World Culture, Education, and Organization

This chapter calls attention to widespread organizational changes in education, which occur in countries with highly varied contexts, at both local and global levels of education, and across public and private sectors. Drawing on a neoinstitutional lens in organization theory, this chapter argues that a globalizing world culture, characterized by the valorization of the intertwined principles of scientized rationalization and individual empowerment, is at the root of these changes. The chapter considers how the expansion and growing dominance of organization fundamentally transforms the structure and content of education. Moreover, the expanded education systems serve to normalize and legitimate the dominance of organizations throughout contemporary society. The chapter thus notes a recursive relationship between the expansion of education and organization.