New Practices of Comparison, Quantification and Expertise in Education: Conducting Empirically Based Research 9780429464904

Table of contents :
Cover......Page 1
Half Title......Page 2
Title......Page 4
Copyright......Page 5
Dedication......Page 6
Contents......Page 8
Acknowledgements......Page 10
Introduction......Page 12
1 A chimera of quantifications and comparisons: the changing of educational ‘expertise’......Page 29
2 Society speaks back: on the intimacy and complexity of comparative education research on a welfare state Agora......Page 48
3 Three waves of education standardisation: how the curriculum changed from a matter of concern to a matter of fact......Page 61
4 Old power, new power and ontological flattening: the global ‘data revolution’ in education......Page 77
5 Intellectual and social organisation of international large-scale assessment research......Page 94
6 Evidently, the broker appears as the new whizz-kid on the educational Agora......Page 110
7 Bridging worlds and spreading light: intermediary actors and the translation of knowledge for policy in Portugal......Page 122
8 A data-driven school crisis......Page 138
9 Co-production of knowledge on the educational Agora: media activities and ‘logics’......Page 156
10 The reception of large-scale assessments in China and India......Page 170
11 Education export and import: new activities on the educational Agora......Page 186
12 Measuring what we value, or valuing what we can measure? Performance indicators, school choice and the curriculum......Page 200
13 Supplementary tutoring in Sweden and Russia: a safety net woven with numbers......Page 218
14 School certification: marketing schools by appearance......Page 241
A summary and an invitation......Page 252
List of contributors......Page 255
Index......Page 259

Citation preview

New Practices of Comparison, Quantification and Expertise in Education

New Practices of Comparison, Quantification and Expertise in Education discusses contemporary trends and activities related to comparisons and quantifications. It aims to help scholars to conduct empirically based research on how comparisons and quantifications are instituted in practice at different levels in the educational system. The book furthers discussions on policy by looking at the kinds of activities that comparisons and quantifications lead to at an international, regional and national level. Most of the book’s chapters are based on empirical research conducted in different research projects. The book thus brings all these projects together and discusses them as activities promoted by the reasoning of comparisons and quantifications. New Practices of Comparison, Quantification and Expertise in Education will be of great interest to academics, researchers and post-graduate students in the fields of comparative education, curriculum research and policy studies. It will also appeal to those in the fields of teacher education, including student teachers. Christina Elde Mølstad is Head of Department and Associate Professor at the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences. Daniel Pettersson is Associate Professor at the University of Gävle and Uppsala University, Sweden.

New Practices of Comparison, Quantification and Expertise in Education

Conducting Empirically Based Research

Edited by Christina Elde Mølstad and Daniel Pettersson

First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 selection and editorial matter, Christina Elde Mølstad and Daniel Pettersson; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Christina Elde Mølstad and Daniel Pettersson to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Mølstad, Christina (Christina Elde), editor. | Pettersson, Daniel, editor. Title: New practices of comparison, quantification and expertise in education : conducting empirically based research / edited by Christina Elde Mølstad and Daniel Pettersson. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018056881 (print) | LCCN 2018061574 (ebook) | ISBN 9780429464904 (E-book) | ISBN 9781138612853 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429464904 (ebk) Subjects: LCSH: Education—Research. | Education—Research— Methodology. | Expertise. Classification: LCC LB1028 (ebook) | LCC LB1028 .N368 2019 (print) | DDC 370.7—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018056881 ISBN: 978-1-138-61285-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-46490-4 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC

In loving memory of Rita Foss Lindblad

Contents

Acknowledgements Introduction

ix 1

C H R I STI N A E L D E MØ LSTAD AND DANI E L PE TTER SSON

1 A chimera of quantifications and comparisons: the changing of educational ‘expertise’

18

DAN I E L P E TTE RSSO N AND THO MAS S. PO PK E WIT Z

2 Society speaks back: on the intimacy and complexity of comparative education research on a welfare state Agora

37

R I TA F O SS L I ND B LAD AND SVE RK E R LI ND B LAD

3 Three waves of education standardisation: how the curriculum changed from a matter of concern to a matter of fact

50

DAN I E L S U N D BE RG

4 Old power, new power and ontological flattening: the global ‘data revolution’ in education

66

R AD H I K A G O RUR

5 Intellectual and social organisation of international large-scale assessment research

83

S V E RK E R L I N DB LAD AND DANI E L PE TTE RSSO N

6 Evidently, the broker appears as the new whizz-kid on the educational Agora CA RL-H E N RI K AD O LFSSO N, E VA FO RSB E RG AN D DA N IEL SUN DBER G

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Contents

7 Bridging worlds and spreading light: intermediary actors and the translation of knowledge for policy in Portugal

111

L U Í S M I G U EL CARVALHO, SO FI A VI SE U AND CATA R IN A GON ÇA LV ES

8 A data-driven school crisis

127

A N D RE AS N O RD I N

9 Co-production of knowledge on the educational Agora: media activities and ‘logics’

145

G U N -B RI TT WÄRVI K , CARO LI NE RUNE SD OTT ER A N D DAN I E L PE TTE RSSO N

10 The reception of large-scale assessments in China and India

159

S A RBAN I C HAK RAB O RTY, CHRI STI NA E LD E M ØL STA D, J I N G Y I N G FE NG AND DANI E L PE TTE RSSO N

11 Education export and import: new activities on the educational Agora

175

K AM P E I H AYASHI

12 Measuring what we value, or valuing what we can measure? Performance indicators, school choice and the curriculum

189

U L F L U N D STRÖ M

13 Supplementary tutoring in Sweden and Russia: a safety net woven with numbers

207

E VA F O RSB ERG, TATI ANA MI K HAY LOVA, STIN A HA L L SÉN A N D H E L E N ME LAND E R B OWD E N

14 School certification: marketing schools by appearance

230

U R BAN -AN DRE AS JO HANSSO N AND CHRI ST IN A EL DE M ØL STA D

A summary and an invitation

241

C H R I STI N A E LD E MØ LSTAD AND DANI E L PET T ER SSON

List of contributors Index

244 248

Acknowledgements

Editing and writing a book is not undertaken in a vacuum, but is the very definition of co-producing knowledge. Several people have contributed to this book and to the knowledge contained in it. The book started out as an idea generated at an ECER symposium in Dublin in 2016, in which Radhika Gorur, from Deakin University, Australia, commented on our papers. Radhika has been continuously supportive of the idea and has contributed a chapter, for which we are most grateful. At NERA in 2017 in Oslo we also had the opportunity to discuss individual chapters of the book and the idea as a whole in two symposiums, with comments from Andreas Bergh, Örebro University, Sweden and Henrik Román, Uppsala University, Sweden. These comments helped us to specify the book’s focus and take our ideas a step further. At ECER in Bolzano in 2018 we arranged two symposiums to present and discuss the chapters and the book. In this context, the comments made by Halla Holmarsdottir, Oslo University, Norway, were helpful in moving the project forward and we thank you for your meticulous work on improving the chapters. Finally, we had the opportunity to present the book at the international symposium organised by Romuald Normand, Liu Min, Dalila Andrade Oliviera and Luís Miguel Carvalho on Governing by Numbers in an International Scale: New Relationships between the State and Professions in Education, in Strasbourg. We are very grateful for that opportunity, which came at a critical time in the writing of the introduction. The content of the book has also been presented in and discussed by different research groups: Studies in Professional Development, Learning and Policy at Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, The Research Unit for Studies in Educational Policy and Educational Philosophy (STEP) at Uppsala University and at the Higher Seminar in Education at the University of Gävle. Thank you all for your input and comments and support in the process. Of course, we would also like to say a special thank you to all the authors of the book. Without your work and efforts this book would not have come into being. Thanks!! As stated above – knowledge is produced in co-production. The book has been made possible by a research grant provided by the Swedish Research Council (within the project International Comparisons and Re-modelling of Welfare State Education) as well as support from our

