Paper short abstract:

The paper investigates receptions of and responses to the ‘global education crisis’ in Germany and Kenya. It highlights the relationality between both contexts. It aims at reconfiguring comparative education research and seeks to be as postcolonial sensitive as possible in its reflections.

Paper long abstract:

The perception of being in a ‘global education crisis’ is part of the recent academic discussion worldwide. Yet, there is few knowledge on how this phenomenon is dealt with in specific contexts, and how these contexts are related to each other. The focus of the contribution is investigating receptions of and responses to the ‘global education crisis’ in Germany and Kenya. Both contexts are worthwhile for an examination, as we find the notion of ‘being in crisis’ in both contexts, albeit contextualised differently. Likewise, transformations in the education sector as a response to global processes are observable in both contexts. The paper takes up two of the research questions of the panel: Firstly, it asks, where are communalities and differences in the discussions of the ‘global education crisis’ in these contexts? Secondly, how do stakeholders in education experience changes in their (national) education sectors and what are they thinking about that? The responses and receptions of Germany and Kenya to the ‘global education crisis’ are considered in their situatedness (Haraway, 1988) and as socially distinct phenomena (Elias, 2014). In doing so the paper aims to show the multi-perspectivity in looking at the ‘global education crisis’ and to highlight the relationality between the two contexts in focus (White, 2008). On a theoretical-methodological level, the paper contributes to the aim of reconfiguring doing comparative education research, and seeks to be as postcolonial sensitive as possible in its reflections (Raina, 2016). The paper is based on literature review, website analysis and document analysis.