Understanding how today’s children will act in the future is essential to education supporting sustainable development. This study investigated how students in three contexts in Nepal, Peru and Uganda understand environmental, epistemic and transitional justice. It used a tablet-based app to present students with scenarios that illustrates differen...

In 2021, UNESCO released the report Reimagining our Futures Together: A New Social Contract for Education (International Commission on the Futures of Education, 2021). Using the year 2050 as a horizon, the report seeks to establish a vision for education within a shared future for humanity and proposes a “new social contract” centred on cooperation...

This paper examines the link between decentralisation in school management and student achievement levels in secondary schools in India. It employs observational data from two school surveys conducted as part of the Young Lives project in the southern Indian states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh to create a measure of decentralisation as a latent...

The rapid growth of international student mobility has attracted much research on the many benefits it offers to students, higher education institutions, and societies in general. However, studies on the costs and potential tribulations caused by mobility are comparatively rare, despite increasing evidence of such costs inherent in the marketizatio...

Information sharing is a frequently discussed yet divisive suicide prevention strategy in universities. This study aimed to investigate which students are most and least likely to opt-in to university permission to notify an emergency contact if there are serious concerns about their mental health. Routine cross-sectional data were obtained from 29...

The rise of international mobility is particularly apparent in higher education, where the movement of faculty, researchers and students This chapter discusses the drivers and impacts of academic mobility in international higher education. It considers mobility broadly as an integral part of international education and contemporary higher education...

Comparative and international education (CIE) claims to be an interdisciplinary field embracing a diversity in methodologies and theoretical perspectives. Over the years, there has been an expansion in the range of theoretical perspectives employed in scholarship, as new scholars bring with them interests, expertise and positionalities. Our analysi...

This paper presents a social network analysis of partnerships in refugee education and shows how relationships between organisations change in response to multiple crises, including political and economic crises, disaster, and COVID-19. We draw insights from an original database of 440 state and nonstate entities engaged in Syria refugee education...

Abstract This paper outlines the conceptual approach to environmental justice used in the JustEd project. It concentrates on how two approaches – the anthropocentric and the eco-centric approach – conceptualize environmental justice in different terms, and the implications these two approaches hold for education policy and practice globally. It als...

Policy discourses posit an accountability deficit as an underlying cause of a “learning crisis” in many low-income countries. Many studies understand this perceived deficit from a principal-agent perspective, arguing that incentives facing teachers and schools often do not align to the interests of parents and students. Such perspectives underlie m...

This handbook surveys the central theories in comparative and international education (CIE). Each chapter includes an overview of the theory including its history and development, references to examples where the theory has been applied in CIE research and practice, and suggestions for further reading. Written by leading scholars from the USA, the...

Both innovation and quality assurance are prominent concerns in higher education institutions but research is ambiguous with respect to the relationship between quality assurance and innovation. Specifically, it is unclear whether quality assurance supports innovation or, conversely, acts as a hindrance. As a relatively new innovation, massive open...

The relative importance of educational qualifications and cognitive skills forms an enduring debate in research on education and the labour market. While early work in human capital theory essentially equated qualifications and skills, signalling and screening theories provided a more nuanced distinction between the two, highlighting the importance...

This paper seeks to empirically evaluate the association of decentralization of education systems and student achievement. It employs PISA (2015) data to perform multilevel analysis for each and every participating country. Decentralization effects are estimated on the imputed scores of mathematics after controlling for various student-level and sc...

This chapter discusses how social justice is related to education in the labor market. While seldom considered in literature on education for social justice, the role of education in developing skills raises challenging questions. On the one hand, many understandings of fairness would permit an individual who has undertaken advanced levels of educa...

Much literature discusses higher education as an agent for sustainable development, but the extent to which higher education contributes to unsustainable economic and social systems receives less attention. This paper examines the environmental impacts of international student mobility in higher education. Combining several datasets, the paper pres...

The expansion of higher education enrollment and attainment is a key uncertainty in the education profile of future populations. Many studies have examined cross-national determinants of higher education expansion as well the understanding of expansion through the relationship between higher education and the labor market. Early work established a...

This study examines the construction and meaning of International Baccalaureate (IB) schools as manifested by schools in four locations: Chicago, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, and the United Arab Emirates. Through analysis of schools’ websites, we identify three major approaches towards constructing the schools’ image: globally acknowledged quality,...

This study examines the construction and meaning of international education as manifested by IB schools in four locations: Chicago, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, and the United Arab Emirates. Through analysis of schools’ websites, we identify three major approaches towards constructing schools’ image: globally acknowledged quality, moral global citiz...

