Cognitive and Normative Features of a “Knowledge-Based Regulation Tool”: The Case of OECD’s PISA
OECD’s PISA is a knowledge-based and knowledge-generating device that combines technical and social components, takes part in establishing regulations for the coordination and control of public action in education, operates several core categories of schooling, and to a certain extent rewrites the educational model for contemporary societies. Read more ...
The experts mirror: an independent authority over “reality”?
How can knowledge generated by the PISA survey be converted into usable information for policy-makers? In this excerpt, we analyze how the OECD developed PISA as a credible and useful tool for the exercise of government power and/or government scrutiny. Read more ...
Translating PISA into the Hungarian policy discourse
Hungary is one of the European countries whose education system has repeatedly been diagnosed as showing below average performance with above-average variance between schools, when compared with other countries participating in the OECD’s PISA survey. This article explores how this diagnosis was received by domestic actors and discusses the main characteristics and arguments of the national public debates invoked by PISA. The national PISA discourse is analyzed by looking at how the problem... Read more ...
Studying the Construction of a “Knowledge-Based Regulation Tool”: Conceptual Issues
How has the OECD’s comparative inquiry on student performances (PISA) been constructed (and evolved over time, 1997-2007)? What kind of relationships has it established between knowledge and policy? In order to answer these questions we’ve studied PISA as an entity of complex multiple activities through which diverse social actors are engaged in the production, dissemination and use of ‘knowledge for... Read more ...
The Reception of the PISA Report in Hungary
This is the executive summary of the Hungarian Team`s Report on the PISA-reception in Hungary. Read more ...
Governing Autonomy: from Curricular Policies to Quality Assurance and Student Assessments
This is the executive summary of our research report. The Report focuses on how measurement and evaluation gradually became important issues on the Hungarian educational policy agenda. It summarizes the findings of the research conducted between September 2007 and July 2009. Read more ...
Studying PISA: Major concepts
(public policy, regulation, policy instrument and knowledge based policy instrument)
Public policies are conceived as Programs of action promoted by the public authorities (Meny and Thoenig, 1989) focused on the identification and solution of collective problems, including not only the production of guidelines for action (values, goals, norms) but also the management of the collective action needed to actually implement those guidelines. However, public authorities (politicians and upper level civil servants) are not the only relevant actors in policy making. The growing... Read more ...
A post-bureaucratic policy: the evaluation of public schools
The policy instrument under consideration is the external evaluation of public schools carried out in Portugal since 2005, under the pressure for external evaluation policies coming from the European Union (EU) new mode of governance. Read more ...
L’institutionnalisation de l’évaluation de l’action publique en France et la modification de son cadre normatif
Le développement généralisé de l’évaluation des politiques publiques se produit au confluent de plusieurs phénomènes : le développement des sciences sociales et des techniques de description ; la préoccupation de rationalisation de l'action publique, le développement de l’innovation, par opposition au recours à la tradition comme mode de décisions. Read more ...
PISA in Romanian Context
Since the focus in orientation 3 was put on regulatory instruments, our team conducted research on the diffusion and use of PISA in the romanian education. Central research questions were put on the knowledge producing and knowledge circulating role of this instrument, the team had tried to explore - next to the context of PISA - the process of implementation, the information transmited by the PISA results and the use of these results, the characteristics of dissemination and social... Read more ...
PISA en Belgique francophone : un outil de légitimation politique et un instrument de surveillance
Si PISA est officiellement présenté comme un outil d’aide à la décision politique, en Belgique francophone, il tend plutôt à être utilisé comme un outil de légitimation de propositions politiques pré-existantes et comme un instrument de surveillance qui renforce la pression exercée par le quasi-marché des usagers en direction des acteurs (publics et privés) de l’enseignement. Read more ...
La transformation des données issues des enquêtes PISA en connaissances et en arguments : un processus inscrit dans l’action publique
L’analyse des processus de transformation des données brutes de PISA en connaissances et en arguments montre combien ce travail, bien qu’assumé pour l’essentiel par des scientifiques, est pleinement inscrit dans l’action publique. Read more ...
La construction de dispositifs socio-techniques d’évaluation externe : un processus de traduction
Les dispositifs d’évaluation externe sont des outils socio-techniques assemblant des éléments humains et non-humains, liant acteurs et techniques. La construction de ces outils et leurs propriétés constitutives sont tributaires des réseaux d’acteurs dans lesquels ils s’inscrivent et qu’ils contribuent à faire exister. Read more ...
La réception des politiques d’évaluation externe en Communauté française : incidence des modes de construction et d’implémentation
La perception, les usages et les effets des politiques d’accountability dépendent en partie de leur mode de construction et d’implémentation au niveau local. Read more ...
Context or comparison?
New ways of governing often entail the development of indicators, benchmarks and other instruments of comparison. These risk failing to take into account the specificities of particular interests, particular situations and particular times with particular groups. How and why has comparison become so powerful? How might we take account of the idiosyncrasies of context?
