RESEARCH OVERVIEW
Dr. Edwards maintains a keen interest in three areas of research. These include (a) the global governance of education and (b) education policy, politics and political economy, with a focus on low-income countries. Within these two research lines, Edwards has focused on investigating the rise and effects of global education policies as well as the influence of international organizations, particularly when it comes to such trends as educational privatization (e.g., charter schools, low-fee private schools), decentralization, and community participation. The third general area of Edwards’ research focuses on (c) community empowerment and democratic alternatives to dominant education models. Theoretically, he approaches these issues in relation to historical and macro structures, on one hand, and dynamic processes, individual agency, collective action, knowledge production, and ideational factors, on the other.
More generally, he is interested in studying education in the context of international development, in addition to analyzing the education sector at multiple levels, from the local to the global, with a critical eye to implications for social justice. Geographically, his research interests have led to projects in Mexico, Colombia, Central America (El Salvador, Honduras), and Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines). He has pursued these issues through various research projects, some of which are described below.
SPECIFIC RESEARCH INTERESTS
Political Economy of Education Reform
Globalization and Education/Global Education Policies
International Organizations and the Global Governance of Education
Public-Private Partnerships (e.g., charters schools, vouchers) in Education
Participation in Educational Governance and International Development
Decentralization/School-Based Management/Community Empowerment
Civil Society in Education Politics
Alternative Development/Alternative Approaches to Education
Qualitative Research Methods
Education Policy Analysis/Program Evaluation
Education in Latin America and Southeast Asia
SELECT RESEARCH PROJECTS
[10] "New trends in the Philippines education system"
Research team: Antoni Verger, Autonomous University of Barcelona; Xavier Bonal, Autonomous University of Barcelona; Andreu Termes, Autonomous University of Barcelona; Lovie Moneva, University of the Philippines; D. Brent Edwards Jr., Drexel University
Funder: Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation & Drexel University
Description: Within the context of Manila, this project focuses on the vouchers (specifically the ESC or "Education Service Contracting" vouchers) that are offered by the Filipino Department of Education to students in grades 7-10 through the policy of "Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education". More specifically, the purpose is to understand the policy's implementation and the market (i.e., supply- and demand-side) dynamics that the voucher has engendered in the education sector.
Period: 2015-2016
[9] “Staying in school: A longitudinal mixed methods study of transition, drop out, and retention – Primary to upper secondary school in Cambodia”
Research team: Yuto, Kitamura, The University of Tokyo; D. Brent Edwards Jr., Drexel University; James Williams, The George Washington University; Sitha Chhinh, Royal University of Phnom Penh; Thomas Zimmerman, Kassel University
Funder: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
Description: This is four year (2011-2015), longitudinal, mixed methods study of student drop out during the transition from primary to secondary school in Cambodia. Through quantitative (multivariate regression) and qualitative (narrative) research methods, the research team is examining the supply-side and demand-side factors that affect the transition of students from the primary level to lower and upper secondary school.
Period: May, 2011—May, 2015
[8] “The World Bank and private provision of education in Asia, Africa and the Middle East”
Research team: Karen Mundy, University of Toronto; Donald Edwards, Drexel University; Momina Afridi, University of Toronto; Carly Manion, University of Toronto; Robyn Read, University of Toronto; Francine Menashy, University of Massachusetts, Boston
Funder: Privatisation in Education Research Initiative
Description: Six country case studies are being conducted in India, Ethiopia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines and Indonesia, with the applicant being responsible for the latter. The focus of this project is the World Bank’s policies and practices as they relate to private provision of K-12 education, with particular emphasis being placed on the role of the International Finance Corporation (the Bank’s private sector arm) and its support for private education provision within its lending programs. For each case study, the team is looking at the Bank from the country level upwards, using a backward-mapping approach. Overall, each case study examines the Bank’s formal policy framework for lending in each country, its policy dialogue and technical assistance activities, and its lending programs. Using policy-tracing methodologies, the team is also exploring how the Bank’s activities have influenced government policies and practices. The application (Donald Edwards) is responsible for the case study of Indonesia.
