Tore Bernt Sørensen

University of Glasgow | UofG · School of Education

Based on a scoping review of anglophone, peer-reviewed studies published in the period 1990–2018, we analyze and discuss the research literature on teachers, teaching, and globalization. Distinguishing between three categories of globalization theories, centered on (i) culture, (ii) political economy, and (iii) flows and systems, we trace the uses...

This article serves as an introduction to a Special Issue focusing on the nature, trajectories, and boundaries of contemporary European Union (EU) education governance. The Special Issue comprises four papers, which draw on original empirical research and employ different theoretical outlooks and methodologies. This introductory article situates th...

This exploratory paper contributes to the literature on European Union (EU) soft governance by discussing the recent EU policy initiative “Erasmus+ Teacher Academies” as a case of experimentalist governance. Asking what makes this initiative a case of experimentalist governance, the paper demonstrates how it constitutes an experiment in terms of go...

The World Yearbook of Education 2025 analyzes teacher policies and the governance of the teaching profession in the contemporary context of major societal changes and globalizing processes. The first volume dedicated to an overview of globalized teacher policies and their implications for the status of the teaching profession across the world, this...

Concerned with European Union (EU) governance of teachers since the mid-2000s, this paper makes an empirical as well as theoretical contribution to education policy studies in the context of EU governance. Drawing on neo-institutional field theory and an empirical material of policy documents and interviews, the paper analyses the consolidation and...

This paper traces the development of the European Sectoral Social Dialogue in Education since its launch in 2010 and situates it within the context of European Union (EU) governance. The paper adopts a public policy perspective and Ashley Jochim and Peter May’s framework for analysing boundary-spanning policy regimes. Based on critical discourse an...

While much attention has been paid to European policy arrangements in individual policy fields, European intersectoral policy coordination has been mostly an overlooked phenomenon, especially within the sectors of education and employment. Thus, in the introductory paper for this Special Issue, we offer a contemporary discussion of European interse...

This chapter serves as an introduction to the section “Globalization and Teacher Education” in The Palgrave Handbook of Teacher Education Research. The aim of the chapter, and the Handbook section overall, is to demonstrate the pertinence of the concept of globalization in making sense of contemporary developments in teacher education and thereby g...

Corona and distance learning have boosted technology and shadow education worldwide. The EU is incapable of intervening and encourages private influence without regard to long-term consequences. This is the English language manuscript for the article "Wie stopt macht van de markt?" published in the Dutch education magazine Didactief, 51(9), pp. 15...

Recent decades have seen a surge in the research literature concerning teachers and teaching in comparative, international and global contexts. Comparative Education Review has been one of the main publication venues for this burgeoning scholarship, and we are very pleased to present this special section in the pages of this journal. The section co...

Final report from the project "Social dialogue and industrial relations in education: the challenges of multi-level governance and of privatisation in Europe". The project (2020-2021) was funded by the European Commission Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, and it was coordinated by European Trade Union Committee for E...

POST-PRINT (FINAL ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT) AVAILABLE ON PERSONAL WEBSITE www.toresorensen.eu 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...

Este artigo examina o papel fundamental da Organização para a Cooperação e Desenvolvimento Econômico (OCDE) em coordenar as ações do problema da "qualidade dos professores" para a competitividade global, e o trabalho político em curso exercido pela OCDE e instituições aliadas na promoção da marca Professor de Qualidade™, por meio de uma pesquisa co...

The article provides an explanatory critique of the engagement of Education International in the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), a programme coordinated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Drawing on research interviews, I adopt the framework advocated by Isabela and Norman Fairclough for analysing pol...

Drawing on Marion Fourcade’s notion of ordinalization, we develop a conceptual grammar of comparison to explain a shift in the nature and outcomes of the governing capacity of the OECD over time. We argue that comparison as a mode of governance has been bound into the DNA of the OECD as a lever for advancing political liberalism since the inception...

This chapter addresses the politics of the reframing of how teachers are governed globally and the implications of the reconfiguring of power. The Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) has developed and implemented a Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) and it focuses on teachers' work and school leadership and...

