Session Information
23 SES 12 B, Politics of International Assessments and Tests
Paper Session
Contribution
The object of the paper is the OECD’s ‘Programme for International Student Assessment '(PISA), conceived as a knowledge regulation tool (KRT) (Pons & van Zanten, 2007; Freeman, Barroso, Ramsdal & van Zanten, 2007), knowledge-based and knowledge-generator, which mediates the relationship between the fields of knowledge and policy, and regulates the actors in the field of education. PISA is one of the OECD’s main instruments of policy action, alongside the “worldwide education indicators”, that it develops in partnership with UNESCO and the World Bank and the various national and thematic policy reviews that it signs (Lingard, Rawolle & Taylor, 2005; Lingard & Grek, 2007; Grek & Ozga, 2007).
Following Grek & Ozga (2007, p. 3) “PISA is the OECD’s platform for policy construction, mediation and diffusion at a national, international and possibly global level’. The (current) power of the tool lies in the maintenance of the actors who operate in different social worlds and at different levels (global, national and local) simultaneously “free and networked”, “constructing and being constructed by their engagement” (Lawn, 2006, p. 4). We use the Glonacal agency heuristic (Marginson & Rhoades, 2002) to highlight the circularity of relationships, and the processes of collective action taking place around the PISA, trying to capture the multidimensional and multidirectional relations that ensure its movement and the way the interface among transnational spaces, actors and national contexts happen.
Within the cognitive analysis of public policy, regulation is advocated as multi-regulation and policy as public action, studying the 'fabrication' of PISA (Carvalho, 2009), its 'reception' (Afonso & Costa, 2009) and circulation, recognizing the greater penetration and national adjustment to agendas and discourses diffused in/by international agencies, as well as signs of divergence andhybridization (e.g. Ball, 1998; Popkewitz, 2000; Schriewer, 2000, Steiner-Khamsi, 2004).
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Afonso, N., & Costa, E. (2009a, Abril). Study on the use and circulation of PISA at the national level. The reception of PISA in Portugal. Report on Orientation 3 – WP 17, Project KNOWandPOL. Available at http://www.knowandpol.eu/ Ball, S.J. (1998). Big policies/smal world: an introduction to international perspetives in education policy. Comparative Education, 34 (2), 119-30. Carvalho, L.M. (2009a, April) [com a colaboração de Estela Costa]. Production of OCDE's ‘Programme for International Student Assessment’ (PISA). Final report. Orientation 3 – WP 11, Project KNOWandPOL. Available at http://www.knowandpol.eu/ Freeman, R., Smith-Merry, J., & Sturdy, S. (2009, April). WHO, meantal health, Europe. Report on Orientation 3 – WP 11, Project KNOWandPOL. Available at http://www.knowandpol.eu/ Grek, S., & Ozga, J. (2007). Governing by numbers. Paper presented to the European Sociological Association Annual Conference, Network 10, Sociology of Education, Glasgow, September. Lawn, M. (2006). Soft governance and the learning spaces of Europe. Comparative European Politics, 4, 272-88. Lingard, B., Rawolle, S., Taylor, S. (2005) Globalizing policy sociology in education: working with Bourdieu. Journal of Education Policy , 20(6), 759-77. Lingard, B., & Grek, S. (2006). The OECD, indicators and PISA: an exploration of events and theoretical perspectives. ESRC/ESF research project on fabricating quality in education. Working paper 2. Marginson, S., & Rhoades, G. (2002). Beyond national states, markets, and systems of higher education: a glonacal agency heuristic. Higher Education, 43, 281-309. Pons, X., & van Zanten, A. (2007). Knowledge circulation, regulation and governance. KNOWandPOL Project, Literature Review (part 6). Available at http://www.knowandpol.eu/ Popkewitz, T.S. (2000). Preface” [and] “GlobalisationRegionalisation, Knowledge, and the Educational Practices. In T.S. Popkewitz (ed.). Educational Knowledge: Changing relations between the state, civil society, and the educational community (vii-x, 3-27). New York: State University of New York Press. Steiner-Khamsi, G. (ed.) (2004). The Global Politics of Educational Borrowing and Lending. New York: Teachers College Press.
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