Period: June, 2014—August, 2016
[7] “UNESCO in the 2000s: EFA leadership, the Global Monitoring Report, and organizational legitimacy”
Research team: D. Brent Edwards Jr., Drexel University; Yuto Kitamura, The University of Tokyo; Taeko Okitsu, Waseda University; Romina da Costa, University of Maryland
Funder: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
Description: This study examines the internal reforms and external actions of UNESCO around Education for All (EFA) leadership and the development and production of the EFA All Global Monitoring Report in the 2000s, a time during which UNESCO attempted to reestablish itself as the preeminent institution in the global governance of education. Data collection is based on archival work and on interviews with development professionals from a range of multilateral institutions. The analytic framework is drawn from scholarship on organizational legitimacy.
Period: March, 2014—August, 2015
[6] "Social justice leadership and community engagement in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico"
Research team: David DeMatthews, University of Texas, El Paso; D. Brent Edwards Jr., Drexel University
Funder: Drexel University
Description: This research focused on documenting and learning from the social justice leadership and community engagement practices of the founders of an independent school in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.
Period: 2014-2015
[5] “Public-private partnerships in Colombian educational governance”
Funder: Institute for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam
Description: This study investigated the evolution and operation of charter schools in Bogotá through the Concession Schools Program, in addition to assessing the program’s implementation through a realist evaluation of a sub-set of participating schools.
Period: June, 2013—January, 2014
[4] “The development of global education policy: A case study of the origins and evolution of El Salvador’s EDUCO program”
Funder: Fulbright Research Grant, US Department of State
Description: This research focused on the development of the Education with Community Participation (EDUCO) Program in El Salvador. EDUCO began in El Salvador in early 1991, near the end of the twelve-year civil war, and would go on to become a highly emulated education policy during the late 1990s and 2000s. The program was a form of community-level decentralization with its logic based in market dynamics. Advocates of the program emphasized that placing a council of local parents in charge of both school management and the hiring and firing of teachers would optimize the accountability, efficiency, and effectiveness of the education system by placing the “principal” (ie, parents) closer to the “agent” (ie, the teacher). For this research, the I relied on a mix of qualitative methods in order to trace the emergence and evolution of the program, demonstrating the dynamics among key actors from multiple levels (ie, global, national, local). The central thrust of this study explains, using frameworks from international political economy, how it is that this education program became embedded in the Salvadoran context and then not only spread to other countries but became a global exemplar for education reform. I conducted 82 interviews and relied on the archives of numerous relevant organizations, such as the World Bank, USAID, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Academy for Educational Development and various Salvadoran NGOs and governmental ministries.
Period: 2012-2013
[3] “The contestation of neoliberal education reform by a progressive community in El Salvador”
Funder: Center for Latin American Studies, University of Maryland, College Park
Description: This research explored how progressive communities in El Salvador—traditionally linked with the revolutionary forces of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) during the 1980-1992 civil war—have contested the implementation of the neoliberal education management decentralization program known as EDUCO (“Education with Community Participation”). Despite the significant attention that the EDUCO program has received, previous research did not investigate how FMLN communities frequently resisted its adoption and struggled to mitigate its effects since the 1990s. Such communities saw EDUCO as an attempt to co-opt and partially privatize the (politically-charged and critical) “popular education” schools they developed during the 1980s, when rural communities were cut off from government services.
Period: 2012-2013
[2] “Evaluation of the Civil Society Education Fund in Cambodia”
Funder: Global Campaign for Education
Description: For this project, I conducted a case study of the impact of the Civil Society Education Fund (CSEF) in Cambodia using a systems thinking approach. The CSEF is overseen at the international level by the Global Campaign for Education (GCE), a trans-national network of civil society organizations that advocate for access to and the quality of education in developing countries. For the evaluation, I researched effect of the CSEF on the core activities of the national coalition of education-related non-governmental organizations in Cambodia during the period 2009-2012. This country case study is one of seven coordinated by the Department of Sociology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona for the GCE.
Period: August, 2012-September, 2012
[1] “European bilateral aid agencies and the creation of the World Bank’s Education Strategy 2020: Unpacking a participatory process.”
Co-researchers: Antoni Verger, Autonomous University of Barcelona; D. Brent Edwards Jr., Drexel University; Hulya Kosar-Altinyelken, University of Amsterdam
Funder: Institute for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam
Description: This research focused on the global process of consultation orchestrated by the World Bank during 2010, through which it gathered feedback from a range of national and international stakeholders. For this project, we focused on those factors that facilitated and constrained the ability of three European Bilateral Aid Agencies (from England, Germany, and the Netherlands) to influence that process.