The guiding question for the panel include three key phrases: "personalizing learning", "future of public education", and "global culture of competitive comparison". My entry point is the latter notion of competitive comparison which I would argue captures the nature of contemporary education governance in many respects. Subsequently, I seek to bri...

The teaching profession has been the subject of international political debates for decades, though until more recently, this was largely around the conditions of work in sub/national settings and in relation to those agencies that might ensure teacher professionalism. The argument put by international organizations such as the World Bank (2012), t...

The aim of this special issue, “Global Perspectives on High-Stakes Teacher Accountability Policies”, is to provide insights into a diverse set of policies focusing on teachers’ accountability, including the underpinning ideas and cultural and socio-economic contexts of these policies, as well as their effects on teachers’ work, the teaching profess...

This paper presents and engages with Basil Bernstein’s rich conceptual grammar in order to generate a sociological account of the outcomes for teachers’ work, identity and social class, of strategic shifts in governance to the global scale. Our aim is to develop a two-way conversation between Bernstein’s conceptual grammar and how best to theorise...

Commissioned Discussion Paper for Education International, the global federation of teacher unions. Published July 3, 2017. The objective of this Discussion Paper is to spark reflection and discussion among EI member affiliates by problematising school vouchers as a viable policy instrument. In doing this, the entry point for the Paper is that the...

The objective of this paper is to provide an explanatory critique of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Bank, and the European Commission with regard to their policy recommendations concerning teacher appraisal and feedback. The paper combines the distinctive research agendas of historical institutionalism a...

The first decades of the 21 st century have witnessed unprecedented political interest globally directed towards school teachers and their importance for quality education. Adopting a critical realist approach, the thesis provides a causal account of the mechanisms, contextual conditions and outcomes of the OECD programme Teaching and Learning Inte...

The first decades of the 21st century have witnessed unprecedented global political cooperation directed toward school teachers and the importance of quality education. This chapter discusses the current developments in the global educational policy field with a particular focus on teacher policy and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and D...

This piece includes some reflections on the politics of international large-scale assessment programmes in a global context, based on my impressions from a NORRAG roundtable on 23 June 2016, "Learning From Learning Assessments: The Politics and Policies of Attaining Quality Education". The roundtable was a NORRAG joint event with the Center for Uni...

This paper compares how international comparative data are used for domestic reform of initial teacher education in England and Finland. The two political entities both took part in the 2013 round of the OECD programme Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS). The survey included a focus on initial teacher education. The paper analyses th...

The new education development goal will include a target for teachers and a target for the learning environment. Suggested indicators for the teacher target are measures of input, typically the number and proportion of trained teachers. Quantitative input or outcomes indicators account for education quality at the level of individual learners and h...

This paper sets out to reclaim rights-based thinking on for the current proposals for the education Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). The proposed indicators are intended to contribute to a broad and bold agenda for education quality compatible with the targets set out in two proposals for a post-2015 education goals – the Muscat Agreement (Globa...

Denne artikel diskuterer vilkårene for fagområdet engelsk som andetsprog(English as an additional language, herefter EAL) i det engelskeskolesystem. Eksisterende [...]

Since the mid-2000s, the concept of citizenship has become prominent in Danish education policy. The main argument of this chapter is that citizenship education in Danish compulsory education policy is employed as an additional tool for the cultural assimilation of ethnic minority pupils into the mainstream ‘Danish’ culture. The argument is based o...

The aim of the study is to explore how the market form in compulsory education in the two multicultural societies of England and Denmark take cognisance of ethnic minority pupils. To pursue this aim, the study discusses the ideas underpinning the regulation of the curriculum and access to schools in English and Danish compulsory education during th...

The article presents selected findings from in‐depth case studies of two non‐formal learning activities organized by the Danish Folk High Schools and Day High Schools, respectively. The purpose of the empirical study was to investigate how longstanding, non‐formal, adult education institutions have worked to foster the acquisition of civic competen...