Taking the example of post-1989 teacher education reform in Lithuania, and comparing that with teacher education reform in South Africa, a country that also underwent a total societal reconstruction at the same time as Lithuania, this paper defends the thesis that the configuration of education at grass roots level, is the outcome of a dialectical play of forces at various geographical levels, including the global, the regional or supra-national, the national and the sub-national or local. [For the complete Volume 17 proceedings, see ED596826.]