The twin policy domains of accountability and autonomy have featured in recent education reforms in many countries, signalling new relationships between governments and educational institutions. Despite different national and localised contexts, a number of common 'global' trends have been identified. However, simultaneously context-specific differences are also evident. For us, the concept of 'globalisation', when it implies policy homogenisation, is too blunt an instrument to critically analyse these major reforms. We would argue that there are still too few studies on globalisation processes grounded in detailed examinations of particular historical times and geographical spaces. Our research is located within the tensions between global commonalities and localised differences.
This paper reports research on changing accountability and autonomy in higher education in three 'Asian' countries. Empirical data has been collected in the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong and Singapore in an attempt to begin to redress a 'Western' hegemony in such research. Within each national context two different types of universities became case study sites for the analysis of both commonalities and differences in accountability and autonomy policies and practices. The current paper focuses in particular on the conceptual and methodological framings of the research and presents some preliminary findings.
[Copyright of Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) at http://www.aare.edu.au]

This paper attempts a comparative analysis of classification and framing relationships as they are exemplified in the four papers presented in this Special Issue. In particular, it interrogates Bernstein's assertion that education is simply a relay for power relations external to it and examines approaches to educational leadership and administration that follow from such analysis. It is concluded that in different times and places power relationships external to education are often complex and contested, producing a variety of relays and attempts at classification and framing that serve differing interests and are articulated through policies containing significant internal contradictions. In such circumstances contingency and immediate local influence may affect the practice of educational leadership as well as offering scope for subversion, resistance, simulated consent and collective action. The possibility of a public pedagogy through which such complexities could be articulated is raised and its importance to the practice of educational leadership affirmed.
[Copyright of Journal of Educational Administration and History is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220620802507185 ]

What international framework, if any, is higher education subject to in terms of its work, not in the sense of validating its programmes or safeguarding its academic freedom, but in terms of its funding, its operating environment and its stakeholders? Is it viewed as a business in some sense? Is it subject to trade rules and negotiations? All of these questions have, to some extent, been raised in the World Trade Organisation's 'Doha Round' of negotiations. Has agreement been reached or has the overall operating context of economies submerged higher education, in particular agriculture? This article analyses the brief history of the Doha Round and the possible categorization of higher education within a commercial framework. Conclusions are reached at the end.
[Copyright of Education and the Law is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09539960601036235]

It has been a global trend, since the 1980s, that the process of marketisation has been influential in the decision making of social policies around the world, and that this tidal wave is now crossing over to the Asia–Pacific region as well. Education policy, as one of the important social policies for many developing countries, has been influential in the forefront of national development in terms of manpower training, as well as in other arenas of economic and social developments. In this way, these countries are trying to improve the quality of their educational services so that they can be more competitive in order to cater for the demands in the international markets. One of the outcomes of this global trend is the international quality assurance movement in streamlining the educational institutions as well as in using different coping strategies to promote quality education for all concerned. For the Chinese mainland, it seems that the central government is adopting a policy of decentralisation in getting local governments to use multiple channels of resources and other methods to provide for their own educational services. Hong Kong as a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China, however, has adopted quite a different approach by employing the principle of managerialism in order to enhance its competitiveness in providing quality education to meet the increasing market demands. Hence, the present study is to compare and contrast the educational reforms and coping strategies that have been adopted by the socialist mainland, on the one hand, and the capitalist Hong Kong SAR, on the other hand, in order to face this new challenge of marketisation.
[Copyright of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03050060020020417]