When does a nation-level analysis make sense? ESD and educational governance in Brazil, South Africa, and the USA

Abstract International policy analysis tends to simplify the nation state, portraying countries as coherent units that can be described by one statistic or placed into one category. As scholars from Brazil, South Africa, and the USA, we find the nation-centric research perspective particularly challenging. In each of our home countries, the effective influence of the national government on education is quite limited, particularly in fringe and emerging areas of education such as Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Climate Change Education (CCE). This essay explores how nation-level comparisons are and are not useful for international research on ESD and CCE. We consider several layers of decentralized governance, but ultimately come to the conclusion that ESD governance in our respective countries is polycentric rather than decentralized. We discuss the implications of this idea for cross-national policy research on ESD and CCE. Keywords: education for sustainable developmentclimate changeinternational comparisonspolycentricgovernancepolicy Notes 1. Results of the report and accompanying recommendations (Læssøe, Schnack, Breiting, and Rolls 2009; IALEI Citation2009) are publicly accessible online at http://www.intlalliance.org/home/ 2. The IALEI is an international collaboration among ten universities in the field of teacher education and educational research that aims to generate ideas, identify trends, and serve as a collective voice on important educational issues. It includes representatives from the Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, Australia; the Faculty of Education, University of São Paulo, Brazil; the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada; the School of Education, Beijing Normal University, People's Republic of China; the Danish School of Education, University of Aarhus, Denmark; the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; the School of Education, University of Cape Town, South Africa; College of Education, Seoul National University, South Korea; the Institute of Education, University of London, United Kingdom; and the School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. 3. In keeping with the editorial style of this journal, we have omitted most references to relevant laws and statutes from the three case study nations (these references are available from the authors on request). We have, however, included references to government reports where applicable. 4. In international development and international education literature, it is common to use the words 'North' and 'South' (or the phrases 'Global North' and 'Global South') rather than the phrases 'developed/industrialized nations' and 'developing nations,' which are overtly normative. There is some controversy over such terminology, but it is beyond the scope of this paper.