Journal of Education Policy

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In search of a global community: a multivocal critique of

UNESCO’s education commons discourse

Michele Martini, Hannah Moscovitz, Rocío Fernández Ugalde, Morten

Hansen, Taylor Hughson, Javiera Marfán & Oudai Tozan

To cite this article: Michele Martini, Hannah Moscovitz, Rocío Fernández Ugalde, Morten
Hansen, Taylor Hughson, Javiera Marfán & Oudai Tozan (19 Apr 2024): In search of a global
community: a multivocal critique of UNESCO’s education commons discourse, Journal of
Education Policy, DOI: 10.1080/02680939.2024.2339914

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JOURNAL OF EDUCATION POLICY
https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2024.2339914

In search of a global community: a multivocal critique of

UNESCO’s education commons discourse
a
Michele Martini , Hannah Moscovitz b, Rocío Fernández Ugalde c,
d
Morten Hansen , Taylor Hughson c, Javiera Marfán e and Oudai Tozan c

a
Faculty of Communication, Media and Society, Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland;
b
Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, Copenhagen, Denmark; cFaculty of Education, University of
Cambridge, Cambridge, UK; dDepartment of Digital Humanities, King’s College, London, UK; eFaculty of
Education, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This article critically examines UNESCO’s construction of a com­ Received 20 August 2023
mons approach to global education through a multivocal analysis Accepted 2 April 2024
of its 2021 report Reimagining our futures together: a new social KEYWORDS
contract for education. The participating researchers’ “voices” are UNESCO; commons;
brought together through dialogue and joint meaning making to multivocal analysis; global
critically analyse UNESCO’s promotion of education as a global governance; education
commons. This is achieved by unpacking how the “we” that this
commons implies is constructed by the text. A multivocal approach
is particularly well suited to this task because it can encompass
multiple perspectives, identities and social roles, thereby enriching
the analysis and discussion. The joint analysis uncovers three “com­
mons-constructing” devices i) a reliance on anticipatory politics and
projection of a common apocalyptic future; ii) a discursive balance
between cultural diversity and universal values, and iii) a down­
playing of power relations. Taken together, these strategies work to
construct the commons by fostering a particular subjectivity
around a “we”, an undefined community, which readers of the
report are expected to relate to. We question to what extent this
community of global readers exists and consider its implications for
a global commons approach to education.

1. Introduction
As one of the several organisations jostling for influence in the global governance
of education, UNESCO is not only aptly positioned to promote its ideal global
education landscape but also holds a vested interest in doing so. In recent years,
the organisation has advanced a vision of education predicated on the idea of the
commons. In this view, education serves a global common good and should thus
be protected by institutional arrangements that bind peoples and communities
closer together (UNESCO 2015, 2021). In its publications, UNESCO advocates for
a commoning approach, supporting the emergence of modes of collectivity and

CONTACT Hannah Moscovitz hm@edu.au.dk Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, Copenhagen 2400,
Denmark
© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly
cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or
with their consent.
2 M. MARTINI ET AL.

social relations around shared values and a perceived common future. While
rooted in the ideal of shared values and requiring collaborative participation,
the commons remain, as Means et al. (2017) describe it, ‘always a divided and
contested terrain’ (3). The global governance of education is itself contested, with
various organisations vying for influence and legitimacy in this space (Robertson
2022). UNESCO’s promotion of a global common good perspective on education
thus occurs in a complex and competitive landscape of ideas, actors, and interests.
This article critically examines UNESCO’s construction of a commons approach
to global education through a multivocal analysis of its 2021 report Reimagining our
futures together: a new social contract for education.1 Through this analysis, we show
how UNESCO constructs the commons by implicitly referring to a specific addres­
see, who we call the ‘global reader’, articulated as part of a global community
perceived to be bound by a set of shared values, futures, and crises. In this policy
text, UNESCO mobilises affect – understood broadly as feelings and emotions
rooted in specific views of the world (Berlant 2016; Zembylas 2022) – to elicit
a sense of commonality. A particular affectively located subjectivity is thus implied
by the text through the construction of a ‘we’, an undefined community which
readers are expected to relate to. We question to what extent this community of
global readers exists and consider its implications for a global commons approach
to education.
Our study employs a qualitative multivocal analysis (Lund and Suthers 2018) of
UNESCO’s (2021) report, based on collaborative work and dialogue between seven
researchers of different social and academic disciplinary backgrounds. Bringing together
different voices, identities, and social roles to a shared analysis, a multivocal approach is
particularly well suited to achieve these aims as it allows for the inclusion of multiple, and
possibly contrasting perspectives enriching the analysis and discussion. It also sheds light
on the significance of reflexivity and positionality in education policy studies, which is
rarely considered.
The joint analysis uncovers three ‘commons-constructing’ devices employed by
UNESCO; i) a reliance on anticipatory politics and projection of a common apoc­
alyptic future; ii) a discursive balance between cultural diversity and universal values,
and iii) a downplaying of power relations. Underpinning each of these strategies is the
instilling of affective meaning to the text, through a discursive construction of
subjectivity, the ‘we’ at the core of our inquiry. These strategies are tied to
UNESCO’s efforts to achieve greater hegemony in the governance of global education.
We consider the potential and limits of such a goal. It is important to note here that
in taking a multivocal approach to analysis, we have eschewed detailed reference to
the UNESCO report itself. While a picture of the report’s contents nevertheless
becomes clear throughout our discussion, our focus on the multivocal response was
integral to our mode of analysis. By decentering the report and instead centering our
various responses and lines of critique, we hope to actively demonstrate the chal­
lenges inherent in the ‘we’ UNESCO hopes to unite us within.
The article opens with a discussion of the relation between education and the global
commons. The next section outlines the multivocal analysis employed and discusses its
novelty and value for research on global education policy. The findings of the collabora­
tive qualitative analysis are then presented and discussed.
 JOURNAL OF EDUCATION POLICY 3