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Acknowledgements

respective universities – Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences and the University of Gävle. Finally, we would like to say a special thank you to Tom Popkewitz, Rita Foss Lindblad and Sverker Lindblad. You have inspired us as scholars as well as individuals and have taught us the importance of being inquisitive! Christina Elde Mølstad and Daniel Pettersson Hamar and Hudiksvall, November 2018

Introduction Christina Elde Mølstad and Daniel Pettersson

This book engages with the question of how we think, talk and write about contemporary education (cf. Tröhler, 2011) in a society that is increasingly engaged in a specific reasoning (Hacking, 1992) on education – a reasoning that we tentatively describe as a ‘chimera’ of quantifications and comparisons. In one way or another, all the chapters in this book argue for the recognition and importance of this ‘chimera’, which in contemporary society is inscribed and visualised as ‘numbers’ (cf. Porter, 1995). Our hypothesis is that the ‘chimera’ of quantifications and comparisons inscribed as ‘numbers’ evokes a specific rationality that gives primacy to particular activities, which we tentatively characterise as ‘number-intelligent’ activities. In short, we start to act and think within the ‘numbers’. In this lies a ‘double gesture’ (cf. Popkewitz, 2008; Agamben, 2010), because as soon as we start to act in a ‘number-intelligent’ way, all educational actions outside this specific way of thinking seem opposed to acting ‘intelligently’ and lead to a ‘fear of being left behind’; a fear of not being ‘included’ or ‘successful’ in the ‘numbers’ circulating within the sphere of education. Our reason for constructing these concepts of ‘number-intelligent’ activities and a ‘fear of being left behind’ is simple. First of all, they serve as tropes for framing our educational interest in the contemporary and also give you, the reader, an understanding of the terrain covered in the book. Second, they highlight that when quantifications and comparisons inscribed as ‘numbers’ become the dominant theme within education, we tend to ‘see’ (cf. Rose, 1999) education differently and act rationally based on these available premises. To simplify it even further – when we start to ‘see’ ‘numbers’ we start to act intelligibly on them (cf. Scott, 1998, 2009; Hacking, 1990). Consequently, education transforms into something ‘else’. This is an important acknowledgement in the book, namely that the way we ‘see’ education affects how we act ‘educationally’. Our project is somewhat ‘risky’ and can be characterised as a balancing act in that we have no intention of labelling educational activities ‘outside’ a dominant reasoning as ‘unintelligent’. On the contrary, we are only interested in the ‘activities’ that occur within what is considered as a ‘mainstream’ educational reasoning in the contemporary. Naturally, a book can never include all the

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activities that are based on quantifications and comparisons and the rationalities that are dependent on these positions. A book can only be a ‘smorgasbord’ of examples, but never the totality. Hopefully, the book will contribute to constructive discussions and research on the matters dealt with in it. This is our hope and our expectation. Additionally, an important observation is that we cannot simply assume that ‘number-intelligent’ activities also are equivalent to ‘education-intelligent’ activities. Neither can we conclude that if we are not ‘number-intelligent’ we will simply be ‘left behind’. The relationships and possible trajectories within education are far too complex to draw this kind of simple conclusion and need to be further elaborated on. Another important issue that needs to be further discussed is: what kind of contemporary activities are based on ‘number-intelligent’ actions and a ‘fear of being left behind’? This question can be broken down into two parts: What role does the dominant reasoning based on the ‘chimera’ of quantifications and comparisons inscribed as ‘numbers’ play in contemporary educational activities? How are ‘numberintelligent’ activities and a ‘fear of being left behind’ inscribed and made visible within the educational activities of today? In order to answer these kinds of questions we have asked scholars to provide examples of how ‘number-intelligent’ activities are constituted and can be understood historically, contemporarily and for the future development of education, as well as how these activities constitute or relate to a ‘fear of being left behind’. The examples provided, which are based on the ‘chimera’ of quantifications and comparisons, are to a large extent heterogeneous when it comes to actors, organisations, contexts, places and time. This could be interpreted as a deficit, but in fact we consider this to be the very strength of the book. Through the various examples we try to frame how a specific reasoning on quantifications and comparisons inscribed as ‘numbers’ affects multiple activities – both older and newer ones – on what we call the educational Agora. The concept of Agora is in itself not simple or uncontested. When introduced, it was intended to embrace the political arena and the market place and thereby go beyond the limits and restrictions of the concepts themselves. The Agora was intended as a problem-generating and problem-solving environment in which the contextualisation of knowledge production took place (Gibbons et al., 1994). The Agora is said to be populated not only by an assemblage of competing ‘experts’, organisations and institutions in which knowledge is generated and traded, but also by various competing ‘publics’. As such, it is not simply a political or commercial arena in which research priorities are identified and funded, or where research findings are disseminated, traded or used. Rather, the Agora can be portrayed as a domain of primary knowledge production – through which people enter the research process and where knowledge is embodied in people and projects (Nowotny et al., 2003). Hence, the ‘mangling’ (Pickering, 1995) on the Agora frames how we think, talk and write about education and frames the activities that are taking place. We do not engage in the controversies or discussions concerning the Agora as a useful

Introduction

3

concept or not, but use the Agora as an illustrative trope for framing the educational activities we describe as taking place in-between science, society, the media, politics and the market, based on a reasoning that is heavily impregnated by the ‘chimera’ of quantifications and comparisons inscribed as ‘numbers’. Consequently, we do not use the Agora as a specific place with well-defined limits and incidence, but as an illustration of the terrain in which we are moving and the kinds of questions we are interested in raising. In the context of a ‘chimera’ of quantifications and comparisons, ‘numberintelligent’ activities, a ‘fear of being left behind’ and the Agora it is possible that some readers may find the way we use tropes challenging. It could be argued that the use of tropes makes it more difficult to see the purpose or target. We can only say that we have found tropes useful for explaining our aim and focus and for describing the phenomena we are investigating and trying to illuminate. The use of tropes also makes it easier to discuss phenomena that lack well-defined concepts. Here, it is productive to quote the end of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus “Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüben muß man schweigen” (1974 pp. 150–151, “What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence”). We believe that what we cannot speak about is especially important to talk about, and for us using tropes has made this possible. What we investigate and exemplify in the following chapters are activities in which actors have started to use quantifications and comparisons inscribed as ‘numbers’ as a more or less hegemonic way of telling the ‘truth’ about education. This in turn enhances specific ways of acting and promoting activities. It is in this context that we introduce the different tropes – to frame the terrain we are exploring and to map it. Hopefully our tropes will help to initiate a more elaborated discussion on the issues covered in the book. Indeed, we look forward to them being contested and defined in a more meticulous way, which will hopefully lead to the construction of better suited concepts for developing scholarly discussions on the matters raised in the book. One way of reading the chapters is that they in some way or other recognise notions of ‘number-intelligent’ activities and a ‘fear of being left behind’ and how these are activated on the educational Agora. Some of the chapters are more historically oriented, yet aim to write a history of the present in order to investigate how some of today’s premises came about. Others are more contemporary and investigate how e.g. educational research, the media, schools, organisations and political establishments are intellectually and socially organised. Some try to look into the future to vision what the next ‘deal’ on education based on the dominant reasoning of today might be. As a reader you might be thinking that all this sounds interesting, but what is the critical aspect of the book? What is the profound criticism in this book that makes it interesting to read from cover to cover? We think that the most inspiring analysis to emerge from the chapters can be summarised by our observation that ‘number-intelligent’ activities are not always the same as ‘educationintelligent’ activities. In this lies a fundamental critique on how education today

