Clara Morgan | Carleton University (original) (raw)

Papers by Clara Morgan

Comparative Education Review 67(3), 2023

Drawing on Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s theory of fitting and misfitting, this article analyzes fr... more Drawing on Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s theory of fitting and misfitting, this article analyzes from a critical disability lens the experiences of disabled students in higher education in the United Arab Emirates. Building on evidence collected from three case studies of misfitting/fitting, I argue that advocacy resulted in innovative, hybridized, and localized solutions to misfitting for minority forms of embodiment. The article traces the operationalization of exclusion and inclusion processes through interviews with students, graduates, and higher education staff conducted from 2016 to 2018. The analysis underlines the importance of a rights-based and context-specific advocacy approach to accommodating minority forms of embodiment in higher education.

British Journal of Sociology of Education, 2015

While scholars have analyzed global higher education (HE) competition, they have largely failed t... more While scholars have analyzed global higher education (HE) competition, they have largely failed to address how global spaces of equivalence are tied both to coloniality and to competition. Using the OECD’s International Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) as a case study and drawing on concepts from coloniality including Fanon’s zone of being/non-being and Mignolo’s geopolitics of knowledge, we reveal how coloniality underpins the desire for global spaces of equivalence through: the desire for opportunity and belonging; and the desire for recognition and pride. We illuminate how the nature of global competition is not simply tied to market-based economic or political rationalities, but also operates under psychosocial dimensions interlinked with belonging in the international community. We argue that AHELO represents the mediation and internalization of a HE competition focused on teaching and learning, which reproduces coloniality by valuing characteristics of the enterprising, globally competitive institution.

Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 2014

Comparative Education, 2014

ABSTRACT

This course is designed to provide you with an introduction to comparative politics, focusing on ... more This course is designed to provide you with an introduction to comparative politics, focusing on industrialized democracies such as the United States, Japan, France and Germany. The course is organized into 3 broad areas – state structures, state-society relations and state activities. It introduces basic concepts for the comparison of government institutions, political processes and public policies, and discusses how these concepts can be applied to specific cases and country studies. The course will make use of various media such as film and the internet to engage student in their learning. Slides used during the course will be placed on WebCT. Learning objectives: At the end of the course, students will achieve the following learning objectives: a. To become familiar with core political and social institutions, processes and policies of selected industrialized countries b. To develop an analytical ‘toolkit’ of concepts and approaches to be used in comparative research c. To apply...

Comparative Education, 2018

Work, Employment & Society, 2012

Research and Innovation Policy, 2009

Revista española de educación comparada, 2011

Canada is one of the few countries in the world that does not have a national department of educa... more Canada is one of the few countries in the world that does not have a national department of education but several provincial departments of education which are responsible for educational governance. The article provides an overview of Canada's educational systems. It describes the current political, economic and social context and provides a brief historical overview of the evolution of these systems. The article addresses educational quality and equity by drawing on educational indicators and discusses educational reforms that have taken place. The strengths and weaknesses of Canada's systems of education are analyzed. The article concludes with remarks on the interrelationship between educational equality and societal inequality.

Revista española de educación comparada, 2011

Disability & Society, 2021

I draw on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as a human rig... more I draw on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as a human rights model of disability to analyze how the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is meeting its obligations toward disabled people in higher education and employment. This paper argues that institutions in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi adopted a paternalistic and reactive approach to address the rights of disabled people. Drawing on the experiences of disabled people in the UAE and evidence from interviews conducted from 2016 to 2018, the analysis identifies several key challenges to inclusion that stem from a weak enforcement and accountability framework, which results in a lack of accessibility measures and supports in university and workplace settings. The paper recommends interventions that would create an institutional environment where disabled people are treated as rights holders and given equal and equitable access to higher education and employment.

