In these last few years, we have seen the emergence of private actors in the field of education. International advisory firms, non-profit organizations, Corporate Social Responsibility divisions of commercial enterprises, individual consultants and a growing number of philanthropic foundations entered the field of education that was almost exclusively government domain. At the same time, we are observing a shift in education philanthropy. Hence, as philanthropic investment in education is on the rise, increasingly critical questions are being asked about the impact of the activities of private actors on educational systems. New corporate donors have entered the scene, using large amounts of financial resources and employing new and ambitious approaches even as their commitments to educational philanthropy raise critical questions of accountability and legitimacy.

According to Ball (2016), some trans-national policy actors in the field of global education policy are well researched, such as the OECD, the World Bank and the European Union. Educational businesses, Ed-Tech companies and philanthropies compared have received much less attention from researchers, despite their significant impact on the reshaping of teaching and learning and on the conceptualization of education policy and governance within and across national jurisdictions (Hogan, 2015).

This presentation seeks to expand a body of research within policy sociology dealing with changes in the policy process and new methods of governing society (Ball, 2008), and to contribute to the conceptualization of policy networks in the field of education. The term “network” is used here as a theoretical device to represent a set of changes in the forms of governance of education, both nationally and globally, and as a method and an analytic technique for looking at policy communities and their social relationships (Ball, 2012,).

The popularity of the concept of “network” is an adequate methodological response to the change in governance and forms of the state. That is, the network as a device for both researching and representing policy allows policy researchers to shape their methods and analytic practices in relation to the global shift from government to governance (Rhodes, 1995, Ball & Youdell, 2008, Cone & Brøgger, 2020), or what is sometimes called “network governance”. This shift involves a move away from the administrative, bureaucratic, and hierarchical forms of state organization and the emergence of new “reflexive, self-regulatory and horizontal” spaces of governance: the heterarchies. The heterogeneous range of organizations and practices that constitute these heterarchies contributes to, reflects, enable, and require the semiotic and technical re-articulation of education and educational governance (Ball et al., 2017).

In the presentation, drawn from my doctoral research, I will introduce the reasoning behind the empirical investigation that allowed me to answer the research question on how new philanthropic organizations promote social investment in European education by mobilizing their resources and present the policy-scape” in which such organizations carry out their strategies of social investment. Therefore, understanding how these actors operate in education governance fits in wider efforts of understanding European trends of education policy towards education advocacy.

Moreover, network analysis responds to the need for new methods and new research sensibilities to better understand the new organizations, forms of participation and relationships engaging in education policy and, more generally, in the expansion of neoliberal ideas (Ball, 2012). Network analysis is appropriate here both as a method for the analysis of educational governance, and as a representation of the actual social relations and sites of activity within which the work of governing is done (Ball & Thawer, 2019).

According to Marcus (1995), in “following” as a research method, researchers are not just to follow people, but also things, metaphors, stories, and conflicts as mobile research objects. Whether working “forward” from where a policy originates or “backwards” from where it has arrived, this approach consists of tracing the places a policy has travelled through and questioning how the policy has changed or transformed along the way (McCann & Ward, 2012). My research is interested in how networks work (Ball et al., 2017). The methodological approach of network ethnography is best suited to the attempt of my study to specify the exchanges and transitions between participants in global education policy networks, and the resources of the different actors involved (Ball, 2012; Ball & Junemann 2012). As Ball et al. (2017) put it, while there is a constant reference to the role of money in education policy literature, both at the national level and in relation to the investment strategies from private donors at the international one, these are usually passing reference, to illustrate a wider issue or problem, but the actual focus of such studies is not on money itself. Therefore, the aim of this contribution is to bring money to the forefront. Given this context, I have sought to bring ethnographic sensibilities to bear on the study of the global education policy networks, which has meant a direct engagement with network participants and activities, but also adaptability and flexibility (Ball, 2017). In particular, the different methods carried out in the various stages of the research will be introduced in the presentation. Network ethnography involves mapping, visiting, questioning and following, that is following people, conflicts and money through four main activities (Ball and Junemann, 2012): internet searches, interviews, field observation and graph building. First, extensive internet searches around the primary actors of the studied network. Second, interviews conducted with individuals and institutions identified as highly connected, or influential. Third, participative observation of events conducted at key sites of network continuation, involving Internet visiting and meeting attending (Ball et al., 2017). Throughout the three activities, network graphs are built as tools to identify relevant individuals, institutions and relationships in relation to specific networks.

Although my study covered a research question focused on how new philanthropic organizations promote social investment in education by mobilizing their resources, the most important findings concerned the democratization of education through social investment. Indeed, new philanthropic organizations, that seemed to offer the most potential to positively shape the future of education governance, provided opportunities for students to engage with education in new ways, including improving access to educational services, supporting youth action and promoting their involvement in decision-making. The empirical analysis was important to understand the mechanisms that encourage collaboration between public, private and non-profit actors and that help transform educational systems to enrich students’ learning experience. At the same time, it contributed to the understanding of the ways in which social investment strategies can drive change in education and can thus be useful for regional and local policy-makers and practitioners to explore new ways to foster cooperation between different actors from various social and economic spheres in education governance. Different network graphs will be shown in the presentation in relation to topological dimensions highlighting the different roles of these organizations inside networks of social investment in education. Moreover, the empirical analysis will be presented to illustrate the fundamental activities of boundary actors, linking peripheral entities to central nodes in social investment networks in education. Several advocacy strategies implemented through the promotion of social investment in education classified in four categories will also be illustrated in the framework of the European and Italian legislation in the field of social investment in education. Finally, particular attention will be paid to the financial resources used by new philanthropic organizations to carry out social investment strategies in education by introducing some examples of projects and the resources assigned to them in the form of grants, subsides or non-refundable donations.

Ball, S. J. (2012). Global education inc: New policy networks and the neo-liberal imaginary. Routledge. Ball, S. J. (2016) Following policy: networks, network ethnography and education policy mobilities. Journal of Education Policy. Vol. 31(5), pp. 549-566, https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2015.1122232. Ball, S. J. & Junemann, C. (2012) Networks, New Governance and Education. The Policy Press. Ball, S. J., Junemann, C. & Santori, D. (2017) Edu.net. Globalisation and education policy mobility. Routledge. Ball, S. J., & Youdell, D. (2008) Hidden Privatisation in Public Education. Education International, https://doi.org/10.1080/02680930802419474. Ball, S. J., Junemann, C. & Santori, D. (2017) Edu.net. Globalisation and education policy mobility. Routledge. Ball, S. J. & Thawer, S. (2019) Nodes, Pipelines, and Policy Mobility. The Assembling of an Education Shadow State in India. In Edited by Saltman, K. J.& and Means, A. J. (eds) The Wiley Handbook of Global Educational Reform. Wiley Blackwell. Cone, L., & Brøgger, K. (2020) Soft privatisation: mapping an emerging field of European education governance. Globalisation, Societies and Education. Vol. 18(4), pp. 374-390, https://doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2020.1732194 Hogan, A. (2015) The role of edu-business in new global education policy networks. School of Education. University of Queensland. PhD. Marcus, G. E. (1995) Ethnography in/of the world system: the emergence of multi-sited ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology. Vol. 24(1), pp. 95–117. McCann, E., & Ward, K. (2012) Assembling urbanism: following policies and “studying through” the sites and situations of policy making. Environment and Planning A. Vol. 44(1), pp. 42–51. Rhodes, A. W. R. (1995) The new governance: Governing without government, in Osborne, S., Public Management. Critical Perspectives. Routledge.