Beyond public and private: Collaborative governance in global education reform with Antoni Verger and René Espinoza Kissell
We are excited to invite you to join us for a hybrid research talk on collaborative governance with international education scholar and sociologist Dr. Antoni Verger (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) in conversation with Dr. René Espinoza Kissell (UCSC) on Thursday, April 2, 2026 at 5pm.
Neoliberal educational policies aimed at efficiency through competition have often resulted in greater inequality and fragmentation. Can empowering new stakeholders through collaborative networks challenge market logics? Professor of Sociology Antoni Verger will present evidence on international cases of collaborative governance, where education leaders aim to convene stakeholders, co-design supports, and steer improvement collaboratively. Assistant Professor of Education René Espinoza Kissell will provide a local case study of school choice markets in Oakland, California, examining the racial politics of school closures and charter school regulation. This will be followed by a discussion on the opportunities and contradictions in global governance shifts, as well as the tensions between public and private coordination in addressing enduring political challenges.
Thursday, April 2nd, 2026, 5-6:30PM
: McHenry 3170 or via Zoom (Meeting ID: 980 6836 8045; Passcode: 330341)
Please complete this RSVP form if you plan to attend (food will be provided).
About the Speakers:
Antoni Verger is Professor of Sociology at the UAB and research fellow at the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA). With a cross-disciplinary training in sociology and education studies, his research examines the relationship between global governance institutions and education policy – i.e. how education policies are internationally disseminated and enacted in different institutional settings, and what effects this has on education quality and equity. In recent years, he has specialized in the study of public-private partnerships, school autonomy and accountability policies in education. He is one of the lead editors of the World Yearbook of Education and the Journal of Education Policy, and academic director of the Erasmus Plus awarded Master programme Education Policies for Global Development – GLOBED.
René Espinoza Kissell is an Assistant Professor of Educational Policy Studies at UC Santa Cruz. Her scholarship brings together policy, politics, and political economy to study issues of power and governance in education. Drawing on critical theories and qualitative methods, her work centers on school choice and community engagement, as well as the creation, management, and racialized surveillance of school district debt. She recently served as a research expert for the 2025 international evaluation of New Public Education Reform/La Nueva Educación Pública (NEP) in Chile. Her research has been published in Journal of Education Policy, Educational Policy, Urban Education, and Educational Administration Quarterly.
We hope you can join us in welcoming international education scholar Antoni Verger to the UCSC campus!