Education reform in the twenty-first century: Declining emphases in international organisation reports, 1998–2018

The liberal and neoliberal world order is increasingly under attack. Global levels of democracy have been declining for over a decade, accompanied by rollbacks in some kinds of rights. We examine the implications of increasing criticisms of the (neo)-liberal era over time for educational reform discourse around the world by drawing on a unique primary dataset of 473 reports produced by international organisations between 1998 and 2018.

Extending insights from neo-institutional theories of organisations, we argue that globalised models of education reform is on a decline as a result of growing attacks on the (neo)-liberal cultural system that has affected education policies around the world. Empirically, we find no evidence that reform emphases continue to grow since the 1990s, and support for arguments that predict stagnant or falling levels of reform discourse.