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This book offers a sociocultural account of logic—or a pedagogy—that governs Cambodian education, from policy-making to classroom practices. In so doing, the volume aims not only to introduce and characterize Cambodian education but also to help readers understand better the complexities involved in reforming educational practices by drawing on an ethnographic multi-level case study of an on-going pedagogical reform policy. The book unveils what is actually going on in Cambodian classrooms and how actors make sense of their practices in response to new pedagogy. Importantly, the book situates Cambodian pedagogical reform efforts in the wave of global expansion of student-centered pedagogies and sheds light on the political economy of education policy-making and policy implementation in an axis of global-local.
 
The contribution of the book is three-fold. First, it represents the dynamic interplay between globalized student-centered pedagogies and local responses to new pedagogies. The book provides a nuanced description of the fact that Cambodian pedagogical reform policy was not implemented as it was intended, while no overt contestations were observed. Education sector in Cambodia is known as a “good recipient” of international assistance and thus many globally standardized reforms—such as student-centered pedagogical reforms—have been in place, but very little is known about what makes Cambodia a good recipient and what it actually means being so. Cambodia is a good case for problematizing and politicizing the relationship between global reforms and local practices in the context of educational development. Insights offered in the book shed light on the political economy of education policy-making and policy implementation under globalization in developing countries.
 
Second, it introduces readers to in-depth, contextualized analysis of Cambodian education, which has rarely been documented to date. This can be done by exploring local “logic” that shapes, and is shaped by, daily educational practices, based on a sociocultural analysis of an on-going pedagogical reform policy. Social, cultural, historical, and political perspectives are brought together to understand better the complexities involved in Cambodian pedagogical reform. The book is valuable because other works on Cambodia rarely provide information on what is actually going on in classrooms and why it is done in certain ways, and thus offers superficial solutions—such as investing in teaching materials and raising teacher salary—to the issue. The book provides contextualized and locally relevant information that will help international, national, and local policy actors in the education system as the country continues to work on improving the quality of teaching and learning. Such practical insights are particularly useful in the midst of a series of comprehensive education reforms.
 
Last, the book also contributes to identifying and filling knowledge gaps in the existing bodies of literature beyond Cambodian contexts. The findings presented in the book contribute to developing our knowledge about globalization in education by exploring deeper complexities in this phenomenon. The book also speaks to the literature on the education policy studies, in which understanding the gaps between education policy and practice have long been the major challenge. It particularly builds on our knowledge about the nature of changing pedagogies, which should be relevant to almost all contemporary education systems around the globe regardless of developed or developing countries.
 

(Written by OGISU Takayo, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Education / 2024)