Korean Educational Development Institute(KEDI)

Abstract
While quality education has regained global attention since the World Education Forum
2015, there is rare agreement on the term “quality education” within the international
community, as well as in academia. This study aims to review articles on quality education
published in selected academic journals between the 1960s and the 2010s to find a pattern
of change in how quality education is defined. Inspired by Tikly and Barrett (2011) and
Tikly (2011), this study applies four main discourses ― postcolonial, input-output, human
rights and social justice ― to explore trends in international journal articles on quality
education. From the 1960s to the 2010s, the number of published articles on quality
education has increased each decade. While the predominance of the input-output approach
has continued, our analysis shows that the conceptualization of quality education has
diversified since 1960. The human rights approach in quality education studies has steadily
increased since 2000, although rarely do studies address the postcolonial approach.
Moreover, research embracing the social justice approach noticeably increased in the 2010s.
While further rigorous studies are required to analyze why the way we address quality

education has changed, we conclude that it has been influenced by diversified
multilateralism in the education sector and the varying roles education plays in the
changing paradigm of international development.