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is thought, talked or written about. This is also a discussion that we would like to contribute to. Having said that, we also want to emphasise that we really look forward to more educational studies that can visualise how ‘number-intelligent’ activities are essentially different from ‘education-intelligent’ activities and how this can be demonstrated in educational practice. There is so much more to learn here. Let us summarise what we have written so far and take it one step further. The ‘chimera’ of quantifications and comparisons inscribed as ‘numbers’ is in no way new in educational thinking, but when it becomes the general (not to say the hegemonic) reasoning for making education intelligible (cf. Lindblad, Pettersson & Popkewitz, 2018), new rationalities and logics appear that change how educational expertise is thought about. It dismantles the contextual barriers between countries and time and makes us think in terms of a universal connectivity within educational settings and thinking. It also promotes educational appearance in new ways by redefining educational subjects and objects. Moreover, it helps us to talk and think about education in new ways in order to make it more intelligible, and to introduce notions like e.g. ‘best practice’ and ‘evidence based’ as central concepts in the educational discourse. These displacements in educational reasoning are huge and can redefine the entire field of education. As such, when educational reasoning changes to give more  relevance to quantifications and comparisons, so does the entire staging, or the mise-en-scène (cf. Baudrillard, 2007) of education. Our book uses the observation that quantifications and comparisons seem to be increasingly important for ‘telling the truth’ about education as a fulcrum around which discussions on education seem to revolve. In doing so, we are able to visualise several important changes in how policy actors and educational organisations are engaged, how the media reports on education, how schools try to become more attractive, how e.g. ‘modernity’, ‘change tendency’ and ‘up to date’ are demonstrated and how students and their parents respond to the various measurements of educational achievement. These activities are in fact what we summarise as ‘number-intelligent’ actions. Therefore, the book covers a wide territory and several domains of contemporary society. In one way or other, all the chapters circulate around the trope introduced above as a ‘fear of being left behind’, which also shows a ‘fear’ of not being able to demonstrate ‘modernity’, ‘development’, ‘good results’, ‘goal fulfilment’ and ‘educational quality’ at the school level or in the individual domain of not being able to compete with others within the specific educational reasoning on ‘numbers’. In this we again note the ‘double gesture’ – if not ‘chosen’ by the ‘numbers’, the opposite seems to be the case, even though it is not expressed or made explicit. As such, if the ‘numbers’ pass you by, you are ‘doomed’ to an educational existence on the backstreets of the dominating educational community. This educational condemnation takes place on the educational Agora and involves multiple actors. The law by which you are educationally ‘doomed’ is the ‘chimera’ of quantifications and comparisons inscribed as ‘numbers’.

Introduction

5

Reasons for writing the book: four intellectual irritations To understand how education is perceived today we need, as discussed above, to acknowledge the importance of the two activities that are important for trying to ‘see’ or ‘understand’ education, namely quantifications and comparisons. A different way of stating this is: how is education made intelligible? The activities of quantifications and comparisons are in many ways related, but are also separate. You can quantify without comparing and you can compare without quantifying (for an historical description of how this can be portrayed in comparative education, see e.g. Epstein, 2008). However, in the modern discourse of education the activities of quantification and comparison have been linked as a sort of ‘chimera’1 – they are not connected, but have been historically constructed as holding together within the educational discourse (cf. Lindblad, Pettersson & Popkewitz, 2015, 2018; Pettersson, Popkewitz & Lindblad, 2016). Overall, the contributions in this book elaborate on whether quantifications and comparisons as a ‘chimera’ are in fact the dominant reasoning of education today and if they are, how this changes the staging of education and educational activities. A reason for writing this book is that we, and many with us, have noticed a change in the importance of quantifications and comparisons in terms of how education is talked, thought and written about. In this it is easy to be irritated about how quickly the ‘logics’ of education change and how quickly reforms and discussions are implemented in students’ and teachers’ daily lives. In this we feel a kinship with how French philosopher Jean Baudrillard explained the beginning of a research endeavour: “Everything begins with irritation” (Baudrillard, 2008, p. 145) and the question asked that you then try to explain – “What gets on your nerves?” (Baudrillard, 2008, p. 145). In the chapters we try to explain our intellectual ‘irritation’ and what is getting on our nerves, which also demonstrates the different reasons for writing the book. Our first intellectual irritation deals with the fact that science and technology are often interpreted as signature characteristics of leading contemporary societies. In many ways, science and technology have been interpreted as the solutions per se to many of modernity’s challenges. They will solve our feelings of being perpetually off balance by providing solutions that reduce uncertainty and unaccountability, as well as our constant anxiety about everything seeming to develop at such a rapid rate. However, science and technology also have a tendency to reduce individuals to standard classifications that establish what is perceived as ‘normal’ as an opposite to the deviant (cf. Canguilhem, 1991). These classifications create hierarchies that authorise social control and interventions by the state in the social. Following Sheila Jasanoff (2004), one idea of this book is to elaborate on how science and technology coexist with e.g. politics, power and culture in the field of international, regional and local educational activities constituting educational knowledge. It is within this educational Agora (Nowotny et al., 2003) that educational activities appear to

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navigate between the natural and social order of things. Within this area of activities the co-production (Jasanoff, 2004) of educational knowledge either takes place as constitutive acts that focus on the emergence and stabilisation of knowledge and the framing of it, or interactional acts that try to solve different controversies about what knowledge is and should be understood as. In these two kinds of acts educational knowledge is constructed as intelligible and portable across boundaries. The educational activities on the Agora are dependent on cultural practices and the dominant ideologies of science and technology. Within this act of co-production there is a constant interplay of the cognitive, the material, the social and the normative, which is manifested in different ways. Jasanoff (2004) demonstrates these by adding the making of identities, institutions, discourses and representations to the agenda, all of which are highlighted as the most common instruments of co-production operating at the nexus of the natural and social order. The question to ask is: how do we establish what we know and how do we know it? Following this line of thought, the Agora and ‘expertise’ become an important field to investigate further in relation to how educational reasoning is constituted with regard to the ‘chimera’ of quantifications and comparisons and the kinds of activities that are affected by changes in the way education is staged. The second intellectual irritation is how the ‘chimera’ of quantifications and comparisons seems to collapse, or at least becomes invisible, and the importance of time and geography when education is discussed. When the French anthropologist Marc Augé launched the analytical term ‘non-places’, he did this by saying: “[I]f a place can be defined as relational, historical, and concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity will be a non-place” (Augé, 2008 p. 63). Augé was talking about physical places, but we believe that the technology for knowledge production within education in the form of ‘numbers’ can also be thought of as a ‘non-place’ that lacks relational and historical awareness and has little regard for identity. Technology also changes knowledge and the legitimacy of knowledge. Instead of being framed as a specific privilege assigned to ‘a few’, knowledge stored by technology has opened up a ‘democratisation’ of knowledge and the involvement of more actors in knowledge production, as well as giving them a chance to borrow legitimacy from technology for the knowledge that is produced. Our intellectual irritation deals with the promises that appear with the ‘chimera’ of quantifications and comparisons in terms of greater participation for everyone and education for all. Instead of delivering a greater insight into education and promoting a greater democracy, the educational reasoning based on the ‘chimera’ in fact blindfolds several important aspects of education, such as ‘when’ education takes place, ‘when’ educational knowledge is gained, ‘where’ education takes place and ‘where’ educational knowledge is gained. What can be elaborated on in relation to this intellectual irritation is how activities emerge in contexts in which the notions of ‘time’ and ‘geography’ seem to be neglected, or at least downsized, which prompts us to ask whether today’s educational

