Framing and selling global education policy: the promotion of public–private partnerships for education in low-income contexts Antoni Verger* Department of Sociology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain (Received 14 December 2010; final version received 10 September 2011) Public–private partnerships in education (ePPP) are acquiring increasing centrality in the agendas of international organizations and development agencies dealing with educational affairs. They are designed as an opportunity to correct inefficien- cies in the public delivery of education and to mobilize new resources to increase the access to and cost-effectiveness of education in low-income contexts. This article explores the emergence of ePPP as a ‘programmatic idea’ and, in particu- lar, the semiotic strategies by means of which this idea has been located in the global education agenda and promoted internationally among practice communi- ties by a network of policy entrepreneurs. The analysis is supported by extensive fieldwork and by a new approach to the analysis of the framing and mobilization of new policy ideas, which incorporates literature on agenda setting, policy entrepreneurs, and policy frame analysis. The approach reveals the complex way in which policy ideas, political actors, institutions, and material factors interact to strategically put forward new policy alternatives in developing contexts. Keywords: globalization; frames; policy entrepreneurs; international organiza- tions; public–private partnerships; educational change Introduction After gaining independence, former colonies in Africa, Asia, and Latin America were eager to nationalize education and build new public education systems. The construction of public education systems was considered a political strategy with many virtues, since it was expected to make a significant contribution to the legiti- mization, nation building, modernization, and economic development of the young nation states (Williams 1997). To a great extent, public education became the crown jewel of the new independent nations and the private sector was perceived as an impediment to building public education systems. Thus, a sort of zero-sum between the public and the private categories prevailed in the education policy discourse. However, with the passage of time, the situation changed significantly. In the 1980s and 1990s, education privatization policies of a very different nature were adopted in many low-income countries. Very often, these policies were introduced as aid conditionality and, in this way, were perceived as an external imposition by international financial institutions such as the World Bank (WB) or the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In other cases, privatization happened by default and, specif- ically, as a result of the state’ s inability to respond to the education demand in a *Email: antoni.verger@uab.cat Journal of Education Policy Vol. 27, No. 1, January 2012, 109–130 ISSN 0268-0939 print/ISSN 1464-5106 online Ó 2012 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2011.623242 http://www.tandfonline.com