Supranational Education Policy or Supranational Education? A Discussion on the Object of an Emerging Area of Knowledge

Abstract

This article aims to explain the origins and birth of the Supranational Education Policy as an emerging area within the pedagogical science. In order to do this, we’ll review and discuss contemporary phenomena such as technological advances, social changes and the exponential proliferation of International Organizations, with special emphasis on the globalization process. Those elements have contributed to the growth of Supranational Policy of Education, in addition to new forms of governance and power. The former concepts will be covered in this article. Considering everything mentioned, we will face the origin and conceptual delimitation of a new term that we label Supranational Education.  This new field tries to emancipate from Supranational Policy of Education narrowing its scope in the current scenario of global governance. Therefore, this incipient area aims to study soft powers that act outside the explicit Supranational Policy and without consensus, despite of the fact they have a strong and significant impact on the construction of the current educational reality. This emerging field of research, born with the need to study new cultural and social realities, which have incorporated and naturalized in their identity global educational movements and trends. Likewise, it is also noted the implications of this area on the concepts of Global Citizenship and Education for Development.