Disrupting Education Policy: How New Philanthropy Works to Change Education

With support of network ethnography and concepts from Political Science and Human Geography, the author invites the readers to challenge preconceived ideas of how governments and philanthropies work, and peak inside philanthropies’ efforts to reform education.

Philanthropy is on the rise around the world, working in the fields of health, development and, most often, education. Different from charity, now donations are used as "social investment" with specific goals. In education, big corporations and wealthy businessmen strive to reform education through their philanthropic "giving", and have managed to assemble considerable influence in policymaking processes in many countries. But how do new philanthropy organisations promote education reform? And how does their policy work look like in practice? In this book, the author analyses the efforts of large foundations in Brazilian education governance to address these questions. Though having the main empirical setting of Brazilian institutions, this book analyses networks, policies and discourses that surpass national borders and also addresses how new philanthropists are connected to global networks. With support of network ethnography and concepts from Political Science and Human Geography, the author invites the readers to challenge preconceived ideas of how governments and new philanthropy operate, and observe the behind-the-scenes work of new philanthropy to reform education.