38

Session code: 2-7-A207

Title: Redefining educational transfer:

Contributer/s: Jason Beech

Abstract : Educational systems throughout the world have been shaped by the flow of ideas across international borders. This global diffusion of ideas is not a recent phenomenon, but rather an ongoing process that has caught the attention of comparatvists throughout the world since Jullien, Sadler, Ushinsky and Sarmiento (only to name a few). Overall, these processes have been labelled in the field of Comparative Education as 'educational transfer'.

This paper analyses historical processes and interpretations of educational transfer from the perspective of Argentine and Brazilian educational systems in order to reflect on the need to redefine our understanding of educational transfer since the appearance of new agencies of (re)production of educational ideas in the second half of the Twentieth Century - international agencies.

The argument is that the work of international agencies (Unesco, World Bank, OECD) represents new patterns of educational transfer that are not captured by notions of educational transfer available in the field of Comparative Education.

The paper is divided into three sections. The first section analyses available interpretations of processes of educational transfer in mainstream Comparative Education. The second part compares the construction of educational systems in Argentina and Brazil as agencies of reception and adaptation of supranational pedagogic discourses. The last section will open up some ideas on how our interpretations of educational transfer could be redefined to better understand the influence of international agencies on local educational ideas and practices.