2. Education and the commons

While traditionally focused on specific shared resources ‘common by nature’ (Locatelli
and Marginson 2023, 210) or, as Hardt and Negri (2009) describe it, making up the
‘common wealth of the material world’ (viii), such as water, air, and sea, the study of the
commons has branched out to encompass immaterial goods as well. This is exemplified
most notably through the discussion of the knowledge commons (Hess and Ostrom
2007) and the cultural commons (Hess 2012). The production of an immaterial com­
mons is predicated on processes of social interaction facilitated through languages,
knowledge, cultural codes, and symbols (Hardt and Negri 2009, Means et al. 2019).
These are acquired, and normalised in and through educational processes and spaces,
which in turn conditions the kinds of social coordination that is possible. A pedagogy
based on solidarity and reciprocity for instance, is discussed as a potential path to
securing the commons (Dussel 2022). Collet-Sabé and Ball (2022) view the significance
of education not only in what ‘one knows’ but also as the ‘co-construction of a life that
deserves to be lived in common with others and in relation to the environment’ (p. 901).
The authors argue that these types of social interactions can and should occur outside the
modern school which, they argue, is not fit for this purpose. Educational processes,
whether in formal or informal settings, are key to the production and consolidation of the
commons more generally. As Means et al. put it, ‘education is a crucial register for
thinking and enacting a different world’ (20).
The notion of education as commons also denotes an institutional dimension. The
commons are described as a system of rules connected to collective action and collective
modes of existence (Dardot and Laval 2014). They constitute a form of organisation and
regulation around which common goods are produced. Common goods are thus pre­
dicated on some degree of institutional organisation to thrive (Ostrom 1990). It follows
that the construction of the commons is an inherently political process, with power
dynamics at play. Key to this process is the production of subjectivity. As pointed out by
Read (2011), the struggle over the commons is ‘a struggle precisely over the forces and
relations which produce subjectivity as much as wealth and value’ (121). Affect plays
a crucial role here, as people’s emotions and sentiments are brought together towards
a common goal.
The commons bring together a group of people or community towards a shared goal,
a process which is often understood as self-formed. While the ideal of the commons
presupposes the evolutionary cultivation of an institution between people operating in
the same milieu, subjectification can also, as this study contends, be engendered by key
actors occupying privileged positions within the organisational setting of the commons.
For Velicu and García-López (2018), ‘the communal sharing of our fragile commons
(resources) cannot be separated from the sharing of our messy socio-political relations
(commoning)’ (72). These ‘socio-political relations’ become even messier as the com­
mons take on a global dimension. A new set of challenges are tackled in the protection of
global commons, including the scale of participants involved, the enhanced cultural
diversity (and lowered potential for shared interests), and the complex interrelation
between systems at the global scale (Ostrom et al. 1999). As Chan et al. (2019) describe
it, the commons have become increasingly ‘intangible’, ‘transboundary’, and ‘complex’
(407), rendering their governance even more challenging.
4 M. MARTINI ET AL.

3. Global commons for the global governance of education

The rescaling of education policy beyond state boundaries and the increasing
engagement of international organisations in education agenda setting has resulted
in a global education reform project (Ball, Junemann, and Santori 2017). Education
policy is increasingly understood as a global endeavour, with policy ideas ‘travelling’
(Steiner-Khamsi 2012) across borders. The growing de-territorialisation and trans­
nationalisation of education has heightened interest in its relation to the global
commons. Our focus in this paper is on the political construction of the global
commons approach to education. Accordingly, the inquiry presented here draws on
and extends the critical scholarship on global education governance (Mundy et al.
2016; Robertson 2022; VanderDussen Toukan 2018; Zapp 2021). Specifically, we are
interested in unearthing how UNESCO attempts to accrue legitimacy in an ever­
more ‘crowded’ governance space (Zapp 2021). As UNESCO’s approach departs
from the dominant neoliberal trends of other international organisations working in
the field of education (Elfert and Ydesen 2023), we see its discursive construction of
education as the global commons and its reliance on affect to foster related sub­
jectivities, as an effort to challenge the dominant approach and to (re)build itself
a position of influence.
Studies have explored how and under what conditions global education policy
and reform travel to different domestic contexts. While promoted as a ‘global’
endeavour, the norms and agendas of international organisations like UNESCO
are ultimately distributed and implemented unevenly in local policy contexts
(Mundy et al. 2016). The reasons for ‘borrowing’ global reforms are also shown
to be highly context-dependent (Steiner-Khamsi 2012). By highlighting how policy
ideas are received and interpreted by the report’s addressees, this study shifts
attention from national or local policy to a more affective, individual perspective.
In this way, it supports the need to consider the affective dimensions of global
education policy making and travelling policies more broadly (Brøgger and Staunaes
2016; Pitton and McKenzie 2022; Zembylas 2022). As Zembylas argues, education
policy texts are often imbued with affective meanings, that is they rely on cultural
logics and emotive signals to evoke shared feelings. Such meanings, however, are
not to be treated as secondary rhetorical nuances, but rather as discursive devices
strategically designed to elicit specific emotional responses in the readers. Through
these texts, policy actors will strategically mobilise affective dispositions to render
a policy more appealing.
The collaborative analysis and shared critique offered here, bring to light the implica­
tions of the use of affective dispositions within policy texts for its readers. Ultimately, the
report is addressed to readers making up a ‘global community’- it is directed towards
a ‘we’- intended to represent individuals and communities making up a common
humanity. Hence, an inquiry into how addressees of the report take in its language and
ideas is important. Our policy analysis moves beyond the study of how global education
policies are received and implemented by relevant governments and policy stakeholders
to underscore how they are interpreted and discussed by individual readers. In this way,
we are interested in both the intent to cultivate affect through policy texts and the manner
in which said policy texts affect its readers.2 Our multivocal research design, outlined
 JOURNAL OF EDUCATION POLICY 5

