Education per se is power, or so educators truly believe. Education is able to influence politics, the businessenvironment, faith, teachers and parents, as well as the media. Throughout time, power in the field of education has been attempted to be realized, demonstrated, proven and imposed by a variety of actors: politicians, public figures, the clergy, business people, warlords, teachers, parents, and the mass media among others. The power structure has changed according to the political system, market economy, tradition, and even fashion.

Contemporary historiography shows a renewed interest in phenomena of transfer, circulation, diffusion, flux and exchange among different spheres. Notions such as internationalization, globalization and others are used to describe these phenomena. Placing these concepts in their historical and theoretical frameworks, the aim of this Conference is to examine the processes that they designate in the field of education. What is diffused, exchanged, transferred? Are these movements linear, circular or deferred? Transcending national borders, how do actors, networks and institutions mediate educational knowledge and practice? In what social and historical conditions do these mediations take place? What are the constraints and the forces –economic, political, cultural, geographic– that structure these exchanges? Who are the principal beneficiaries of the processes of internationalization? What dynamics of emancipation, exclusion, resistance are produced during global exchanges? 

The theme of the conference is “Education for Development in Hard Times” has a broad theme, to  include  the  role  of  key  stakeholders  in  educational  development  in  Africa  and  beyond to  include academia,  policymakers,  teacher  education,  teachers  unions,  education  departments,  NGOs  and other civil society structures..

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