The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has instigated educational changes and reforms globally, in particular, introducing and intensifying neoliberal logic and governance in test-taking countries and beyond. PISA outcome impacted upon the educational governance of South Korea as well, however, the changes deviated from what…

The Programme in International Student Assessment (PISA) has become the prominent method of international comparison of the achievement of 15-year-old children in reading, mathematics, and science. Recently, the OECD, which administers PISA, has devoted a great deal of energy promoting the notion of "academic resilience"--which refers to…

Education reform efforts stemming from the Programme in International Student Achievement have strengthened in recent years, particularly in response to the growth of global references societies -- high achieving educational jurisdictions such as Finland, Hong Kong-China, and more recently Estonia and Singapore. Despite political rhetoric,…

In this article we carry out a preliminary reconstitution of the genealogy of the political decision to integrate Portugal in PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), promoted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, made in 1999 and implemented in 2000. For this we used a comprehensive analysis of newspaper…

In December 2019, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development released the latest results of its triennial Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) testing. What followed was a flurry of media reports in the participant countries about the 2018 PISA results that were interpretive rather than descriptive. Whilst there is…

This paper offers a conceptual framework that combines Sen's concept of capability and Bourdieu's forms of capital to understand the generative mechanisms of educational advantage or disadvantage. The paper illustrates some ways that the Sen-Bourdieu framework can be applied to understand the Programme for International Student Assessment 2015…

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has unveiled plans to move into the field of early childhood education through the introduction of the International Early Learning Study (IELS), a new comparative test of five-year olds that is being piloted in three nations. This article explores the dynamics of this new project…

Results of international achievement surveys such as the Programme in International Student Assessment have consistently reported an achievement gap between immigrant and non-immigrant student populations around the world. This paper unpacks this persistent achievement gap by examining key characteristics that influence the performance of first-…

There is increasing attention worldwide to advancing quality education. Beyond a rhetorical aim, many international organizations and national education systems have articulated a commitment to promoting measures of quality education through the development of educational indicators. This article broadly explores the global influences on national…

The European Union--comprising 28 member states with individual sovereignty in the formation and implementation of education policy--has developed research and communication strategies to facilitate the exchange of best practices, gathering and dissemination of education statistics and, perhaps most importantly, advice and support for national…

In this interview with David Hursh, Bob Lingard comments on his current and/or recently completed research projects in respect to new modes of global governance in schooling and the complementarity between international large scale assessments and national testing. He also looks at a project that, in conjunction with school leaders, teachers,…

In its analysis of data it collected in 2006, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) used a variety of statistical methods to arrive at the 'key findings' that school autonomy, school competition and the public posting of student achievement data were…

It is through the media that audiences come to learn about the apparent successes and failure of the education system. Despite this power, the connection of the media to educational leadership and policy making is often given little attention in determining the forces at play in evaluating what happens in schools. Using a critical discourse…

This article deals with central issues in the field of sociology and politics of education after the publication of the outcomes of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study for Germany. These outcomes serve to remind us of the old debate on politics of education in the 1960s. The main topic since then remains the reproduction…