PISA, Power, and Policy

the emergence of global educational governance

Edited by HEINZ-DIETER MEYER & AARON BENAVOT

2013 paperback 336 pages US$56.00
ISBN 978-1-873927-96-0

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Over the past ten years the PISA assessment has risen to strategic prominence in the international education policy discourse. Sponsored, organized and administered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), PISA seems well on its way to being institutionalized as the main engine in the global accountability regime.

The goal of this book is to problematize this development and PISA as an institution-building force in global education. It scrutinizes the role of PISA in the emerging regime of global educational governance and questions the presumption that the quality of a nation’s school system can be evaluated through a standardized assessment that is insensitive to the world’s vast cultural and institutional diversity. The book raises the question of whether PISA’s dominance in the global educational discourse runs the risk of engendering an unprecedented process of worldwide educational standardization for the sake of hitching schools more tightly to the bandwagon of economic efficiency, while sacrificing their role to prepare students for independent thinking and civic participation.

Contents

Heinz-Dieter Meyer & Aaron Benavot. Introduction. PISA and the Globalization of Education Governance: some puzzles and problems

Taya L. Owens. Thinking beyond League Tables: a review of key PISA research questions

THE FINLAND PARADOX
Janne Varjo, Hannu Simola & Risto Rinne. Finland’s PISA Results: an analysis of dynamics in education politics

Tiina Silander & Jouni Välijärvi. The Theory and Practice of Building Pedagogical Skill in Finnish Teacher Education

Paul Andrews. What Does PISA Performance Tell Us about Mathematics Teaching Quality? Case Studies from Finland and Flanders

PISA, INSTITUTIONS, AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF
EDUCATION GOVERNANCE
David H. Kamens. Globalization and the Emergence of an Audit Culture: PISA and the search for ‘best practices’ and magic bullets

Daniel Tröhler. The OECD and Cold War Culture: thinking historically about PISA

Marlaine Lockheed. Causes and Consequences of International Assessments in Developing Countries

Sam Sellar & Bob Lingard. PISA and the Expanding Role of the OECD in Global Educational Governance

NON-EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES ON PISA OUTCOMES
Heinz-Dieter Meyer & Kathryn Schiller. Gauging the Role of Non-educational Effects in Large-scale Assessments: socio-economics, culture and PISA outcomes

Xin Ma, Cindy Jong & Jing Yuan. Exploring Reasons for the East Asian Success in PISA

Jaap Dronkers & Manon de Heus. Immigrant Children’s Academic Performance: the influence of origin, destination and community

Yong Zhao & Heinz-Dieter Meyer. High on PISA, Low on Entrepreneurship? What PISA Does Not Measure

Stephen P. Heyneman. The International Efficiency of American Education: the bad and the not-so-bad news

POLICY
Alexander W. Wiseman. Policy Responses to PISA in Comparative Perspective