below, provides a unique lens to advance these goals as it allows us to dialogically

investigate the ways different readers react to affective ideologies.

4. Multivocal analysis
In order to critically examine UNESCO’s construction of education and the commons,
we developed and tested a multivocal qualitative analysis of the 2021 report on A new
social contract. We draw on Lund and Suthers’ (2018) Multivocal Analysis Approach
(MVA), which relies on collaboration between researchers of different theoretical and
methodological traditions working in parallel on a shared research project. Through
dialogue, inter-subjective meaning making, and the co-construction of interpretations,
the different ‘voices’ emanating from the participating researchers are harnessed for
a richer analysis and towards the production of new knowledge.
We also draw on dialogical approaches to qualitative research which recognise
the diverse social and disciplinary positions of the collaborating researchers, and
their influence on the research process (Wells et al. 2021). Exploring the ‘poly­
phony’ among investigators and their different affective and disciplinary back­
grounds allows for the inclusion of multiple perspectives in interpreting data and
ultimately brings new meaning and knowledge to light. Such an approach considers
the ‘affective and epistemic positions’ of researchers as well as calls for the respect
of multiple traditions towards the development of new forms of knowledge (Wells
et al. 2021, 498).
We see value in applying these dialogical methods to the study of global education
policy, and specifically to inquiries around the global commons and follow previous
attempts to investigate global commons through dialogical encounters (e.g. Reder 2015).
As argued here, the construction of a global commons perspective on education is
promoted through the production of a particular subjectivity, a ‘we’, which readers of
the report are assumed to relate to. As a group of international researchers, we saw
ourselves as possible variations of the ‘global reader’ addressed in the report. While the
report is seemingly directed to a wide readership, most lay people do not read long and
specialised policy documents. It is therefore reasonable to expect that the report’s authors
in particular imagined policy makers and education scholars as their actual readers. We
thus consider ourselves as being part of the imagined readership. While necessarily
limited, the composition of our research team enabled us to underscore how the ideas
pertaining to education as a global common good are taken up through a blending of
perspectives. By leveraging our individual subjectivities, the work seeks to shed new light
on the ‘communicative, affective, and relational foundation upon which the commons
are reproduced, circumscribed, and governed’ (Means et al. 2019, 4). Inspired by
Rancière’s discussion of ‘dissensus’ (Rancière 2015), we also acknowledge the possibility
of different ideas emerging from our analysis. While, as we discuss in our conclusion, we
ultimately found a significant degree of agreement within our multivocal commentary,
this nevertheless involved different researchers drawing attention to different critiques of
the text and having different affective reactions to it. Accordingly, we resist the homo­
genising implications of UNESCO’s commons and its associated ‘we’ and acknowledge
the critical potential of dissensus.
6 M. MARTINI ET AL.

5. Research and writing design

Our qualitative dialogical inquiry brought together a group of seven researchers each
representing different social, geographical, and disciplinary backgrounds including poli­
tical science, cultural studies, psychology, semiotics, and sociology. We conducted
a series of four face-to-face sessions (2 hours each) between January and March 2022,
in which sections of the report were discussed and individual perspectives evoked. Prior
to each discussion, participants were asked to read the relevant sections and annotate
them according to a common praxis developed collectively in a pre-session meeting. This
provided the basis for the joint analysis. Accordingly, PDF versions of the report were
annotated individually by each participating researcher. The annotated reports and notes
from the sessions were collected, and the comments and notes from individual PDF
copies of the report were combined. Once merged and read together, a content analysis
was conducted to chart the identification of emerging themes and ideas. The presentation
of findings aims at reflecting and re-enacting the multivocal process. The following text is
thus structured as a mosaic of our voices interlocking through dialogue. In line with the
multivocal principle, quotes from the participants are not treated as raw data to be
discussed and summarised from a single analytical perspective, but rather as the very
material the analysis is made of.
Accordingly, our findings endeavour to report the ideas expressed by single readers
while simultaneously underscoring the relational nature of this process (Anderson 2014).
To this aim, quotes are followed by the speaker’s name and yet woven into a single text
which describes the three strategies employed by the UNESCO report to construct
a common global subjectivity. In each section, we then reflect on how the ideas and
‘voices’ align with extant scholarship on the global governance of education and on the
global commons more broadly. By making connections with critical discussions in these
fields of research, we hope to contribute to the until-now limited scholarship on the
potential of education as a space for global commoning.

