Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to combine seemingly unrelated factors to explain global competitiveness. The study argues that school discipline and education investment affect competitiveness with the association being mediated by educational performance. Crucially, diachronic effects of discipline on performance are tested to demonstrate…

The PISA survey influences educational policies through an international competitive process which is not wholly rationally-oriented. Firstly, PISA league tables act normatively upon the definition of formal educational aims while the survey tests cannot evaluate the educational systems' relative strengths with regards to such aims. We argue that…