Toward one world or many? A comparative analysis of OECD and UNESCO global education policy documents

Education policymaking has gone global. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development aims to galvanize efforts to promote sustainable development, decrease global inequalities, and realize universal quality education. Supporting these efforts, two leading international organizations, UNESCO and the OECD, have set out normative frameworks for their vision of global education. This paper examines the policy discourses of these organizations in light of SDG 4–Education. Specifically, through a comparative analysis of selected terms and underlying concepts in key policy documents, the paper distinguishes between UNESCO's notion of global citizenship and the OECD's framework for global competence. Ultimately, the authors discuss whether the organizations' agendas are aimed at a common global vision, or, alternatively, towards two distinct and divergent conceptualizations of an imagined future.