6. Unesco’s commons-construction strategies: a multivocal perspective

6.1. Projecting a common apocalyptic future
‘Our humanity and planet Earth are under threat’: this sentence opens the UNESCO
report on common futures. As our group discussed, the idea of an upcoming apocalypse,
i.e. a sudden and total event which affects the whole of humanity in the same way at the
same time characterises the initial framing of the policy document. The discussion of the
commons is constructed within the frame of a possible apocalyptic future that, even when
not explicitly mentioned, looms on the horizon. Through the projection of this common
apocalyptic destiny, the global collective is constructed. Although global crises, such as
climate change and pandemics, have been affecting different areas and groups in different
ways for decades, this future, as depicted here, is now shared.
The apocalyptic horizon is evoked to present the reader with an out-out” (Michele),
the ‘future is used as one of two things: showing the horrors if we do not change and
showing the positive potentials if we do change’ (Morten). This implicit duality, this
sudden polar opposition between salvation and doom, is a well-known rhetorical device
often used in war propaganda (Lasswell [1927] 1971). The appearance of a common
 JOURNAL OF EDUCATION POLICY 7

enemy demands a common effort, and demands it in ‘terms of urgency’, depicting future
scenarios as ‘nightmarish’ and ‘volatile’ (Hannah). ‘The apocalyptic future is the horizon
against which this policy is constructed’ (Michele), ‘the report language embeds a sense of
urgency for action. Although I totally agree with the use of language, this might be
counterproductive as it could be perceived as using fear to spark change’ (Oudai) and
such discourse makes both the concept of education as a common good and the idea of
a global community dependent on such a horizon. ‘It sounds like the fight of good against
evil, and Education is a superhero. A very gloomy future is coming, and only education
can reverse it’ noted (Javiera), underscoring a sensationalised narrative of education as
saviour; she added, ‘I acknowledge my positionality of the mother of children obsessed
with Marvel’.
The recurring theme of apocalyptic future identified in the report supports previous
scholarship on the legitimising power of anticipatory politics (Berten and Kranke 2022)
and the central role affect plays in mobilising education policies (Pitton and McKenzie
2022). Exploring the anticipatory politics of international organisations, Berten and
Kranke develop the concept of ‘anticipatory global governance’ which they describe as
a ‘diverse set of transnational practices of producing, contesting and implementing global
present futures’ (151). By constructing global challenges and projecting their version of
what to expect, and what is needed to solve them, international organisations perform
and strengthen their authority over a specific policy field. Robertson (2022) applies the
discussion of anticipatory politics to the work of UNESCO in particular, through
a comparative analysis with the OECD’s use of education future-making strategies and
devices. The article reveals how both organisations rely on anticipatory politics to ensure
their legitimation, where decision-making is usually made at the nation-state scale. Our
analysis extends these discussions by showing how UNESCO relies on anticipatory
politics to construct its version of a commons.
In a similar vein, Pitton and McKenzie underscore how collective affective conditions
influence the ways education policies are adopted or resisted. The devising and projecting
of future hinges on the existence of a community for which this future is shared as
a common horizon. The anticipatory politics relied on by UNESCO are also strengthened
by references to ‘collective affect’ (Pitton and McKenzie 2022). The utilisation of antici­
patory politics, especially in the realm of global governance, hinges on a commoning
strategy. The language around a ‘shared world and interconnected future’ (UNESCO
2021, vii) presupposes the existence of a community bound by common challenges and
needs. Any projection of the future requires a shared feeling and affective attachment to
a common destiny based on the notion that communities across the globe face mutual
challenges which can only be resolved through common effort. In its projection of
a particular vision of the future, UNESCO cultivates a collective affect, highlighting
a sense of shared destiny and common challenges. UNESCO’s vision of common pro­
blems and a common future contrasts directly with the vision promoted by organisations
like the OECD, whose dominant neo-liberal frame of reference sees education imagined
as a space of competition (Elfert 2017; Robertson 2022).
UNESCO therefore imagines education as a clear site for cooperation over competi­
tion. As Collet-Sabé and Ball put it, education can be ‘a key component for thinking and
enacting the future differently’ (Collet-Sabé and Ball 2023, 2). UNESCO was founded on
this basis, with the understanding that education tethers an international community
8 M. MARTINI ET AL.

with a shared destiny and purpose (Robertson 2022). The evoking of future-making
discourses by UNESCO is facilitated by the elaboration of a commons perspective
throughout the report. Projecting the idea of a shared future and common challenges
becomes more powerful when addressees see themselves as connected by this destiny.
UNESCO’s commoning strategy is thus at the centre of its anticipatory politics. The
discursive projection of a specific future and common destiny serves the construction of
political subjectivities (the global common) in the present and is part of UNESCO’s
efforts to offer a different, potentially more uniting vision that may help it gain greater
hegemony in the global governance arena.

