Globalisms and Power—Iberian Education and Curriculum Policies

Globalisms and Power examines the effects neoliberal globalization is having on Spanish and Portuguese educational and curriculum policies and practices. The book dissects the nexus between globalization (or globalisms) and power under a global policy momentum, and analyzes how neoliberal globalization strategies eagerly led by nongovernmental institutions determine the educational agenda in each nation. Both Portugal and Spain were subjugated by military dictatorships for more than four decades: their education systems were laced with an authoritarian, militaristic, racist, and xenophobic ideology. Both countries’ secular authoritarian and conservative religious traditions are now dangerously entangled with the demands of neoliberal ideologies.
Shedding light on how education and curriculum policies and practices are determined and how they, in turn, determine the dynamics of ideological production in society, this book unmasks the massive artillery borrowed from the private sector to fix public education and lays bare the fact that nothing is natural, normal, or inevitable in this corporate global momentum.

Joao M. Paraskeva is Associate Professor of Social and Educational Policy, and Curriculum Theory and senior researcher at the Center for Policy Analysis at the School of Education, Public Policy and Civic Engagement at UMass Dartmouth. His latest book is Conflicts in Curriculum Theory. Challenging Hegemonic Epistemologies (2011).
Jurjo Torres Santome is Professor of Curriculum Studies and Education Policy at the University of Corunha, Spain. He has published comprehensively in the area of educational policy, curriculum and evaluation.