Constructing Education Systems in the Global South: The Dynamics, Role and Impacts of International Organisations through Finnish Education Experts’ Sensemaking

Abstract

This paper analyses the international dynamics of development cooperation in education from the perspective of education experts working in development cooperation. We combine the onto-epistemic stance of complexity thinking (e.g. Cilliers, 1998) with the perspective of sensemaking (e.g. Weick et al., 2005). The study’s main data source is interviews with Finnish education experts working in international organisations. Our findings indicate that the interviewees understand the complexity and ambiguity of development cooperation, and that they believe that by retaining leadership of development cooperation initiatives, international organisations can maintain and even increase the gap among education systems along the North–South divide.