An empirical look at globalization in education: An example with TIMSS mathematics data

Although globalization is a term in flux, it is broadly used to describe a world of increased interconnectedness and interdependence. While educationalists have long theorized about the possible effects of globalization, only recently has there been serious debate on how an increased connectedness among the political, economic and cultural has affected education. In this article, the influenced of global processes on international mathematics curricula as evidenced by item responses to three Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) administrations (1995, 1999, and 2003) is considered. It was hypothesized that a harmonization of educational policy (and thus curriculum) should be noticeable as increased similarity within educational outcomes. Using hierarchical cluster analysis and non-linear principal component analysis, this paper attempts to address the following research questions: to what extent have students’ responses on TIMSS become more similar over time; and, what do these changes suggest about globalization literature in education? Findings indicate that policy and curriculum may be impacted more by regional forces than global forces. In particular, results imply that there is little evidence that proposed global educational policy conversion is observable in student responses to assessment questions used in this study.