Theoretical literature on institutions emphasizes the importance of logics – shared rationalizations – in determining many aspects of organizations. In this literature, universities are often discussed as an example of an institution with a particularly strong and cohesive logic, one rooted in notions of academic excellence and the pursuit of unive...

The potential influence of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on higher education institutions is much discussed and debated, with some arguing that MOOCs are a disruptive innovation that will radically change existing models of higher education. However, analyses of whether and how MOOCs might disrupt higher education models are relatively scarce...

Rooted in the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid effectiveness, contemporary discourses on bilateral aid emphasize partnership, coordination, and allocation of aid according to recipients’ need. While aid to education is a key theme in literature on education for international development, systematic studies of aid flows in the education sector are very...

Following the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, international development policy discourses have focused on partnership as an overarching principle. With a focus on participation and non-hierarchical relationships, new partnerships aim to reconstitute the aid relationship in a way that obviates power inequality and hegemony. However, emp...

This paper investigates differences in higher education outcomes according to the qualifications with which students enter university. The study is situated in the context of increasing marketization, competition and privatization in post-16 qualifications, combined with an increase in students entering higher education with either vocational quali...

OpenCases is a study which is part of the OpenEdu Project. It is a qualitative study consisting of a review of literature on open education and nine in-depth case studies of higher education institutions, a consortium of universities, a private organisation and a national initiative. It analysed the rationale and enabling conditions for involvement...

This article contributes to a better understanding of the social acceptance of the investment model of volunteering, i.e. the view that volunteering can enhance employability through the development of professionally relevant knowledge and competences. Based on the analysis of Eurobarometer data, the article explores: (1) the prevalence of the inve...

Much research on higher education has discussed the positional competition induced by global rankings and the complementary concept of “world-class” universities. This paper investigates the network of social media communication between globally ranked universities. Specifically, it examines whether universities seek to preserve and reproduce statu...

This paper presents a longitudinal analysis of cross-national data on armed conflict, state fragility, and enrolment in primary and secondary schooling. The study is motivated by questions raised in the 2012 Human Security Report, which challenges the widely held assumption that conflict is necessarily detrimental to educational outcomes. We use mu...

This paper reports the findings from a small-scale exploratory study that investigated how moving-image narratives might enable children to develop transferable reading comprehension strategies. Using short, animated, narrative films, 28 primary-aged children engaged in a 10-week programme that included the explicit instruction of comprehension str...

Over the past decade, research on higher education has increasingly utilized networks as a conceptual approach for understanding contemporary policy and practice. This perspective shifts the focus of analysis from atomic units of study (whether individuals, institutions or governments) to the links that connect them, adding a new layer of complexit...

This paper examines international student mobility between member states of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), a group of 47 countries that committed to reforming their higher education systems to improve the comparability and compatibility of degrees. While increased student mobility is a key goal in its official documents, little research...

This article analyzes changes to the network of international student mobility in higher education over a 10-year period (1999–2008). International student flows have increased rapidly, exceeding 3 million in 2009, and extensive data on mobility provide unique insight into global educational processes. The analysis is informed by three theoretical...

Globalization and International Education introduces key international issues in education and considers the changes in education stemming from the rapid social, economic and cultural transformations associated with globalization. Grounded in a strong conceptual, theoretical framework, this accessible text will guide the reader through this evolvin...

The use of information and communications technology (ICT) for education in developing countries has been a subject of great interest and speculation, with its proponents arguing that ICT improves educational quality, develops critical thinking skills, expands access, increases economic competitiveness and facilitates inclusion in a rapidly expandi...

Bangalore, India, has become an icon of globalization and the rise of the knowledge economy. Virtually every major technology company has opened an office there, seeking to capitalize on the large supply of highly skilled labor that remains relatively inexpensive by global standards. In a juxtaposition of old and new, foreign executives stay in fiv...

This paper examines information access in Nepal, its current limitations, and opportunities for expansion, particularly in rural areas. It argues that government policies and the regulatory environment have failed to create the competition necessary for rapid expansion of information access through information and communication technologies (ICTs),...

This paper investigates the relationship between educational policy, equity, and national development in Nepal. It argues that current inequities in educational opportunities and outcomes are largely attributable to persistent inequities and biases in the educational policy framework. We begin by surveying the complex, multifaceted reality of educa...

A violent conflict between Maoist insurgents and the national government has engulfed Nepal for most of the last decade, a situation that has been complicated by deep-seated instability at the highest levels of the government itself. Even with the declaration of a ceasefire in 2006, violence endures in pockets of lawless banditry and unrest at the...