‘Becoming European’? Respatialising the European Schools System through PISA for Schools

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) PISA for Schools, a local variant of the more-renowned ‘main PISA’ test that measures and compares individual school performance on reading, mathematics and science against international schooling systems. Here, I address the governance implications of how PISA for Schools data has been taken up by the transnational European Schools System (ESS). Drawing suggestively across new ‘relational’ thinking around data-driven modes of governance, as well as interviews with key policy actors within the ESS, I show how PISA for Schools reflects contradictory logics within the ESS, in which the inherently context-based goal of ‘becoming European’ is juxtaposed with the desire to employ decontextualised international evidence. I conclude by exploring how the perceived need for such data, associated with the global authority of the OECD, can produce a problematic focus on data-driven practices.     

Placing PISA and PISA for schools in two federalisms,Australia and the USA

ABSTRACT

This paper accepts that the OECD’s PISA has become influential in policy terms globally, but analyses the ways that the main PISA and PISA for Schools tests are positioned differently in Australia and the USA because of contrasting educational federalisms in the two nations. Our argument is that while PISA is undoubtedly influential, its effects are nonetheless mediated by the political structures – here, the different models of federalism – present within different nations, which in turn leads to quite distinct ‘PISA effects’. For instance, Australia oversamples on main PISA to make its data available for national and state-level policymaking, whereas the USA, with its focus on local governance in schooling, does not oversample, meaning that main PISA does not have a comparable policy salience as in Australia. Conversely, the newer PISA for Schools test originated in the USA with pressure from educators and philanthropic interests and has been implemented in a good number of schools, but it has not been taken up in the same way in Australia. Our analyses show how these differences reflect the idiosyncratic workings of federalism in the two nations, in which the federal government has a stronger policy and funding role in Australia than has hitherto been the case for the federal government in the USA.     

PISA for Development: how the OECD and World Bank shaped education governance post-2015

ABSTRACT

The year 2015 was significant for the arena of international development, as UNESCO’s Education for All agenda was replaced by Education 2030, which would identify minimum standards of education quality. The OECD had been working on extending its existing PISA assessment into low- and middle-income countries through PISA for Development (PISA-D) and positioned the new assessment as a means of tracking progress on the post-2015 goals. The organisation maintains that PISA-D was introduced primarily in response to the demands of the international community, especially low- and middle-income countries, and that the assessment was developed in partnership with them. This paper investigates those claims through an analysis of the arrival of PISA-D in Cambodia, situating the analysis within UNESCO’s shifting agenda and the strategic visions of the OECD and World Bank that first emerged in the 1990s. The result is a very different picture to the portrayals of local agency, demand, consensus and partnership that adorn the official websites and pamphlets of global agencies and much academic research, raising serious doubts about education governance post-2015.     

Golden relics & historical standards: how the OECD is expanding global education governance through PISA for Development

ABSTRACT

Setting this paper against the backdrop of scholarly research on recent changes in the OECD’s approach and workings in education, I analyse how the OECD has reinforced its infrastructural and epistemological global governance through the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) for Development (PISA-D). Drawing on qualitative data, this paper makes three arguments. First, there has been a reinforced effort at the OECD to align national and international large-scale assessments; second, the OECD-ensured PISA-D was enhanced only in so far as it remained comparable with PISA, with a view to joining up lower- and middle-income data infrastructures with the global PISA infrastructure; and third, the OECD has bound together the aims of PISA, PISA-D, the Education and Skills Directorate, the Organisation’s Strategy on Development and the global education agenda (Sustainable Development Goals), thus strengthening its global education governance potential. With a note of concern, I suggest these recent changes in the OECD’s work in education may be spreading a very narrow framework of educational values, which does not sufficiently recognise the complexity of learning and teaching.     

Problematizing global educational governance of OECD PISA: Student achievement,categorization, and social inclusion and exclusion

Abstract

This study problematizes the global educational governance of OECD PISA and its statistical data as a governing technology in contemporary discourses of education reforms. The study examines principles that order the discourses and practices of the international comparative assessment. The effort of analysing the impact of an education reform regime led by OECD PISA reveals how statistical reasoning defines problems in educational systems and forms social discourse surrounding educational reform to solve such problems. In doing so, this article focuses on standardization, classification, and normalization for measuring and comparing student achievement and national effectiveness. The study also offers an alternative way of considering the politics of inclusion and exclusion embedded in practices of education reforms propelled by the international comparative assessment.     