6.2. Balancing cultural diversity against universal values

The common apocalyptic framework depicted above acts as a principle of homogeniza­
tion. ‘The dignity of communities, people, or groups doesn’t seem to be a thing’ (Rocío),
‘there is a huge focus on public, but what about the value of non-public, e.g. indigenous
spaces? Or just some kinds of private (but not business-y) spaces? Or religious spaces?’
(Taylor). In relation to the cultural dimension of the social contract, several people in the
group voiced some uneasiness for what they perceived as an unresolved tension between
cultural diversity and universalist vocation. ‘If [as the text states] social contracts are
culturally embedded, can we talk about one common vision?’ (Hannah).
In this regard, the idea of knowledge as representing a uniform thing, both in its
production and transmission, is particularly problematic. ‘Pedagogy varies significantly
between countries, regions, and cultures. This makes it seem like there is one pedagogy
which pupils and teaching around the world are subjected to’ (Hannah) and, similarly, ‘I
am wondering if we can think of teachers as “the same” across the world. If we are talking
of countries and territories in which there is no teaching qualification and the role is
fulfilled by someone in the community who has more knowledge, could we maintain the
same conversation than if we were considering highly educated teachers? Their possibi­
lities may be too different’ (Javiera). After all, ‘education is inherently linked to and
connected with the different cultures, religions, political systems, and different ontolo­
gies. Societies have never had a common vision even on the very basic topics such as the
right to live and I doubt the way forward requires us to have a common vision. This is
more an ideal world. I think the report would have a better chance to make a good start
by focusing on the minimum overlap needed between societies rather than having
a common vision’ (Oudai).
Indeed, on the topic of knowledge sharing, several questions were raised: ‘Is this
always advisable? Is this always safe for minoritised groups? What of indigenous groups
who don’t want knowledge shared?’ (Taylor). The ways indigenous knowledge is men­
tioned in connection with a global community was a particular object of scrutiny.
‘Troubling things here – in line with idea of “knowledge commons” - very much the
idea that indigenous knowledge can be applied to everyone, used by everyone etc. - they
are universalising (colonising?) something that is explicitly not universal?’ (Taylor).
Indeed, ‘the issue of the legitimation of indigenous knowledge is mentioned but not
developed. A bit in contrast with the “inclusive” mantra of the previous sessions [of our
MVA]’ (Michele), ‘there is a reification of the indigenous subject and his/her knowledge.
Like it lives outside modernity’ (Rocío).
 JOURNAL OF EDUCATION POLICY 9

The relationship between cultural diversity and global commons is ambiguous

throughout the report. The counterpart of this dynamic is the assumption that
some values are universal. ‘The report assumes that there are several shared values
across the world, which may not be the case. Solidarity, diversity, collaboration,
justice. One could agree that those values are valuable or may not. But the report
takes it as granted, without making a case of why those values are required to face the
upcoming challenges, and how it could be different if we adopt different ones. They
will not convince the world of pursuing justice just by saying it is important (this has
been a relevant topic for centuries). I miss their argument of why NOW these values
acquire a different relevance’ (Javiera). ‘These statements are very generic. Do ALL
families, ALL communities and ALL governments think that schools and education
systems can create opportunities and provide routes for individual and collective
advancement? Besides, obviously, the idea of advancement is relative. . .’ (Michele).
In other words, the report assumes ‘human rights as a guiding foundation, even
though human rights are not one thing for everyone’ (Oudai) and ‘that knowledge
and education can be harnessed towards addressing common challenges facing
“humanity” with a very broad understanding’ (Hannah). For example, ‘the division
between science and humanities is a very western paradigm’ (Taylor) and, in terms of
assessment, ‘the definition of quality (and its floating meaning) has been haunting
educational policies for a long time. I would have expected UNESCO to reformulate
or give a clearer shape to “quality” as this document requires’ (Rocío).
As our discussion underscores, UNESCO’s ‘commoning strategy’ is not without
problems. The emphasis on universal values identified throughout the report corrobo­
rates discussions on the challenge of applying the concept of commons to the global scale.
For Hardt and Negri (2005), the commons is made possible by the consolidation of
a ‘multitude’- an ‘open and expansive network in which all differences can be expressed
freely and equally, a network that provides the means of encounter so that we can all live
and work in common’ (xiv). The authors contrast the notion of multitude to that of
people, noting that while the people is one, the multitude is ‘many’. The multitude is
‘composed of innumerable internal differences that can never be reduced to a unity or
a single identity’ (Hardt and Negri 2005, xiv). It places emphasis on the notion of
singularities as opposed to individuals. Accordingly, Hardt and Negri contend that ‘the
challenge posed by the concept of multitude is for a social multiplicity to manage to
communicate and act in common while remaining internally different’ (Hardt and Negri
2005, xiv).
This challenge becomes apparent when addressing a ‘social multiplicity’ found on
a global level. Dardot and Laval (2014) argue that achieving global commons becomes all
the more difficult when the community in question is faced with different cultural
‘ontologies’. While the presence and significance of cultural diversity is emphasised
throughout the report, these are often discursively accompanied by references to uni­
versality evident in statements like ‘it is through our differences that we educate each
other, and through our shared contexts that what we learn accrues meaning’ (UNESCO
2021, 53). The drawing out of an apocalyptic future and call for a need to ‘radically
change course’ (Taylor), are underpinned by a discourse of commonality based on the
idea of shared values, commitments and norms. The sense of urgency and appeal for
immediate responses to growing global challenges prompts a call for unity and solidarity,
10 M. MARTINI ET AL.

