Working Papers

Portraying Nation-States and the International Community: Shaping or Reforming Citizenship Education? A Cross-National Study (1933–1969)
By: Camille Fabo 

This study examines how education has been used as a tool for social cohesion during periods of national identity transformation and the conceptualization of international identity. It investigates the evolution of educational discourses and policies aimed at nation-building, patriotism, and peace education for international understanding, focusing on their translation into reforms over time. Drawing on government reports on educational reforms published in the International Yearbook of Education by the International Bureau of Education (1933–1969), the study reveals a post-World War II rise in peace education policies accompanied by a decline in nation-building policies. However, while peace education policies were often normative and lacked concrete structural reforms, nation-building policies frequently translated into substantial educational reforms.

‘Reformism’ and the Liberal Culture: Global Trends in Education Reform, 1970-2019 
By: Minju Choi, Tom Nachtigal, Marcia Yang, Jieun Song, Lisa Overbey, and Patricia Bromley

‘Education reform’ is a distinct form of social change that promotes systematic changes to the way that individuals are incorporated into society, economy, and polity. We argue that emphasis on education reform increases when liberal culture is stronger at national and global levels because of the distinctive attention liberalism gives to both reform as a path to social change and to education as the path to progress. Using a cross-national database of education reforms between 1970 and 2019, we show that global and national levels of liberal democracy and market openness promote discursive attention to education reforms. Global levels of liberalism also shape the extent to which education reforms emphasize concepts of human rights and justice or human capital and economic productivity but national levels do not. Our findings support the idea that education reforms become more prominent under liberalism as a global cultural framework.

A Tool for Legitimacy? The Right to Education in Education Reforms by Autocratic Regimes 
By: Tom Nachtigal, Jieun Song, Marcia Yang, and Minju Choi

We study the discourse on the right to education in national education reforms, challenging assumptions about its inherent association with liberal democracy. Using the World Education Reform Database (WERD), which includes over 10,000 reforms across 179 countries from 1965 to 2018, we employ Structural Topic Modeling to analyze trends in education reform discourse. Our findings reveal that autocratic regimes—characterized by weaker democratic institutions, poor human rights records, and weak rule of law—were more likely to emphasize the right to education, particularly during the post-Cold War era when global liberal norms were most dominant. We argue that autocracies strategically adopted this discourse as a tool for international and domestic legitimacy, aligning with broader patterns of ‘selective compliance’ observed in human rights treaties and gender equality reforms. The study highlights the unique role of education as a means of state control to explain why adopting the right to education discourse is a low-cost commitment that allows autocrats to signal conformity with international norms. Additionally, the observed decline in rights-based education discourse after 2008 aligns with broader trends of challenges to the liberal international order. Our findings contribute to ongoing debates on the diffusion of global norms, the political utility of education, and the evolving nature of human rights rhetoric.

Do Education Reform Increase Access to Learning?
By: Rie Kijima, Patricia Bromley, Jared Furuta, Lisa Overbey, Minju Choi, and Heitor Santos

Systematic education reforms are widespread and common; virtually every nation articulates and embarks on a path of education reform. However, despite their ubiquitous nature, education reforms are often criticized for failing to yield meaningful results. This study challenges the common critique that systematic education reforms are ineffective acts of window dressing. Using a longitudinal, cross-national database and two-way fixed effects, we assess the influence of education reforms on educational outcomes as measured by growth of access to secondary education. Our empirical analyses show that there is a strong positive association between countries' adoption of education reforms dedicated to expanding access to education and growth in secondary enrollment. We find evidence that counters the widely accepted conception that reforms do not improve the education systems. We also provide a nuanced framework for understanding where critiques of education reform emerge from: Gains are rather small in magnitude and diminish over time.

Education Reform and Nation-State Organizational Expansion, 1960-2018
By: Heitor Santos

When reforming their education systems, countries often create ministries, agencies, or committees tasked with the mission of addressing issues of strategic priority. Not only has formal organization expanded dramatically, but these professionalized structures often seem to pave the way for all other types of education reform. This paper explores the cultural and structural factors predicting national-level education reforms dedicated to the creation of these new organizational structures. Drawing on 7,161 country-year observations from the World Education Reform Database, it examines two dimension of nation-state actorhood. First, it proposes an account of the organizational expansion of the nation-state as an act of conformity with a cultural model. Secondly, it posits that organizational expansion also serves the purpose of image building, conferring legitimacy to the nation-state before the media and civil society. Findings provide support for a neo-institutional model of nation-state actorhood. The adoption of reforms dedicated to the creation of new organizational structures in a given year is associated with an increased likelihood that a country will also engage in organizational expansion in the subsequent year. This model of the nation-state as a rationalized actor is weakened in the 2010s, following the fragmentation of the liberal order. Countries in which media and civil society are more empowered to disseminate information about the government are more likely to adopt reforms dedicated to the creation of new organizational structures.

Education Reform and the Global Learning Crisis: When Does Reform Help? 
(figures separately provided here)
By: Rie Kijima and Patricia Bromley

In this study, we seek to understand the relationship between national education reforms and achievement. To do so, we draw on two newly established education databases to test if education reform is linked to increased learning outcomes. First, we use the Harmonized Learning Outcomes (HLO) Database which combines student test scores from major international and regional assessments. Second, we use the newly established World Education Reform Database that consists of national education reforms from 189 countries. Using synthetic control to estimate the causal impact of national education reforms on learning outcomes, our key results show that learning outcomes increase after countries articulate quality-focused national education reforms. Our study advances the field by providing new empirical evidence about the relationship between education reform and learning worldwide.