Period: 2011-2012
Dr. Edwards maintains a keen interest in three areas of research. These include (a) the global governance of education and (b) education policy, politics and political economy, with a focus on low-income countries. Within these two research lines, Edwards has focused on investigating the rise and effects of global education policies as well as the influence of international organizations, particularly when it comes to such trends as educational privatization (e.g., charter schools, low-fee private schools), decentralization, and community participation. The third general area of Edwards’ research focuses on (c) community empowerment and democratic alternatives to dominant education models. Theoretically, he approaches these issues in relation to historical and macro structures, on one hand, and dynamic processes, individual agency, collective action, knowledge production, and ideational factors, on the other.
More generally, he is interested in studying education in the context of international development, in addition to analyzing the education sector at multiple levels, from the local to the global, with a critical eye to implications for social justice. Geographically, his research interests have led to projects in Mexico, Colombia, Central America (El Salvador, Honduras), and Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines). He has pursued these issues through various research projects, some of which are described below.
SPECIFIC RESEARCH INTERESTS
Political Economy of Education Reform
Globalization and Education/Global Education Policies
International Organizations and the Global Governance of Education
Public-Private Partnerships (e.g., charters schools, vouchers) in Education
Participation in Educational Governance and International Development
Decentralization/School-Based Management/Community Empowerment
Civil Society in Education Politics
Alternative Development/Alternative Approaches to Education
Qualitative Research Methods
Education Policy Analysis/Program Evaluation
Education in Latin America and Southeast Asia
SELECT RESEARCH PROJECTS
[10] "New trends in the Philippines education system"
Research team: Antoni Verger, Autonomous University of Barcelona; Xavier Bonal, Autonomous University of Barcelona; Andreu Termes, Autonomous University of Barcelona; Lovie Moneva, University of the Philippines; D. Brent Edwards Jr., Drexel University
Funder: Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation & Drexel University
Description: Within the context of Manila, this project focuses on the vouchers (specifically the ESC or "Education Service Contracting" vouchers) that are offered by the Filipino Department of Education to students in grades 7-10 through the policy of "Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education". More specifically, the purpose is to understand the policy's implementation and the market (i.e., supply- and demand-side) dynamics that the voucher has engendered in the education sector.
Period: 2015-2016
[9] “Staying in school: A longitudinal mixed methods study of transition, drop out, and retention – Primary to upper secondary school in Cambodia”
Research team: Yuto, Kitamura, The University of Tokyo; D. Brent Edwards Jr., Drexel University; James Williams, The George Washington University; Sitha Chhinh, Royal University of Phnom Penh; Thomas Zimmerman, Kassel University
Funder: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
Description: This is four year (2011-2015), longitudinal, mixed methods study of student drop out during the transition from primary to secondary school in Cambodia. Through quantitative (multivariate regression) and qualitative (narrative) research methods, the research team is examining the supply-side and demand-side factors that affect the transition of students from the primary level to lower and upper secondary school.
Period: May, 2011—May, 2015
[8] “The World Bank and private provision of education in Asia, Africa and the Middle East”
Research team: Karen Mundy, University of Toronto; Donald Edwards, Drexel University; Momina Afridi, University of Toronto; Carly Manion, University of Toronto; Robyn Read, University of Toronto; Francine Menashy, University of Massachusetts, Boston
Funder: Privatisation in Education Research Initiative
Description: Six country case studies are being conducted in India, Ethiopia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines and Indonesia, with the applicant being responsible for the latter. The focus of this project is the World Bank’s policies and practices as they relate to private provision of K-12 education, with particular emphasis being placed on the role of the International Finance Corporation (the Bank’s private sector arm) and its support for private education provision within its lending programs. For each case study, the team is looking at the Bank from the country level upwards, using a backward-mapping approach. Overall, each case study examines the Bank’s formal policy framework for lending in each country, its policy dialogue and technical assistance activities, and its lending programs. Using policy-tracing methodologies, the team is also exploring how the Bank’s activities have influenced government policies and practices. The application (Donald Edwards) is responsible for the case study of Indonesia.