Journal of Education Policy, 2019

Scholars of the global phenomenon of international student assessment (e.g., PISA, TIMSS) have pa... more Scholars of the global phenomenon of international student assessment (e.g., PISA, TIMSS) have paid little attention to the ways in which student users of these material objects are configured in nations that are located at the periphery of knowledge production.
Our analysis takes the United Arab Emirates as its case study to capture the social construction processes and relations of PISA and TIMSS users, agents and test objects within global educational accountability infrastructures. Drawing on evidence collected from
interviews with principals, vice principals and teachers in nine schools as well as with government officials, we reveal how the state plays a role in the re/configuration of the user in this process.We also trace the discursive and emotional narratives that delineate usage and the
institutional practices deployed to solidify user re/configurations. We argue that user configurations induce institutional reforms, cognitive remappings, and affective reactions which reflect adaptations being
made by ‘real’ users to misconfigured material objects. We suggest that rather than blaming students for their poor performance on global tests, it is more appropriate to point to a failure in the material object’s obdurate design and monocultural user configuration.

The article challenges the deficit view in which education in the Arab region is portrayed by exa... more The article challenges the deficit view in which education in the Arab
region is portrayed by examining the process of educational
regionalisation. It takes as its case study the Arab Regional Agenda for
Improving Educational Quality in order to explore the construction of an
educational quality space that uses data as a governance model.
Drawing on critical theory and evidence collected from 70 interviews, I
argue that such approaches promote globalised versions of what quality
education means remaining blind to context. I suggest that improving
educational quality in the region entails creating responsive approaches
grounded in political and socio-economic contexts.

Although scholars have examined the effects of global tests on national and regional educational ... more Although scholars have examined the effects of global tests on
national and regional educational governance, few researchers
have studied their impact on education in the Arabian Gulf. This
research fills the knowledge gap by studying the international
spectacle of PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS results in Qatar and the United
Arab Emirates (UAE) – two small rich states at the periphery of
knowledge production processes. I argue that an analysis of these
narratives reveals how global accountability discourses are
translated into the Arabian Gulf context as truth claims that
performance in league tables is an accurate and objective
representation of educational quality. Four themes emerge from
the analysis: integration of test results into national visions;
measurement of educational progress based on test results;
ranking of student performance; and policy changes to improve
test results. In conclusion, I suggest that the over-dependence on
global tests in defining educational quality in Qatar and the UAE
erodes educational sovereignty and restricts the capacity of small
states to develop and nurture alternative, indigenous and
localised solutions for guiding educational reforms.

Given the influential role that the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ... more Given the influential role that the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) plays in educational governance, we believe it is timely to provide an in-depth review of its education surveys and their associated human capital discourses. By reviewing and summarizing the OECD's suite of education surveys, this paper identifies the ways in which the OECD frames these surveys and embeds them in human capital discourses. We observe that the OECD's large-scale education surveys contribute to its growing cognitive and normative governance role in the global governance of education. The significance of our analysis lies in highlighting these surveys' truth claims as objective measures of human capital while at the same time pointing to their contested and controversial role in broader educational debates. We focus on three contested terrains: student testing, educational system improvement, and the politics of educational reform. In conclusion, we suggest that there is a need for an alternative paradigm – one that values the significant role that public schools play in building socially cohesive and equitable societies.

Scholars studying the global governance of education have noted the increasingly important role c... more Scholars studying the global governance of education have noted the increasingly important role corporations play in educational policy making. I contribute to this scholarship by examining the Assessment and Teaching of twenty-first century skills (ATC21S™) project, a knowledge production apparatus operating under cognitive capitalism. I analyze how ATC21S
gains symbolic power and authority as it defines what counts in education through three key processes: (1) By legitimizing and disseminating new knowledge about twenty-first century skills; (2) By implementing this knowledge concretely in schools and (3) By embedding this new knowledge within a global alliance. I suggest that the knowledge produced by ATC21S in calculating and measuring twenty-first century skills contributes to the
capture of living labor and its reproduction for the knowledge economy through the school system.

Although international student assessments and the role of international organizations (IOs) in g... more Although international student assessments and the role of international organizations (IOs) in governing education via an evidence-based educational policy discourse are of growing interest to educational researchers, few have explored the complex ways in which an IO, such as the OECD, gains considerable influence in governing education during the early stages of test production. Drawing on a comparative analysis of the production of two international tests — the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) — we show how the OECD legitimizes its power and expertise, and defines “what counts” in education. The OECD deploys three mechanisms of educational governance: (1) Building on past OECD successes; (2) Assembling knowledge capacity; and, (3) Deploying bureaucratic resources. We argue that the early stages of test production by IOs are significant sites in which the global governance of education is legitimated and enacted.