with and despite differences, a need to ‘act in common’ as prescribed by Hardt and
Negri’s concept of multitude.
Yet, Hardt and Negri’s thesis on the multitude is not without critique. Lanclau, for
instance challenges their conception of political subjectivity as holding ‘antipolitical biais’
and as based on ‘unrealistic assumptions’ of aggregated diversity and unquestioned
compatibility between members of the multitude (Laclau 2001, 8). The multitude as
conceptualised by Hardt and Negri assumes a universality which transcends any cultural
or historical particularities. As pointed more recently by De Lissovoy and Alex (2022),
‘the very immanence of the multitude resists a meaningful registration of difference with
regard to history, geography, identity or culture’ (919). By glossing over context, the idea
of multitude is seen as promoting a universalist ideal of the global community. We apply
a similar critique to UNESCO’s commoning approach.
Viewed as a great unifier, education is described as instrumental to addressing
inequalities, promoting peace and environmental security. More specifically, peda­
gogy is prescribed to play a key role for fostering solidarity and mutual under­
standing on a global scale. However, a recurring critique emerging among
participants in our multivocal analysis involves the de-contextualisation of pedago­
gical expression and the role and interests of teachers. Is a shared pedagogical
approach feasible and, perhaps more importantly, is it desirable? Scholars of global
education reform have called for stronger engagements with local policy context in
understanding how and why global policies are implemented and understood across
the world (Steiner-Khamsi 2012). Our analysis of the UNESCO report applies the
same critical lens.
Accompanying the idea of global commons advanced in the report is the vision of
education, pedagogy, and teachers as abstract, void of context. In our view, this de-
contextualisation serves as a strategic move on the part of UNESCO as it allows for the
citing of the significance of cultural diversity, all the while leaving the contours of this
diversity ambiguous. To counterbalance this ambiguity, the common references to
universal values and shared norms then becomes an acceptable general framework within
which diversity can be articulated. An affective attachment to such shared values is meant
to allow us to overcome any reservations we may have about adopting shared pedagogical
approaches globally. However, our readers experienced largely negative affective reac­
tions (from uncertainty through to outright frustration) to this idea, due to worry that
this call for ‘unity’ might result in heightened cultural homogenisation. These responses
allowed us to probe and question the homogenous imaginary produced by UNESCO and
made visible the potential for dissensus within this aspired commons.

6.3. Downplaying power relations

The report lies on an unresolved tension between, on the one hand, acknowledging and
valorising cultural differences and, on the other hand, implicitly adopting some values as
general. In navigating this tension, and perhaps trying to keep it out of focus, the report
downplays the issue of power relations between different groups on the global stage.
‘There is a geopolitics of knowledge, and we need to consider diverse knowledges implicit
here, the fact that there is a hegemonic knowledge production and various players’
(Hannah). In reading the report, ‘I am constantly asking myself who is going to protect
 JOURNAL OF EDUCATION POLICY 11

the commons’ (Michele) because, indeed, ‘education as a common good necessitates

keeping at bay organisations that aim to centralise and black box its governance’
(Morten). Moreover, ‘how can we create a social contract in countries where there are
hundreds of identities or in contexts where identity politics is stopping unity and causing
war, such as Lebanon. This report perceives identities as peaceful rather than a violent
project’ (Oudai) but ‘for true solidarity, positionality is key, as well as letting go of
privileges and places of domination, and this is something the report struggles with’
(Rocío).
The report focuses on ‘transforming the school and classroom structure to be more
inclusive, yet the context here is missing. It is much easier in some countries to achieve
this than others, simply based on class sizes, infrastructure, etc.’ (Hannah). Moreover,
‘here students and teachers are assumed to have the same aspirations, goals, back­
grounds. This seems simplistic to me’ (Hannah). In the UNESCO vision, ‘school iden­
tifies with global solidarity’ (Hannah) and ‘this could be lovely, could also be dystopian.
Are there times and places where we want to be free from education, free from learning?’
(Taylor). The envisioned omnipresence of education is ‘potentially positive, but also
potentially cutting back autonomous or otherwise “free” spaces, where important kinds
of difference can flourish’ (Taylor). For example, in very practical terms, ‘what about the
need to work to survive? Is a relevant education going to change the fact that in some
countries people need to work from a very young age just to live?’ (Javiera). A new ‘social
contract is the intervention that is needed to “solve” the global crisis through good
education for all and good education for global cohesion’ (Morten) and yet, it is ‘pressing
that we build a “global consensus” around what education can and cannot do.’ (Rocío).
In a context of expanding neoliberal globalisation, scholarship has highlighted how
national and supranational powers, either in the form of international organisations or
multinational companies, have struggled to impose hegemonic standards (Martini and
Robertson 2022). More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has expanded existing power
asymmetries by further centralising technological power (Carrigan et al., 2023). The
advent of this global crisis and the measures implemented to face it had allowed the
popularisation and crystallisation of categories which fragment social bodies along new
lines (Fourcade 2021; Littler 2017). In the context of a progressively more polarised
global knowledge economy, where private capital plays a central role in defining the value
of knowledge as a tradable commodity, the discussion around education as a common
good becomes central. And yet, as highlighted in our findings, the report seems to
overlook such issues. It also seems to overlook the historical underpinnings of the
struggle around the commons, limiting understanding of its potential development. On
the contrary, education as a global common good is presented as arising from a bottom-
up, unspecified and homogenous global community which meets little resistance; from
a sort of historical necessity, rather than a struggle against hegemonic powers. Lack of
consideration of such issues perhaps further weakens UNESCO’s attempt to create
a vision for education that all feel they can truly buy into.
As a space where organisations vie for legitimacy and status, the global governance of
education is an arena for power struggles and contestations. UNESCO’s position has seen
a decline in recent decades, with the OECD and World Bank dominating the global
education space (Elfert 2017; Robertson 2022). By outlining the contours of what a ‘new
social contract’ for education could resemble, UNESCO is attempting to reclaim
12 M. MARTINI ET AL.