Introduction

7

reasoning based on quantifications and comparisons makes us believe that notions of ‘time’ and ‘geography’ are not important for understanding education. By giving special attention to ‘numbers’ as a way of describing education and creating a specific educational language, we can observe a transition of documentation from paper and ink to large data sets called ‘Big Data’, and how this is part of a new kind of migration of ideas. This may be a more profound revolution than that which appeared after the invention of Gutenberg and the scientific revolution. Even though the dissemination of printed knowledge led to a ‘democratisation’ of knowledge, it also ‘boosted’ the scientific revolution. Now, the ongoing process of the ‘datafication’ (Rouvroy, 2011) of society has led to a migration of ideas that is even more profound than the previous revolution of how, and by whom, knowledge was created and managed. Instead of the legitimacy of knowledge being visible and possible to assign to defined individuals, groups or institutions, like the church or the king, and later scientists, the ‘datafication’ of society and the aggregation of ‘Big Data’ has led to the legitimacy of knowledge being made opaque and incorporated into algorithms and operations within technology, which can be considered as a ‘non-place’. In this way, it is possible to discuss the legitimacy of knowledge in terms of a transformation from ‘flesh, blood and mind’ to a ‘technology’ that changes everything. Our third intellectual irritation deals with the fact that ‘numbers’, to a large extent and in several contexts, seem to separate and divide rather than unify and visualise (cf. Scott, 1998). This controversy can be largely explained from a position that on the one hand ‘numbers’ measure, but on the other create ‘statements’ about and a specific ‘seeing’ of the object itself (Desrosières, 1998). If you claim that ‘numbers’ are only the inscriptions of different measurements and that the things that are measured are independent of the measuring process, your reasoning is based on how the measurement is made. If it is reliable, and if the statistical methods that are used have been developed within the natural sciences, there is no problem in stating that the measurement provides you with the ‘facts’ of what you want to measure. However, if you question the existence of the objects you intend to measure, and see them as conventions or constructs that are dependent on the measurements you perform, your reasoning is based on a completely different way of thinking. From this perspective, it is possible to say that measurements do not only measure objects, but also create a specific way of ‘seeing’ the objects being measured (Desrosières, 1998; cf. Hacking, 1990). We believe that this description of how measurements are interpreted can help to explain some of the activities that are taking place today within education. If the second perspective is not scrutinised, you will have no trouble in accepting that measurements are a good way of grasping educational standards or managing education. But if you also see how measurements and the domination of ‘numbers’ affect society and people, it is difficult to pretend that ‘numbers’ do not matter when it comes to how people and society act and are constituted. What we in fact describe here is one of the biggest controversies in contemporary education – the actual

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role played by quantifications and comparisons and how they affect education, but also how teacher professionalism is changed, the changing role of being a student and how to think as a school manager, politician or parent about education. Our ‘mission’ is not to understand measurements as measures of pre-given objects. Quite the opposite – we consider measurements of objects as creative acts in making ‘things’. In this we are inspired by Emile Durkheim’s (1938) first rule of sociological method, which is that all sociological studies must consider social facts as things. This formula is ambiguous, though and can be read as a statement of reality, or as a methodological choice – either that ‘social facts are things’, or that ‘social facts must be treated as if they were things’. We understand it as the latter. For our project, it implies that we need to understand ‘numbers’ as if they were things – and as things doing ‘things’ to people. As such, ‘numbers’ divide into two separate groups – those inspired by natural science who ‘see’ ‘numbers’ as representations of reality, and those inspired by Durkheim and social science who ‘see’ ‘numbers’ doing ‘things’ to people and society. But what are these ‘things’ that ‘numbers’ do to people? We do not intend to answer this question in its entirety, but are really only interested in how ‘numbers’ make us act in certain ways and what it is that makes the activities on the educational Agora dependent on a reasoning based on ‘numbers’. Consequently, educational quantifications and comparisons are today less about education in different contexts than about hierarchies of performances, where comparing school systems and their performances serves as a base and focuses on positions in the ranking and performance trajectories over time (such as “how the world class systems came out on top”). The power of new algorithms and technologies for classifying educational systems at the intersection of international actors and national policy and science is repeatedly expressed in education policy debates (to become “one of the ten best performing education systems”), in the mass media and in conversations with transnational education experts about how to improve education in these respects. The emergence of this approach to education has been noted in research (e.g. Carvalho, 2012), mostly with a focus on the relations between the different actors and in transnational governance. Others have studied different actors and how they separately frame education on the educational Agora. However, few studies have investigated the educational activities for providing educational knowledge and how they together provide major contributions of educational knowledge. The comparative society, dependent on the ‘language of quantity’ (cf. Porter, 1995), is a driving force for promoting specific knowledge embedded within a specific scientific reasoning (cf. Hacking, 1992) that is visible on the Agora. In this reasoning, quantifications and comparisons inscribed in the form of ‘numbers’ have been most important for educational activities (cf. Pettersson, Popkewitz & Lindblad, 2017). Today, quantification and comparisons for describing various phenomena have consequently developed into a technology of distance, where the language of mathematics is used and considered as highly

Introduction

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structured and rule-bound, thus making it possible to speak the same language all over the globe. Hence, the use of ‘numbers’ and quantitative manipulation minimises the need for intimate knowledge and personal trust (Porter, 1995). Accordingly, a new international language develops that makes quantifications and comparisons more accessible and leads to new activities and new solutions to old problems. Our fourth and final intellectual irritation is that different educational activities can be seen as ‘spectacles’ (Debord, 1994) that reduce reality and encourage us to focus on appearance. When Debord presented his seminal book The Society of Spectacle, he said this in the first paragraph: “Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation” (Debord, 1994 §1). What we raise here as a question is whether this also holds true for education today, with its increasing number of international, national and regional activities that transgress the boundaries of the directly lived into representations, usually in the form of numbered data in different constellations and comparisons, which reduces some of the complexity in education and increases others. In line with Debord’s argument that ‘spectacles’ actively alter human interactions and relationships, we argue that educational activities based on data aggregation seem to do the same. The presented images, based on aggregated educational data, influence our lives and beliefs on a daily basis, while results and rankings manufacture new desires and aspirations. Various algorithms, measurements and data aggregations interpret and reduce the educational world for us with the use of simpler narratives as representations of education. Another angle that is elaborated on is educational data aggregation and comparisons as an educational technology. Here, it can be discussed how new educational technologies and comparisons transform our ways of thinking about education and, therefore, how to educate. An example of this is when we get lost in an unfamiliar city. Nowadays we do not automatically ask a passer-by for directions, but instead consult Google Maps on our mobile devices. In similar fashion, the educational navigators have also changed. Instead of asking teachers and other professionals, we lean on algorithms, ‘Big Data’ and ‘expertise’ from a distance. These developments frame our behaviour to the extent that our daily educational lives are reduced to a series of commodity exchanges, which makes it possible for other more market-and policy-oriented actors to enter the educational Agora. New rationalities appear and old ones are given new meanings. This last intellectual irritation revolves around the important saying of Debord that being is replaced by having, which in turn has been replaced by appearing. This is an important notion for the problematics raised for discussion. For instance, international large-scale assessments or other educational activities on the educational Agora can be visualised as objects of appearance. For schools and nations, appearance now seems to be more important than other aspects. Success in the various measuring and comparing activities is now considered important and has consequently changed education from a situation in which we live education into a situation in which we aspire to success via measurements and comparisons.

