ELITE EDUCATION SYSTEMS IN THE EMERGING FINANCIAL POWERS: Commentary

The four cases presented in this section have specific socio historic contexts that explain the particular evolution of their elite education systems. It is important to stress the similarities between them, similarities that stem from global economic and cultural processes. First, the neoliberal global economy has facilitated the emergence of new, non traditional elites in Argentina, Brazil, Nigeria and China. Second, the efforts to improve the economic development of nations previously considered to be second or third world countries has entailed the adoption of world education cultural mandates which have pushed for the democratisation of secondary and higher education. Third, the promotion of new public management and market logics into the education field by international organisations has encouraged an increasing privatisation of education, even in the poorest parts of the world. Finally the emergence of standardised comparisons has contributed to the development of an education industry with headquarters in the global north.