Policy,philanthropy and profit: the OECD’s PISA for Schools and new modes of heterarchical educational governance

This paper examines the development and administration of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) for Schools – a new testing instrument of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development – to demonstrate the relevance of heterarchical processes to educational governance. Drawing suggestively across new ‘relational’ thinking around policy networks, and new spatialities associated with globalisation, the research shows how PISA for Schools helps constitute new spaces and relations of, and for, educational governance. Informed by policy documents and interviews conducted with 33 key actors across the PISA for Schools policy cycle, I show how PISA for Schools typifies contemporary educational policy-making and governance via the export of ‘statework’ to private actors and agencies, including intergovernmental organisations, philanthropic foundations and edu-businesses. I conclude by considering how treating PISA for Schools, and other similar education services, as a ‘product’ produces a potentially dangerous blurring of public and private benefits, with the potential that (private) profit might ultimately trump (public) education.     

Competitive comparison and PISA bragging rights: sub-national uses of the OECD's PISA in Canada and the USA

Participation in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) has continuously expanded: from 43 systems in 2000 to 65 systems in the 2012 cycle, with 71 signed up for PISA 2015. There also has been a growth in sub-national participation, expanding PISA's reach beyond the nation-state. This paper explores sub-national PISA participation in Canada and the USA, asking how PISA is being used within sub-national education policy spaces. We draw on analysis of documents and data from interviews with officials at sub-national, national, and international levels. Findings illustrate some of the diverse motivations and uses of PISA, providing insights into the effects of PISA at the sub-national scale. As such, we argue that competitive comparison in education has deepened through the enhanced granularity of international large-scale assessment data to new scales beyond the nation-state.     

为薄弱学校师资问题研究①--来自OECD国家的经验与启示

薄弱学校难以补充和稳定优质师资是一个世界性教育问题。为了解决薄弱学校的师资建设困境,OECD国家采取了如下做法：改进职前教育,培养胜任薄弱学校教学的教师;优化招聘策略,提升薄弱学校师资聘任质量;强化专业发展,推动薄弱学校教师持续成长;改善工作环境,保证薄弱学校教师安心从教;实施激励措施,稳定薄弱学校教师队伍。这些做法对我国薄弱学校的改进、促进义务教育改革与发展具有重要的参考价值。     

Marketing teacher quality: critical discourse analysis of OECD documents on effective teaching and TALIS

ABSTRACT

This study uses critical discourse analysis (CDA) to examine Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) texts on teacher quality and the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) framework. Specifically, it explores the forewords of documents written by OECD leaders, which we believe are charged with meanings related to the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) discourse. We suggest that CDA of the texts sheds light on the manner in which OECD leaders attempt to gain normative control in the teacher quality discourse. Based on Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework for studying discourse, our analysis shows that the OECD (a) uses a discourse of fear to market teacher quality in light of global changes, implicitly framing teachers as ‘bad teachers’; (b) advocates reliance on the organization as a protector and (c) promises a remedy by regulating teachers in the name of effectiveness and the knowledge economy. The study offers a nuanced insight into OECD efforts to promote normative control in the teacher quality discourse, using three dimensions of discourse (i.e. the textual micro linguistic dimension, the meso-interdiscursive dimension, and the macro sociocultural dimension) that help gain ideational powers.     

The uses of the national PISA results by Finnish officials in central government

In this article we attempt to analyse how OECD knowledge production is integrated with the process in which Finnish education policy takes shape. This is done by analysing the uses of the OECD PISA Study by Finnish central government officials. The main question posed is: How do these officials interpret the PISA results so as to justify the decisions made in Finnish education policy in the past or to point out new areas of development concerning basic education? The analysis shows that the interpretations of the PISA results tend to favour those responsible for actions within the central government. In the texts analysed, the scientificity of the PISA programme is presented as beyond question, while the direct usefulness of the research results for the further development of national education is also proclaimed. As to the specific results of PISA, the excellent learning outcomes of Finnish students are claimed to be due to educational reforms conducted and decisions made by the central government, whereas shortcomings and areas in which the officials see a need for improvement are argued to be dependent on the actions of other agents. Thus, the analysis shows that the conclusions drawn from the PISA results in texts representing the views of central government are biased and serve to justify its policy agenda.     

评估关键能力 培育生活智慧——OECD／PISA问题解决能力之构想、设计与评估

培养学生的问题解决能力是学校教育的重点内容。“国际学生评价项目”在2003年增加了对学生问题解决能力的测评。该评估项目旨在考察学生综合运用学科领域的知识,识别问题关键特征及其内在关系,能够明确界定问题,合理表征问题和有效解决问题,并能够对问题解决方案进行真实性评估、判断与交流。     

PISA as an ideational roadmap for policy change: exploring Germany and England in a comparative perspective

Education policy has undergone transformation in many countries over the last decade. In this article, we focus on the effects of the most significant international initiative in secondary education, which is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). We analyse two countries that provide variation regarding the degree of change in their respective education policy-making due to this study; while Germany substantially reformed its education system in reaction to its mediocre PISA results, almost no change has been observed in England. As we show, alterations and shifts in ideas of education policy best account for such a change.     