a steering position in this endeavour. As cited in the report, ‘UNESCO has a unique
capacity to convene and mobilise people and institutions around the world to shape our
shared educational futures. Herein lies its great strength. And it is precisely this strength
that is needed to build a new, internationally agreed social contract for education, and
more importantly a new deal for implementing it’ (UNESCO 2021, 142). As a ‘referent in
global policy making’ (Means, Ford, and Slater 2017, 1), the commons and its construc­
tion have become pragmatic tools for international organisations. Indeed, UNESCO’s
more humanistic vision here does, as Robertson (2022) notes, serve ‘as a contrast to what
it sees as the lop-sided economism of the OECD’ (202). However, at the same time, we
have highlighted ongoing challenges in UNESCO’s ‘commoning’ approach that poten­
tially belie its attempts to regain some degree of hegemony, including its inability to deal
in a truly substantive way with the thorny tension between cultural distinctiveness and
universal values and issues of power relations.

6.4. An affective strategy: the discursive construction of subjectivity

The three strategies identified in the analysis are tied together by an overarching language
device, a reliance on generalised lexicon to construct the ‘we’ in question. This type of
language is used to mobilise its readers around a shared vision. In this way, it has a clear
affective motive. Indeed, the analysis revealed a linguistic strategy which characterises the
entire document, i.e. the frequent use of collective lexicon. ‘There is a rather unspecified
“we”. Is this a sort of implied collective global actor?’ (Michele), ‘it is not exactly clear
who this “we” is’ (Hannah). The use of collective pronouns without further specification,
as well as ‘an almost exhausting reference to “everyone” and “everything”’ (Michele), was
identified as a problematic issue. ‘The word “everyone” has been mentioned throughout
this report. Who is everyone and how is it possible to include everyone? What about
competition between interests? “everyone” is not homogeneous. “everyone” has different
and clashing needs’ (Oudai). Indeed, while ‘universalism is positioned as the solution’
(Morten) ‘it is notorious how it is avoided by explicitly mentioning a region or country’
(Rocío). This collective actor is repeatedly evoked and yet never defined. ‘There is
something interesting about the terms used like “species” “our humanity” etc. It puts
us all in one category when we are used to divisions along geographical, economic lines’
(Hannah) and yet ‘everyone can mean no one specifically. Who is responsible for
change?’ (Javiera). The varied affective responses that come through in these comments,
from curiosity to indignation, reflect the challenge of UNESCO’s call to participate in the
commons and the much more positive, accepting affective response that this would
necessitate.
The difficulty in identifying the main traits of this implied global community directly
affects the reader’s ability to identify how education as a common good should be
understood and implemented. ‘Whose common good and whose collective?’ (Hannah)
and ‘what’s the global again?’ (Rocío). The collective which emerges from the combined
effect of the different techniques highlighted in the findings remains dangerously unspe­
cified. The creation and implementation of a new social contract seems to rely on the
action of a collective whose identity, power and positionality remain unknown or at the
very least misunderstood by the reader. The main danger here is that a similar dynamic
could have paralysing effects and thus undermine the very objective of the report. ‘Aren’t
 JOURNAL OF EDUCATION POLICY 13

we risking not achieving anything when we bring everyone?’ (Oudai) and, anyway, ‘who
exactly is or are the international community? Countries? It does not seem to as the
international community is presented as something different from governments.
Organisations? Everyone, perhaps, as really meaning no one in particular?’ (Javiera).

7. Conclusion
The commons stands in a dialectic relationship with communities. Indeed, there is no
commons without community. Any transformation in one immediately reverberates on
the other. For this reason, to investigate how the UNESCO report constructs the idea of
education as a global common good, we shifted our focus towards the ways the hypothe­
tical global community behind the global commons is defined. This focus raises crucial
questions which are yet to be answered: which communities will own the commons?
What will bind these communities together? How will power be distributed? Where are
its boundaries? How will the commons be defended and maintained?
While education is a key factor in the co-creation of commons, the latter is also
inextricably connected to collective action and collective modes of existence. The mutual
interdependence between these factors represents, according to our analysis, both the
limits and possibilities of the idea of education as a global common good. Indeed, in the
report the emergence of this new form of education is presented as dependent on the
establishment of a new social contract, and yet the terms and conditions of such
a contract remain unexpressed. Instead, it is on an implicit communal actor that the
responsibility for the legitimate creation of these new common goods rests. A global
communal dimension whose construction relies, as our multivocal analysis demon­
strated, on a common apocalyptic future, the assumption of certain values as universal
and the erasure of existing power relations.
Within the landscape of the global governance of education, commoning becomes
politicised and is leveraged by UNESCO as a legitimation device in a space where its
power is receding. These three strategies are underpinned by an overarching generalised
language to describe the community in question, all of which work to construct and
mobilise a specific subjectivity around which education as a global common good should
be promoted. The reliance on a discourse of sharedness supports previous work on
UNESCO, notably Debarbieux et al.’s (2023) study on the organisation’s heritage poli­
cies. The authors investigate how UNESCO’s language of ‘sharedness’ is interpreted and
adopted by key stakeholders of its heritage policies asking, ‘what do “sharedness” or
commonality actually mean for the protagonists of UNESCO heritage making?’ (609).
We take a step back to ask how the language of commonality is interpreted by the
organisation’s first line addressees: individuals making part of this global community.
In unpacking the tensions between the commons and communities, our study has
revealed how the construction of a particular subjectivity, a ‘we’, serves as a device to
allow for this tension to stand, at least on first reading. By elucidating how UNESCO
produces subjectivity around the global commons, we take up calls to address how
commoning engages ‘a variety of conscious and unconscious forms of identification,
subjection, and relations’ (Velicu and Garcia-Lopès 2018, 63). As noted by Read (2011) ‘it
is only by examining the way in which subjectivity is produced that it is possible to
understand how subjectivity might be produced otherwise . . . ’ (114). It is our hope that
14 M. MARTINI ET AL.

