Bridging global standards and local needs: a realist perspective on glocalisation in medical education

Contemporary interest in glocalisation partly reflects the limitations of earlier globalising movements in medical education. The former evolves to a process through which globally-informed educational models are negotiated and reconstituted within local contexts. While global standards can enhance graduate mobility, implementation may privilege Western assumptions regarding competence, professionalism, and quality. This can lead to obscuration of local values, needs and realities. Existing scholarship has examined glocalisation through sociocultural and postcolonial perspectives, generating insights into issues of hierarchy, power, and culture. Less explored is how methodology can empower transferable explanations of how global educational interventions generate different outcomes across contexts. We argue glocalisation can be considered a wicked problem: a complex, context-dependent phenomenon shaped by interacting pedagogical, regulatory, and socio-political forces. Methodological approaches capable of leaning into such complexity have potential in expanding knowledge regarding not only whether educational interventions succeed, but how, for whom, and under what conditions. We propose a critically-reflexive realist approach as a framework for advancing research and practice in this field. Realist inquiry enables researchers to identify how local actors interpret and enact globally-derived models within institutional, cultural, and material contexts. Such explanatory theories can generate actionable guidance for design and evaluation of glocalised educational interventions, while avoiding assumptions of universal applicability. Realist approaches must engage critically with power and representation to avoid reproducing colonial biases. We contend a critically-reflexive realist perspective offers a bridge between global standards and local needs, supporting more equitable, context-sensitive, and theoretically-informed approaches to medical education in an increasingly interconnected world.