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A result of this is for instance when a nation is successful in e.g. PISA tests. The nation is then transformed into a commodity itself, in that it projects our educational aspirations. What we actually aspire to is the appearance of ‘success’, more than educational ‘quality’, which in the contemporary is increasingly regarded as the same. This is the final thing that gets on our nerves – how the ‘chimera’ of quantifications and comparisons underlies how we construct our educational ‘imagined futures’ (Beckert, 2016). Having said that, the chapters revolve around four intellectual irritations that in some way or other get on our nerves – what is this book really about? To state it as simply as possible, the aim of the book is twofold. First, we exemplify and elaborate on activities on the educational Agora in which a specific reasoning about education can be recognised and illuminated depending on the ‘chimera’ of quantifications and comparisons and how this promotes what we tentatively call ‘number-intelligent’ activities. Second, we raise questions about the importance of the educational appearance of these quantifications and comparisons and how they transform education and promote a ‘fear of being left behind’. The various chapters in the book contribute to a further elaboration on how educational knowledge is constructed and disseminated by important actors’ activities on the educational Agora with a view to constitutively and interactively (Jasanoff, 2004) framing and illuminating educational knowledge. The book addresses a specific reasoning on science, technology and society, which is now guided by a strong belief in quantification and comparison for the construction of educational ‘facts’ and ‘truths’ (cf. Carvalho, 2012). With this as a first argumentative stepping stone, we state that contemporary society, with its claims on ‘modernity’ and ‘meritocracy’ (cf. Forsberg & Pettersson, 2016), can be described as a society of quantifications and comparisons, both of which affect the creation of educational identities, institutions, discourses and representations on the Agora. Hence, the purpose of the book is to describe and analyse the activities taking place there in producing and illuminating educational knowledge based on quantifications and comparisons and how this is represented and ‘mangled’ (cf. Pickering, 1995) on the educational Agora.

The organisation of the book A book that tries to demonstrate the activities on the educational Agora is not easy to organise. Several possibilities were available to us, but in the end we chose the easiest solution. Instead of dividing the book into different sections, we have organised it on time-based dimensions. It starts with chapters that go back in time and delve into history in order to say something about the contemporary. It then moves forward in time and ends with chapters about the possible future of activities that are either new or have a renewed topicality. In-between the past and the future, many of the chapters move across time and space, but nevertheless maintain the time dimension. In the following we

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present the various chapters in an attempt to facilitate a better understanding of the book and to illuminate how the different chapters ‘talk to each other’. In the first chapter, A chimera of quantifications and comparisons: the changing of educational ‘expertise’ by Daniel Pettersson and Thomas S Popkewitz, three historical and contemporary educational ‘experts’ are highlighted, Edward L Thorndike, Torsten Husén and Andreas Schleicher, all of whom represent different times in the making of the ‘chimera’ of quantifications and comparisons. By investigating how educational ‘expertism’ has changed over time it is concluded that ‘expertism’ in education is nothing given, but is rather something that has to be constantly made. The chapter suggests three changes in the constitution of educational ‘expertism’. The first is a change in the dominating educational moral in relation to the three ‘experts’. The second is a changing epistemology of educational knowledge. The third is a change in the grounds for making educational claims. In the chapter by Rita Foss Lindblad and Sverker Lindblad, called Society speaks back: on the intimacy and complexity of comparative education research on a welfare state Agora, Torsten Husén as an interesting case of an educational ‘expert’ is used to address and explore the intimate and complex relations between educational research and its social and political embedding from the perspective of comparative education in Sweden. In its exploration of science-society interactions the chapter takes a theoretical stand and focuses on the conceptualisation of complexity, Agora and the ‘society speaks back’ metaphor. Here, the main line of argument is the rethinking of science-society relations and an ambition to contribute to the ‘re-thinking’ of the meaning of the ‘re-thinking’ itself. The inquiry is thus not carried out in a contextual vacuum, but explores comparative educational research in ways that demonstrate the theoretical argumentation for the importance of widening both the scope and the perspectives when it comes to its formation and institution. After all, science and society can no longer be regarded as hybrids, but are instead monolithic entities and practices, discursively as well as institutionally. The chapter aims to bring these links to the fore in the story about a changed Agora and the fluid specificities of comparative education. In his chapter entitled Three waves of education standardisation: how the curriculum changed from a matter of concern to a matter of fact, Daniel Sundberg introduces us to three waves of standardisation in education that are said to start in 1962 with ILA’s introduction of international large-scale assessments. Sundberg outlines the three waves of educational standards in international curriculum discourses by presenting three specific projects located in the nexus of educational policy, practice and research on the Agora. Sundberg calls the first wave the terminological phase, which emerged in the 1960s with the introduction of ILA’s first pilot assessment study. This phase focused on creating a language of curriculum terms and definitions. The second wave is called standardisation by indicators and emerged in the early 1990s in order to develop more specific measures of quality in the teaching and learning processes. This phase is demonstrated through the work of the 1994 ‘Setting Standards’ conference, which shows the work that emerged at that time to upscale the development of

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quantitative indicators for comparing students’ achievements. The third wave is called standardisation by design principles and represents something new in curriculum policymaking, namely a specific ‘programmification’ of how to implement the curriculum. This wave is demonstrated by the work undertaken in the ‘Education 2030’ project. Here, Sundberg shows how the three waves of standardisation affect national curriculum making by using examples from Sweden and the other Nordic countries. This discussion is also relevant for other countries within the global community of education. In the chapter Old power, new power and ontological flattening: the global ‘data revolution’ in education by Radhika Gorur, some interesting thoughts for starting a conversation about new forms of globalisation are presented. It is suggested that we are now witnessing a different form of globalisation through what is labelled ‘ontological flattening’. This flattening is characterised by recursive relations between the national and the global, which are bound up in mutual obligations that blur the ontological distinctions between them. It involves various governance arrangements that combine what can be called ‘new power’ with ‘old power’ technologies, and entangle regulators and the regulated in complex relations of consensus, partnerships, agreements, demands and requirements. In the chapter, it is said that this flattening is further strengthened by the new inscription devices that are envisaged in the form of global monitoring frameworks and accountability mechanisms that are both mobile and immutable. These mechanisms, which render complex worlds into much more simplified versions of the world, present an ‘optical consistency’ and promote a flattened vision of the world in which perspectives are lost. It is finally suggested that ‘ontological flattening’ turns the world into a continuous recursive space that is constantly collapsing in on itself. To investigate this mechanism of ‘ontological flattening’ the ‘data revolution’ in the pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals on education is used. Sverker Lindblad and Daniel Pettersson, in Intellectual and social organisation of international large-scale assessment research, conduct a renewed systematic research review of research using data from international large-scale assessments. The focus is on how this kind of research (called ILSA research) is intellectually and socially organised and how it can be understood as part of an educational Agora in-between science and society. One striking result is that a large number of publications using this kind of data appear outside the field of research communication in peer-reviewed journals, while several others either comment on the assessments or present strategies and solutions to educational problems, rather than presenting primary research using the available data. Based on these findings, the chapter concludes that the field of ILSA research is heterogeneous when the subjects of its research are described. However, there is also a rather homogeneous intellectual organisation of ILSA research in terms of style of reasoning. This refers to the ways in which research objects are formulated, how research inquiries are carried out and what are considered as valid statements. In Evidently, the broker appears as the new whizz-kid on the educational Agora by Carl-Henrik Adolfsson, Eva Forsberg and Daniel Sundberg, the establishment

