Cross-National Perspectives on Global Education Policy Trends
In collaboration with Drs. Miri Yemini, Claire Maxwell, Moosung Lee, and Ewan Wright, Engel’s recent research explores global education reforms and the ways that they inform national education policy agendas in different systems, including the US, South Korea, China, and Israel. Previous projects have focused on cross-national investigations of global education policy trends in federal systems, including educational reforms related to standardization in Canada, US, Germany, and Australia; education policy uses of international tests in Canada, the US, and Spain; and Global Policy Mobilities in Federal Educational Systems, in collaboration with Drs. Jason Beech, Bob Lingard, and Glenn Savage.
Global Mobilities and Exchanges: Developments and Effects
Global mobility programs are becoming more prevalent in K12 education, linked with broader processes of internationalization taking shape in education systems worldwide. Over the past 9 years, we have conducted a series of studies on the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) Study Abroad Program, an effort aimed at building equitable access of all students to global mobility opportunities. With funding from the American Educational Research Association and the National Geographic Society, our mixed methods research has focused on the experiences of students and educators in the program, and its effects on students’ global engagement, identity development, and the formation of cosmopolitan capital.
Our previous studies have followed the development of internationalization initiatives in K12 settings across states, including North Carolina, Illinois, and Washington, DC, and K12 virtual exchange. We recently completed a study of Empatico’s Empathy Across the USA: Race Identity domestic virtual exchange program in the US to explore policies and contextual factors that facilitate or hinder the adoption of virtual exchange in K12 settings, issues of access and inclusion in K12 virtual exchange, and how educators experience the program’s focus on productive conversations about empathy and race. This research project was supported by the Stevens Initiative. The Stevens Initiative is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, with funding provided by the U.S. Government, and is administered by the Aspen Institute. It is also supported by the Bezos Family Foundation and the governments of Morocco and the United Arab Emirates. Learn more: https://www.stevensinitiative.org/ Lastly, the Lab completed a series of studies on education abroad and its effects on global engagement, intercultural comptences, and the impacts of COVID-19 on global mobility of students, commissioned by the Fund for Education Abroad.
Our Lab also focuses on fostering global engagement, including in our Lab members’ recent work with Fulbright in Costa Rica and Jordan.
Education for Sustainable Development
Recent global trends in education suggest a growing focus on how to develop and measure global and environmental dispositions among youth. Engel’s work has critically examined existing international measures of global competency, and on how students engage and experience globally-oriented educational initiatives focused on the environment and sustainability. Our projects include an evaluation of student outcomes related to the The Nature Conservancy‘s Nature Lab (in collaboration with Drs. Sabrina Curtis and Hallie Fox) and #60above60, a global and environmental education initiative developed as part of the National Science Foundation PIRE project, Promoting Urban Sustainability in the Arctic. Our most recent work examines the ways education for sustainable development is being taken up in different city, sub-national, and national spaces.