Comparative Education Review 67(3), 2023

British Journal of Sociology of Education, 2015

Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 2014

Comparative Education, 2014

ABSTRACT

Comparative Education, 2018

Work, Employment & Society, 2012

Research and Innovation Policy, 2009

Revista española de educación comparada, 2011

Disability & Society, 2021

Journal of Education Policy, 2019

This chapter examines OECD’s growing role in infl uencing global educational policy directions by... more This chapter examines OECD’s growing role in infl uencing global educational policy directions by linking these developments to the global expansion of PISA’s explanatory power. Through a critical policy analysis lens, the chapter problematizes the legitimacy of PISA’s explanatory power by pointing to OECD marketing and policy framing practices. Drawing on a range of OECD communication tools (press releases, website information, tweets, Facebook page, webinars) and analysis of 68 PISA in Focus publications, I argue that OECD’s practices of PISA marketing, selling and distribution, and its framing bias of PISA educational policy advice help to bolster PISA’s epistemic power. In conclusion, the chapter suggests reframing PISA
educational policy narratives so that they could inform progressive storylines and create plotlines that radically transform economic and educational institutions.

The push for private-sector involvement in education usually involves practices such as PPP and C... more The push for private-sector involvement in education usually involves practices such as PPP and CSR. Yet there have been few studies examining the inter-relationship between these two practices and their effect on educational governance and practices in resource-poor countries. I contribute to the research on CSR by examining global and regional narratives as well as initiatives that encourage private-sector involvement in education while also drawing on domestic examples from India and Indonesia to analyze the impact of business on education at the national level.

As the two previous chapters have shown, a variety of new federal funding programs and initiative... more As the two previous chapters have shown, a variety of new federal funding programs and initiatives have been instituted in the last decade to provide a steady flow of research funding to the universities. The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the role that the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) played in influencing the trajectory of federal research and related policies on universities in the last decade. 1 It also shows some of the tensions and collaborations between the AUCC and other stakeholder interests such as the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) and the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) and among the AUCC's university member institutions (for example between researchintensive universities). Overall it also shows, as context for the chapters in Part II of the book, that the political process for research and innovation plays out in a pool of limited budgetary resources where other aspects of higher education compete with the demands of researchers.

Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. i* ... more Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. i* i Canada Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. iii Abstract The dissertation examines the construction of an international student assessment, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), by the Organization for International Co-operation and Development (OECD). The PISA is analyzed within the context of the global architecture of education where various agents such as the OECD and other international organizations, states and communities of experts are reconstructing, reproducing and legitimizing the discourse and material practices of societal and economic progress and of official educational knowledge. The dissertation argues that the PISA is a fragile entity that is susceptible to contestation not only as it is located in a highly politicized setting, the OECD, but also because it is founded on the socially-constructed science of educational measurement. The dissertation draws on the Foucauldian concept of a power bloc formation in order to analyze the PISA's technical capacity, relations of communication and relationships of power. The analysis contributes to our understanding of how programs such as the PISA come to be constructed, how they work, how they attempt to order and shape our worlds, and how they are connected to global networks of power. It reveals that the international educational statistics that inform public policy decision-making are the result of a series of negotiated compromises made by communities of practice occupying various institutional structures within the global architecture of education. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. iv Acknowledgements This work would not have been possible without the kind and generous support of several individuals and institutions. I would like to thank my dissertation committee, Bruce Curtis, Rianne Mahon, and Lisa Mills, for their guidance, support, optimism and valuable advice during my intellectual journey.

This book edited by Jayaram, Munge, Adamson, Sorrell, and Jain brings together 10 case studies of... more This book edited by Jayaram, Munge, Adamson, Sorrell, and Jain brings together 10 case studies of youth skills development programmes and draws on previous research by the Results for Development Institute. It is Volume 26 of the Springer series on Technical and Vocational Education and Training: Issues, Concerns and Prospects. The volume is aimed at the series’ audience, namely policy-makers, practitioners, administrators, planners, and researchers.