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of a new national governmental broker agency – the Swedish Institute for Educational Research – is presented which is then compared with other international broker agencies. The establishment of the Swedish agency is used as an illustrative case to explore the interplay between research, policy and practice on the educational Agora. The chapter concludes with the notion that the educational system and the nature and use of evidence are questions of power. This power is not that of an actor, but is instead relational and exercised. Another description of the importance of national broker agencies (this time in Portugal) is provided in Bridging worlds and spreading light: intermediary actors and the translation of knowledge for policy in Portugal, by Luís Miguel Carvalho, Sofia Viseu and Catarina Gonçalves. In the chapter, the notion of intermediary actors is used to characterise organisations as actors that are engaged in a set of cognitive and social operations for the construction and stabilisation of interactions between ideas, individuals and technical devices. The chapter describes and analyses the emergent actors and their specific activities that aim to frame and shape other actors’ involvement in policy processes. This new presence and its modes of action seem to be inseparable from the emergence of new ways of orienting, coordinating and controlling education systems, in which the cyclical monitoring of data and information takes centre stage. Both chapters investigate broker agencies and provide us with strong cases of how intermediary actors act on receiving educational ‘numbers’, how they use and translate them for the public, and how this in turn leads to an extended activation of educational actors. As such, the investigation highlights activities on the Agora, how to receive ‘numbers’ and how to translate them for the public. Andreas Nordin’s chapter, A data-driven school crisis, illustrates that when used for political reasons data always becomes ‘truth’ through social processes, which are not always guided by scientific principles. As such, the chapter problematises how data is used and ‘mangled’ in-between science and society on the Agora. The chapter puts forward arguments about a double-sidedness that relies on statistical data to present the whole ‘truth’ about such a complex matter as a national education system. On the one hand, this appeals to a public ‘mindset’ that was shaped during the emergence of the modern state with a great faith in social engineering and in creating stable and predictable institutions. In this, faith in objectivity and making decisions based on ‘numbers’ then provides a response to the moral demand for fairness and impartiality in the modern democratic society, thus lending legitimacy to vulnerable politicians. On the other hand, a modern society that is increasingly characterised by globalisation, non-linearity and unpredictability and relies on statistical data that is processed through social practices while working along the modern rationale actually invites uncertainty, in that principles of linearity and predictability are undermined. In this situation, undecided politicians turn to statistical data for moral relief to such an extent that comparable data has become constitutive of the very basis for governing education. Co-production of knowledge on the educational Agora: media activities and ‘logics’ by Gun-Britt Wärvik, Caroline Runesdotter and Daniel Pettersson follows

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the media reporting from the first to the most recent PISA study in the Swedish news media. The chapter investigates media activities on the educational Agora and demonstrates that the media and the ‘voices’ within it function as co-producers of educational knowledge based on a ‘logic’ of ‘newsworthiness’. From a variety of positions, actors appear in the role of educational experts to play out a media ‘spectacle’ based on the results in PISA. Publicity offers these experts a vehicle for agenda setting and publicity for something that is sometimes only indirectly connected to PISA. Thus, PISA has evolved into a media ‘spectacle’ on the educational Agora, which offers a space for the public to worry about schools describing them as ‘failures’ or ‘successes’. Another chapter that demonstrates the role of the media on the educational Agora is written by Sarbani Chakraborty, Christina Elde Mølstad, Jingying Feng and Daniel Pettersson. This chapter, entitled The reception of large-scale assessments in China and India, highlights the notion of a ‘trust in numbers’ and is elaborated on from two national contexts and how they react on the educational Agora when results from international large-scale assessments appear. The investigation of the media and politics in China and India suggests that we cannot really talk about a universal ‘PISA effect’ on education, but that instead we should be talking about different ‘PISA effects’ in the plural. After investigating how the media facilitates activities on the educational Agora, a chapter written by Kampei Hayashi provides us with two more recent trends on the educational Agora – the exporting and importing of education as business ventures. The chapter entitled Education export and import: new activities on the educational Agora reports on the export of education as a ‘business strategy’ by some ‘successful’ countries based on the results of international large-scale assessments. The importation of education is demonstrated as specific strategies taking place on the educational Agora. Hayashi puts forward a strong case for how the reasoning on education has changed from being strongly regarded as a public good based on a strong egalitarian ideology, into a reasoning in which education is no longer naturally seen as an investment for a welfare state with ambitions for economic growth and prosperity. As such, the chapter provides a reconnaissance for the future in education by investigating how the ‘numbers’ provided by international large-scale assessments can lead to ‘business strategies’ for exporting education, as well as how ‘numbers’ can lead to a new way of thinking in terms of importing and outsourcing education. In Measuring what we value, or valuing what we can measure? Performance indicators, school choice and the curriculum, by Ulf Lundström, we return to one of the most topical business driven educational systems in Sweden. Even though the examples are collected from the Swedish context, this is in fact a global trend, with published performance indicators for making educational ‘choices’ (cf. for another context, Landri, 2018). The chapter contributes knowledge about how indicators can influence teaching and school choice and how these indicators and a national curriculum interact. The findings illustrate how market logics and management by objectives and results have merged to define school

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results. By investigating these matters, the chapter provides a strong case of how different activities in a system heavily based on ‘informed decisions’ are guided by ‘numbers’ by the ‘consumers’ of education. The analysis also provides a good example of how ‘number-intelligent’ activities appear and how this could affect agency in such a system. The chapter entitled Supplementary tutoring in Sweden and Russia – a safety net woven with numbers by Eva Forsberg, Tatiana Mikhaylova, Stina Hallsén and Helen Melander Bowden, provides us with yet another example of how students act in a ‘number-intelligent’ way to gain advantages in an educational system dominated by a reasoning on quantifications and comparisons. The chapter shows that supplementary tutoring is not a new phenomenon, but that its renewed significance can perhaps be discussed in a new way. The authors explore supplementary tutoring on the Swedish educational Agora and make comparisons between a Swedish private supplementary tutoring company and a Russian web-platform selling private supplementary tutoring. By analysing national policy and private supplementary tutoring providers’ websites and information, the chapter explores the representation and legitimation of private supplementary tutoring and the relationship between this and regular education. Here, special attention is paid to the role of ‘numbers’ and quantification. The chapter, School certification: marketing schools by appearance, by UrbanAndreas Johansson and Christina Elde Mølstad exemplifies a specific activity on the educational Agora. In order to compete and attract students, schools in Sweden have developed different marketing technologies to portray themselves as the best option on the market. This is summarised as “selling themselves by appearance”. The chapter elaborates on a specific technology of appearance, namely that of different kinds of certification. The certification that is especially investigated is that which expresses and guarantees that all the personnel in the school are certified in gender and gay rights (LGBT certification2). This certification is to some extent based on ‘numbers’ but also on appearance. These aspects become evident when students try to act rationally and choose the best schools. The book ends with a short summary that encapsulates the theme of the book and tries to invite scholars for a further discussion. Finally, we would like to end this introduction by saying that we hope the book and its chapters will initiate ‘irritation’ and offer fresh ideas in a hopefully long-standing discussion, as well as open the way for future empirical and theoretical work.