our critique offers insight into the politics around the ideal of a global commons in
education: both its potential for a positive change and its inherent weakness.
Our multivocal collaborative approach also sought to leverage our positionalities and
subjectivities to inform the analysis of the report. While the central aim of this article was
to use our multiple perspectives to critically explore UNESCO’s approach to global
commons and education, we also considered how our readings of the report were
contingent upon our diverse ontologies and backgrounds. Despite our differences, the
similarities in our readings of the report became clearer as the multivocal analysis
progressed. This echoes the experiences of Condit and colleagues (2003) who developed
a polyvocal methodology for coding responses to focus group interviews. While their
methodology was designed to highlight polyvocality among a diverse set of coders, they
still found ‘a relatively high degree of agreement among’ them (569). Moreover, while our
disciplinary backgrounds differed, we shared a common professional interest in educa­
tion, and adhered to a set of unspoken dialogical practices. A key practice here was
building on each other’s points, which may have contributed to a convergence over time.
Polyvocality in the analysis could potentially be increased by including researchers
without a professional interest in education, people who are not professional researchers,
as well as developing guidelines for the discussion meetings that aim at identifying and
unpacking differences in the way we each read and interpreted the report. We hope that
outlining our experience with MVA here makes a substantial contribution to the
literature on this promising method, allowing others to further draw on and adapt our
initial attempt here.
A second stage of this project will unpack our reflexive processes and their implica­
tions for education policy analysis, and policy analysis more broadly. To what extent are
our individual analyses influenced by our overlapping positionalities and ideas about the
world? This calls for consideration of how our status, position, and past experiences
inform the way we as researchers read and interpret policy ideas. While the importance of
positionality in global education policy research is acknowledged and discussed (Lingard
and Gale 2010), studies which empirically consider how researchers’ experiences influ­
ence their research process and outcomes could add weight to these considerations.
Engaging with multivocal analysis in policy research has the potential to make these
biases apparent. Indeed, if global education policy is interpreted and adopted differently
once met with ‘domestic policy frames’ (Mundy et al. 2016), might it also be read and
interpreted differently by individuals making up the global community it intends to
reach?

Notes
1. The report is based on the collaborative work of the International Commission on the
Futures of Education mandated by UNESCO to consult and reflect on the future of
education amid growing global challenges. A two-year global consultation culminated in
the production of the report and guidelines for a global social contract of education. It
attempts to capture how sociological, ecological and technological trends are changing
education systems and how the education systems need to adapt to them.
2. This aligns with discussion of affect as ‘two-sided’ (Anderson 2014)- a capacity to affect and
to be affected. See also Pitton and Mackenzie 2022.
 JOURNAL OF EDUCATION POLICY 15

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors
Michele Martini is a Postdoctoral Fellow and LEcturer at Università della Svizzera Italiana,
Switzerland. Martini’s research focuses on computational social science and specifically on the
development of new methods for the analysis of unstructured datasets such as texts, videos, images
and user interfaces. His work investigates digital education, new media platforms and education
policies.
Hannah Moscovitz is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Danish School of Education, Aarhus
University. Her research interests combine territorial politics, nationalism studies and critical
policy studies, with a focus on higher education policy.
Rocío Fernández Ugalde is a doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Education at the University of
Cambridge. Her work focuses on the intersection of critical analysis of educational policies and
cultural studies, with a focus on teachers’ labour and social movements.
Morten Hansen is a Lecturer in Digital Economy and Innovation Education at the Department of
Digital Humanities, King’s College London. His current research focuses on machine-human
entanglements and their impact on education.
Taylor Hughson is a secondary school teacher and a doctoral researcher in the Faculty of
Education at the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on the politics of knowledge in
education policy.
Javiera Marfán is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Education, Pontificia Universidad
Católica de Chile. She is a sociologist from the same university, holding a master’s degree in
public policy and management from the University of Chile and a PhD in Education from the
University of Cambridge. Her research areas include educational policy, school leadership and
school change.
Oudai Tozan is a doctoral candidate at the University of Cambridge and an Associate Lecturer in
the Sociology of Education, Migration and Mobility, and Research Methods at Anglia Ruskin
University. Oudai’s research focuses on unpacking the exile experience as well as the role of higher
education in conflict and peacebuilding.

ORCID
Michele Martini http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7532-4814
Hannah Moscovitz http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0139-6935
Rocío Fernández Ugalde http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4991-8034
Morten Hansen http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2775-3112
Taylor Hughson http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3088-8317
Javiera Marfán http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4627-8820
Oudai Tozan http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0937-0975

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