Sociologies of education in an era of new critique: getting out of methodological nationalism and reconsidering education through a global perspective

During the last two decades, the public sociology of education has profoundly renewed its critical perspective to think about transformations in education beyond national spaces and to study globalizing and Europeanizing effects on education systems and policies. This chapter reports on the development of this important and global research area as well as its comparative turn. The inadequacies of national statism and methodological nationalism have led this new public sociology of education to better analyze the role of transnational networks and actors as well as political assemblages that govern numbers worldwide, but also the limitations of neo-liberalism carried by school market and privatization. Sociologists have also reflected on social justice and inequalities from post-colonial and post-modernist perspectives while supporting emancipatory projects and social movements beyond the neo-liberal agenda.