Notes 1 The notion of chimera can be understood in several ways. In the Greek mythological tradition, it is a monstrous animal combining several animals into one. Within biology and genetics, it is used to describe a single animal (or human) with more than one genotype. In our use, we are more influenced by how it is used by the English poet and cleric John Donne (1572–1631) in his LXXX Sermons (1640) 12 December 1626 “At the Funeral of Sir William Cokayne”. “. . . a fancy, a chimera in my brain, troubles me in my prayer”.

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Chimera in this understanding becomes ‘a fabrication of the mind’ holding two separate things together in one single unit. 2 LGBT stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender.

References Agamben, G. (2010). Homo Sacer. Göteborg: Daidalos. Augé, M. (2008). Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity. London & New York: Verso. Baudrillard, J. (2007). In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e). Baudrillard, J. (2008). The Perfect Crime. London & New York: Verso. Beckert, J. (2016). Imagined Futures: Fictional Expectations and Capitalist Dynamics. Cambridge & London: Harvard University Press. Canguilhem, G. (1991). The Normal and the Pathological. New York: Zone Books. Carvalho, L. M. (2012). The fabrication and travel of a knowledge-policy instrument. European Educational Research Journal, 11(2), 172–188. Debord, G. (1994). The Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books. Desrosières, A. (1998). The Politics of Large Numbers: A History of Statistical Reasoning. Cambridge & London: Harvard University Press. Durkheim, E. (1938). The Rules of Sociological Method. New York: Collier-Macmillan. Epstein, E. H. (2008). Crucial benchmarks in the professionalization of comparative education. C. Wolhuter, N. Popov, M. Manzon & B. Leutwyler (eds.) Comparative Education at Universities World Wide (pp. 9–24). Sofia: Bureau for Educational Services. Forsberg, E. & Pettersson, D. (2016). Meritokratin och jämförande kunskapsmätningar. G.-B. Wärvik, C. Runesdotter, E. Forsberg, B. Hasselgren & F. Sahlström (eds.) Skola Lärare Samhälle: en vänbok till Sverker Lindblad. Göteborg: Göteborgs universitet. Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P. & Trow, M. (1994). The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies. London: Sage Publications. Hacking, I. (1990). The Taming of Chance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hacking, I. (1992). “Style” for historians and philosophers. Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, 23(1), 1–20. Jasanoff, S. (2004). States of Knowledge: The Co-Production of Science and Social Order. London & New York: Routledge. Landri, P. (2018). Digital Governance of Education: Technology, Standards and Europeanization of Education. London, Oxford, New York, New Delhi & Sydney: Bloomsbury. Lindblad, S., Pettersson, D. & Popkewitz, T. S. (2015). International Comparisons of School Results: A Systematic Review of Research on Large Scale Assessments in Education. Stockholm: Vetenskapsrådets rapporter. Lindblad, S., Pettersson, D. & Popkewitz, T. S. (2018). Education by the Numbers and the Making of Society: The Expertise of International Assessments. New York & London: Routledge. Nowotny, H., Scott, P. & Gibbons, M. (2003). ‘Mode 2’ revisited: The new production of knowledge. Minerva, 41, 179–194. Pettersson, D., Popkewitz, T. S. & Lindblad, S. (2016). On the use of educational numbers: Comparative constructions of hierarchies by means of large-scale assessments. Espacio, Tiempo y Education, 3(1), 177–202. Pettersson, D., Popkewitz, T. S. & Lindblad, S. (2017). Into the Greyzone: Agencies betwixt and between governmental policy, research and practice? Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 3(1), 29–41.

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Pickering, A. (1995). The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency & Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Popkewitz, T. S. (2008). Cosmopolitanism and the Age of School Reform: Science, Education, and Making Society by Making the Child. New York: Routledge. Porter, T. M. (1995). Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rose, N. (1999). Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rouvroy, A. (2011). The end(s) of critique: Data-behaviourism vs. due-process. M. Hildebrandt & E. De Vries (eds.) Privacy, Due Process and the Computational Turn: Philosophers of Law Meet Philosophers of Technology. New York & London: Routledge. Scott, J. C. (1998). Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. Scott, J. C. (2009). The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. Tröhler, D. (2011). Languages of Education: Protestant Legacies, National Identities, and Global Aspirations. New York & London: Routledge. Wittgenstein, L. (1974). Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. London & New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Chapter 1

A chimera of quantifications and comparisons The changing of educational ‘expertise’ Daniel Pettersson and Thomas S. Popkewitz

Introduction When the Austrian-American philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend gave a talk at the Philosophy Society at Sussex University in November 1974 he said this: “. . . I have no objection to incompetence but I do object when incompetence is accompanied by boredom and self-righteousness” (Feyerabend, 1974/2006 p. 363). Although this might at first sight seem anecdotal, in actual fact it spotlights what is discussed in this chapter: how is it that some ‘truth’ claiming activities seem to spring out of incompetence, yet assume that competence and expertise have important material effects on how social and educational life is ordered and acted on? In trying to answer this question historically of how educational expertise developed within a specific reasoning based on a chimera1 of quantifications and comparisons, we problematise that reasoning in tandem with a ‘change’ in the group’s given legitimacy as educational experts. When we say ‘change’ of expertise, we are trying to understand why an educational reasoning of today that is largely based and dependent on quantifications and comparisons within education has become so dominant in the contemporary landscape. This is not about the evolution of ideas, or the origin of statistical thinking, because others have provided this historical note (e.g. Stigler, 1986; Desrosières, 1998), nor is it the same as saying that other perspectives on education are missing or blind. Instead, the idea is to historicise the present by seeking historical dependencies that move in uneven ways into the present. In this we focus on two forerunners, or institutors, and one contemporary representative of the dominant educational reasoning of quantifications and comparisons, all of which make it possible to describe ‘expertise’ in education. We view this expertise as conceptual personae, in that the ideas, theories and mode of thinking embodied in the text are made understandable within the historical circumstances in which they are articulated to ‘see’ and think about the world and people (Deleuze & Guattari, 1994). This approach considers how expertise is constituted, rather than asks whether educational ‘experts’ were/are the most dominant actors and that there were/are no other alternatives either then or now.

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The three ‘experts’ we highlight are active in different periods and contexts, but are anything but incompetent and boring – perhaps to some extent selfrighteous (but who in politics, the cultural sector or academic life can argue with that?). The experts we focus on are the American psychologist Edward L Thorndike (1874–1949), the Swedish psychometrician, professor of education and chairman of the IEA (1962–1978), Torsten Husén (1916–2009) and the German-born manager of the OECD PISA studies, Andreas Schleicher (1964–). All three are important for creating and developing an educational reasoning based on a chimera of quantifications and comparisons. In thinking about these three as conceptual personae, we pursue Timothy Mitchell’s (2002) questions of who becomes an expert and, perhaps more importantly, who is considered as an expert? This is specifically expressed by Mitchell as: “What strategies, structures, and silences transform the expert into a spokesperson for what appear as the forces of development, the rules of law, the progress of modernity, or the rationality of capitalism?” (Mitchell, 2002 p. 15.) Even though capitalism may be in the background of this analysis, the more immediate task is the relevancy of our reflection on the three above-named actors who represent what Jürgen Habermas calls ‘expert cultures’ (Habermas, 1987). From Habermas’s perspective, experts’ knowledge is taken as ‘fact’ not merely because it represents reality, or makes clear statements clearer about what is agreed on to be ‘facts’ (cf. Turner, 2006). Our task is historical, in that it asks how the statements produced by Thorndike, Husén and Schleicher have been agreed on as ‘facts’? In this, we use information about their personal and professional lives, the contexts in which they were/ are active and writings about and by them as a reading of historical conditions (see Burke & Grosvenor, 2013). Doing this enables us to show displacements over time on how ‘experts’ and educational knowledge are constructed as a coproduction (Jasanoff, 2006) between science, politics and society.