OECD国家的生态税及对我国的启示

面对日益严重的资源破坏和环境污染，一些发达国家逐步认识到经济发展应遵循生态经济观念，经济增长应考虑环境成本，征收生态税。作者详细介绍了经济合作和发展组织（OECD）国家的生态税制、生态税收类型和改革经验，总结出6点我国可借鉴的经验及应采取的措施。主要有：可适当提高环境保护税占税收总额的比重；在环境保护方面实行税收激励；扩大环境保护税的征收面，适当提高税负；实行差别税率和专款专用制度：给纳税人以各种税收返还等。     

美国大学入学考试SAT深度剖析

SAT是美国历史上使用最为广泛、研究最为深入的大学入学考试,至今已有80年的历史。SAT分为推理考试(SAT Reasoning Test)和学科考试(SAT Subject Tests)两类,一般人们常说的SAT指的是SAT推理考试。SAT考试全美统一,SAT推理考试每年举行7次。SAT不是智力测验,也不是学业测验,但近年来,SAT试题的设计与学生们在高中课堂里学习的内容越来越密切地相关起来。     

The educational aims of the OECD in its TALIS insight and lesson reports: exploring societal orientations

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to explore the societal orientations (individualist vs. collectivist) of educational aims, in constructions of teacher professionalism framed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) insight and lesson reports. The critical discourse analysis of OECD TALIS documents suggests that the OECD discourse on teacher professionalism attested to a dual orientation: individualist and anti-collectivist. Our results contribute to the theoretical understanding of the educational aims of the OECD, which lead the global discourse in education, and of the cultural orientation that is part of its conceptualization of new professional teaching. The article discusses the implications of its findings.     

高中学业水平考试实验考查方案设计探析

高中学业水平考试是应新课程改革要求设立的新型标准参照考试,实验考查是其重要组成部分。为了切合新课标理念,体现素质教育精髓,本文设计了新的实验考查方案。笔者在剖析原会考实验考查的缺失之处的基础上,介绍了新方案的设计理念、主要特色以及在具体实施过程中需要注意的问题。     

盲校职业教育阶段实施课程整合的必要性和可行性

联合国教科文组织第十八届大会上通过的《关于职业技术教育的建议》中指出 :“应当使受教育者获得在某一领域能从事几种工作所需要的广泛知识和基础技能 ,使之在选择职业时不致受本人所受教育的限制 ,甚至在一生中可以从一个活动领域转向另一个活动领域……”。但是 ,盲校的职业教育滞后 ,而且社会和学生也对盲校职业教育提出了更高的要求。所以 ,我们尝试在盲校职业教育阶段进行课程整合 ,增加文化课并将专业课的部分课程进行综合形成新的模块 ,进行教学实践 ,以提高教学效率 ,把学生培养成为适应时代发展的复合型人才。     

学生终身学习能力的评价与比较--OECD国际学生评估项目简介

OECD从终身学习的框架出发,对学生的阅读、数学和科学三个方面进行评估.在该评估项目中,OECD对学生评价的功能、评价主体、收集信息的方式以及评价方法都做了新的阐述,分析了影响学生成绩的因素--学生性别、家庭背景、学习环境和学校组织等,使政策制定者更清楚地了解影响教育成功的因素.     

新冠肺炎疫情下全球教育体系的应对与在线教育的挑战——基于OECD全球调研结果的发现与反思

在新冠疫情的影响下,各国的学校关闭政策已影响数亿儿童及青少年的福祉。2020年3月,经济合作与发展组织在全球范围调研了教育系统如何应对疫情以及大规模在线教育面临的挑战情况。在梳理调研结果的基础上结合PISA 2018和TALIS 2018数据结果,对目前受疫情影响较为严重的国家开展在线教育上的资源及能力进行国际比较。研究发现:数字鸿沟正在加剧教育的不公平;教师的角色不会被人工智能替代,相反疫情下凸显了学校的社会功能并对教师期待提出了更高的要求;中国在开展在线教育上的学校资源和教师专业准备上占有一定优势,但学生个体之间的资源分布存在不均衡的情况。此外,学生的信息素养和情感教育也是当下全球教育体系普遍关注的议题。     

新《标准》与中学英语教学法课程改革

"中学英语教学法"是培养中小学英语师资的核心课程.但是,由于各种因素的影响,这门课程一直未受到广大师生的重视,教学效果不是很理想.随着基础教育阶段教改的展开,高师的师范教育理应有所变革,以培养适应新环境、符合新要求的基础教育人才.