Tactical Globalization ― Learning from the Singapore Experiment

This book is about a small city state’s social experiment with globalization. It examines how Singapore conducts its globalization experiment through the state apparatus of schooling and education policy. The author argues that Singapore engages with globalization by anticipating the «problem space» of globalization with calculated actions and experimentation, termed «tactics» and «tactical globalization» in the book. Central to the book is an examination and analysis of the «Thinking Schools, Learning Nation» education policy and reform. While Tactical Globalization contributes to the sociology of globalization by foregrounding new narratives on globalization that are emerging, it also takes a contextual and innovative approach to education policy analysis, which includes a speech-turned-policy document and a nationally televised segment of a documentary called Learning Journeys.

Aaron Koh is Assistant Professor in the Department of English, The Hong Kong Institute of Education. He previously taught at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, and had also been a school teacher at Anderson Junior College and Anglo-Chinese School (Independent), Singapore. His research and teaching interests are Globalization and Education, Cultural Politics of Education, Literacy and Language Arts and Cultural Studies in Education. He is on the Editorial Board of Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy and Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education.