How does the concept of time play a pivotal role in education policy? In her new book, Time in Education Policy Transfer, Gita Steiner-Khamsi, William Heard Kilpatrick Professor of Comparative Education at Teachers College, introduces an essential yet underexplored dimension in the study of policy transfer: time. The book uncovers how the temporal dimension impacts the adoption of educational reforms worldwide, revealing the dynamic processes through which these reforms evolve in response to global influences and local contexts. 

“What really motivated me to focus on the time dimension in education policy transfer throughout this book was the whole idea of why things move and how they change over time,” says Steiner-Khamsi, who identifies seven distinct temporalities —present, future, sequence, timing, lifespan, age and tempo— associated with reform adoption.  The book will be published in Chinese by Hong Kong University Press, and in Spanish, by Prometeo Publisher.  Both versions will be published open-access for worldwide distribution.

At the College, Steiner-Khamsi focuses on global studies and governance, school reform and education policy. Additionally, she currently serves as the  Honorary UNESCO Chair in Comparative Education Policy at the Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Switzerland, where she collaborates with international researchers on various policy studies and reform initiatives.

Watch Steiner-Khamsi’s conversation on her new book with TC’s Digital Futures Institute below.