Period: June, 2014—August, 2016
[7] “UNESCO in the 2000s: EFA leadership, the Global Monitoring Report, and organizational legitimacy”
Research team: D. Brent Edwards Jr., Drexel University; Yuto Kitamura, The University of Tokyo; Taeko Okitsu, Waseda University; Romina da Costa, University of Maryland
Funder: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
Description: This study examines the internal reforms and external actions of UNESCO around Education for All (EFA) leadership and the development and production of the EFA All Global Monitoring Report in the 2000s, a time during which UNESCO attempted to reestablish itself as the preeminent institution in the global governance of education. Data collection is based on archival work and on interviews with development professionals from a range of multilateral institutions. The analytic framework is drawn from scholarship on organizational legitimacy.
Period: March, 2014—August, 2015
[6] "Social justice leadership and community engagement in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico"
Research team: David DeMatthews, University of Texas, El Paso; D. Brent Edwards Jr., Drexel University
Funder: Drexel University
Description: This research focused on documenting and learning from the social justice leadership and community engagement practices of the founders of an independent school in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.
Period: 2014-2015
[5] “Public-private partnerships in Colombian educational governance”
Funder: Institute for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam
Description: This study investigated the evolution and operation of charter schools in Bogotá through the Concession Schools Program, in addition to assessing the program’s implementation through a realist evaluation of a sub-set of participating schools.
Period: June, 2013—January, 2014
[4] “The development of global education policy: A case study of the origins and evolution of El Salvador’s EDUCO program”
Funder: Fulbright Research Grant, US Department of State
Description: This research focused on the development of the Education with Community Participation (EDUCO) Program in El Salvador. EDUCO began in El Salvador in early 1991, near the end of the twelve-year civil war, and would go on to become a highly emulated education policy during the late 1990s and 2000s. The program was a form of community-level decentralization with its logic based in market dynamics. Advocates of the program emphasized that placing a council of local parents in charge of both school management and the hiring and firing of teachers would optimize the accountability, efficiency, and effectiveness of the education system by placing the “principal” (ie, parents) closer to the “agent” (ie, the teacher). For this research, the I relied on a mix of qualitative methods in order to trace the emergence and evolution of the program, demonstrating the dynamics among key actors from multiple levels (ie, global, national, local). The central thrust of this study explains, using frameworks from international political economy, how it is that this education program became embedded in the Salvadoran context and then not only spread to other countries but became a global exemplar for education reform. I conducted 82 interviews and relied on the archives of numerous relevant organizations, such as the World Bank, USAID, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Academy for Educational Development and various Salvadoran NGOs and governmental ministries.
Period: 2012-2013
[3] “The contestation of neoliberal education reform by a progressive community in El Salvador”
Funder: Center for Latin American Studies, University of Maryland, College Park
Description: This research explored how progressive communities in El Salvador—traditionally linked with the revolutionary forces of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) during the 1980-1992 civil war—have contested the implementation of the neoliberal education management decentralization program known as EDUCO (“Education with Community Participation”). Despite the significant attention that the EDUCO program has received, previous research did not investigate how FMLN communities frequently resisted its adoption and struggled to mitigate its effects since the 1990s. Such communities saw EDUCO as an attempt to co-opt and partially privatize the (politically-charged and critical) “popular education” schools they developed during the 1980s, when rural communities were cut off from government services.
Period: 2012-2013
[2] “Evaluation of the Civil Society Education Fund in Cambodia”
Funder: Global Campaign for Education
Description: For this project, I conducted a case study of the impact of the Civil Society Education Fund (CSEF) in Cambodia using a systems thinking approach. The CSEF is overseen at the international level by the Global Campaign for Education (GCE), a trans-national network of civil society organizations that advocate for access to and the quality of education in developing countries. For the evaluation, I researched effect of the CSEF on the core activities of the national coalition of education-related non-governmental organizations in Cambodia during the period 2009-2012. This country case study is one of seven coordinated by the Department of Sociology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona for the GCE.
Period: August, 2012-September, 2012
[1] “European bilateral aid agencies and the creation of the World Bank’s Education Strategy 2020: Unpacking a participatory process.”
Co-researchers: Antoni Verger, Autonomous University of Barcelona; D. Brent Edwards Jr., Drexel University; Hulya Kosar-Altinyelken, University of Amsterdam
Funder: Institute for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam
Description: This research focused on the global process of consultation orchestrated by the World Bank during 2010, through which it gathered feedback from a range of national and international stakeholders. For this project, we focused on those factors that facilitated and constrained the ability of three European Bilateral Aid Agencies (from England, Germany, and the Netherlands) to influence that process.
Period: 2011-2012