A global-local mixture of educational reform policy in Taiwan: Taking school choice policy as an example of unevenness of educational opportunity

Combining the global and local levels of policy borrowing and hybridization, in this chapter, the author takes two junior high schools in Taiwan as examples of what happens as these neo-liberal reform policies travel down to the local level and are refracted through a local system that has already developed its own local practice of school choice. In the following, theoretical perspectives about global policy travel, and reformulation and local adoption are first discussed. Secondly, he introduces Taiwanese school culture and school choice practices, and how, since the 1990s, they have been reshaped by the neo-liberal education policies formulated in response to Taiwan’s education reform movement. Thirdly, the author discusses how a hybrid model of choice came about and analyzed its impact on Taiwanese educational system and social effect. Finally, he reflects on the implications of the school choice case for the theoretical perspectives of global-local mixture and the remade space of educational politics in terms of educational opportunity.