9 - A complex global governance of education: multiscalar social and emotional learning policy making in Lebanon

Summary

Introduction

This chapter focuses on the ways in which education policy ideas and associated frameworks become mobilized by international organizations and other actors working across global, transnational, national and local levels. We concentrate on social and emotional learning (SEL) as the example of globally mobile education policy idea, illustrating the complex processes and underlying mechanisms enabling its mobilization and transfer across and within particular contexts. Our case study involves the formation of Lebanon's national SEL policies since the Syrian refugee influx in 2011. Empirically, we draw on two primary data sources generated in a larger comparative case study: policy document analysis and 51 semi- structured interviews conducted virtually from September 2020 to June 2021 with transnational–national actors, national policy makers and national–local actors. We emphasize findings related to transnational–national actors and national policy makers in order to (a) illustrate the emergence of SEL as global education policy (Edwards, 2021), and (b) show the ways that both endogenous education policy actor- oriented drivers and exogeneous cultural, political and economic drivers affected the institutionalization of SEL as national education policies in Lebanon.

This chapter especially illuminates the manner in which SEL, a USoriginated definition and its associated frameworks, was deterritorialized and prioritized as a global policy solution within and through a complex constellation of transnational–national policy actors. Transnational–national actors powerfully designed and managed education policy agendas on multiple scales. National policy makers’ interests in institutionalizing SEL were attributed mainly to political and economic reasons. In particular, they wanted to mediate domestic politics and to catch up with international standards for international funding opportunities. By focusing on the evolution of SEL policy formation in Lebanon, we illuminate the roles of transnational–national actors and national policy makers in mobilizing and activating global education policies in a particular crisis- affected context. In doing so, we show how their roles are reflective of unequal political, economic and cultural power within the global governance of humanitarian aid.