Quantifications and comparisons are made usable and intelligible Horkheimer and Adorno (1948) argue that civil society tends to make the incommensurable comparable by reducing it to abstract quantities. This activity is to a large extent based on a belief in ‘numbers’ as more objective (Porter, 1995). Porter’s seminal book, Trust in Numbers, illuminates that strict quantification is considered to be one of the most credible strategies for perceiving objectivity. This strategy has enjoyed a widespread and growing authority for at least two centuries and is visible in e.g. science and the organisation of the state. In education, this strategy first appeared in the nineteenth century, when political theories of government were linked to notions of democracy and merit. The emergence of merit tied to individual capabilities and qualities was an invention that replaced manners and gentlemanly conduct as the way of thinking

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about ‘truth’, (cf. Sapin, 1994) and who to consider as an ‘expert’. The reasoning about merit that came about during this period was not unique for developing modern society, although it was embedded in different systems of reason that did not include notions of individuality, agency and the temporality of progress. Historically, and prior to the Enlightenment, societies made trade-offs between merit, seniority, heritage and divinity’s given orders when organising the social order (Neves, 2000). What the Enlightenment brought into view was a notion of modernity that gave individuals their own history and a capacity for development that facilitated the idea of merit. French philosophers prior to its revolution spoke about needing an equal system of measurement if there was going to be an equal society (see, Popkewitz, 2008; also see Kett, 2013). In this argument, we can begin to see the development of the idea that numbers are autonomous from human activities and are to be applied in a way that ‘act’ in social arenas as the procedures for correcting social wrongs and enabling human equality in the organisation of society. However, this emphasis on numbers was not a forgone conclusion. In the eighteenth century, mathematics that assigned rigid rules and standards was regarded as unreasonable. Statistics began to take on new notions of reason through its inscription in science in the nineteenth century. Probability theories provided ways in which to think about how knowledge could be used to monitor and govern populations (Porter, 1995). The objective in the nineteenth century was to establish a true universal knowledge that would reform society and bring it into line with reason and nature. The hope was for cosmopolitan knowledge as the positivist force for change, e.g. as embodied in the political theories of the English-American Thomas Paine and the French Marquis de Condorcet (Jones, 2008). Paine and Condorcet both: subscribed to a new form of republicanism, forged out of three major political and intellectual developments in the last third of the eighteenth century. The first was a more confident belief in the control over chance and the future through the coming together of the collection of vital statistics and the mathematics of probability. The second was the great impetus given to the growth of positive future-oriented conceptions of commercial society following the publication of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations in 1776, and in France, the liberal reforms attempted by the Turgot ministry of 1774–1776. The third was the radicalization of the understanding of each of these starting points under the impact of the American and French Revolutions. (Jones, 2008 p. 62) Today, the use of numbers, statistical quantifications and comparisons is taken for granted as a way of understanding how society grows and schools respond to the social and political commitments associated with equality as expressed through ideologies of merit. Data from grades, exams, students’ performances

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in national tests and regional and international knowledge assessments are aggregated and are now widely used for establishing national results and making comparisons between them and establishing a trust in numbers (Porter, 1995) that affects the reasoning and discussion about education. But this has not always been the case. In the following we describe three actors in the history of education who legitimised their role as educational ‘experts’ in the specific reasoning based on a chimera of quantifications and comparisons. We begin with the American psychologist Edward L Thorndike.

Transforming uncertainty to certainty and the ‘expert’ acting as the moral order Edward L Thorndike (1874–1949) began his scientific career as a young researcher. His bibliography contains more than 500 titles, of which over 50 are books. For a long time he was professor at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York, one of the most influential universities on American education. Nearly everything he wrote was based directly on data; usually new data collected by either himself or his co-workers. When Woodworth (1952) wrote a biographical memoir on Thorndike, he claimed that it was characteristic for Thorndike to dislike abstract discussions that were not tied to concrete data. Another of Thorndike’s characteristics was that he combined a strongly hereditary behavioural psychology with the – at that time – newly developed techniques of statistical analysis. In this, Thorndike became an important initiator of showing how education could be structured around the methods of industrial management. By anatomising and standardising every aspect of the educational process, Thorndike enabled a cadre of ‘new’ educational administrators to enter schools to replace the traditional ‘rule-of-thumb’ methods with ‘scientifically proven’ (in today’s language evidence based) practices dovetailed to the needs of a modern state (Tomlinson, 1997). Thorndike was very much a product of his time and his context. Kliebard’s (2004) seminal book, The Struggle for the American Curriculum, demonstrates that at the turn of the twentieth century four separate ‘forces’ had emerged that determined the course of the American curriculum. Thorndike was a central figure in this struggle. The ‘forces’ were: the humanists, the developmentalists, the social efficiency educators and the social meliorists. Humanists were the self-spoken guardians of an ancient tradition tied to the power of reason and what was considered as the finest elements of Western cultural heritage. This group remained predominantly outside the professional education community, but were very influential within the academic world and among intellectuals in general. The group characterised as developmentalists were confident that education could improve if only scientists gathered more data on the development of the child and, with this as a guiding star, adjusted the curriculum. In the third group of social efficiency educators, standardised techniques influenced by industry management became important for making the curriculum more

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efficient, but also as a means of controlling humans in society. This control was important because society was seen to be disintegrating and that schools with a scientifically constructed curriculum could forestall and even prevent this. The last group, the social meliorists, reasoned that school was a major force for social change and social justice. Kliebard placed Thorndike among the social efficiency educators, which may seem reasonable, especially in the light of the following quote: By selective breeding supported by a suitable environment we can have a world in which all men will equal the top ten percent of present men. One sure service of the able and good is to beget and rear offspring. One sure service (about the only one) which the inferior and vicious can perform is to prevent their genes from survival. (Thorndike, 1940 p. 957) Thorndike focused his research on teaching methods that followed ‘children’s nature’ and the psychological laws of learning. The teaching of arithmetic, for example, was organised as the hierarchy of intellectual habits for development and assessment following his Law of Exercise and Law of Effect. Teaching incorporated a hereditary view of intelligence that was moral in character and not merely technological. Tests of ability differentiated Black Americans and women, for example, with fewer than 4 per cent of the Black students passing the median of White scores for the corresponding grades, to support Thorndike’s claim for students’ lower capacity (Thorndike et al., 1928). This ‘nature’ and its nature of expertise differentiated students, where new immigrants were seen as weakening the overall intellectual pool of students. In this research, a central assumption about expertise is made visible, namely that human ability is largely determined by birth. It embodied an idea of human nature that bore elements of eugenics to differentiate people, such as today’s categories of race, gender and ethnicity. This notion of nature and differences acted as a theoretical premise from which Thorndike continuously drew practical conclusions that all kinds of individual progress depended on identifying and training each person for the social role that most suited them (Tomlinson, 1997). It does not really make sense that a well-educated person appearing at that time as an ‘expert’ as late as 1940 embraced the doctrine of eugenics, especially in the US, but this is basically because we look at it in today’s terms. In the following we try to describe it in a more context sensitive way by illuminating Thorndike’s own way into the science of education and describing a dominant reasoning of the time about how to develop society and the people living in it. Similar assumptions of eugenics and human ‘nature’ were embodied in Child Studies, such as G Stanley Hall’s (1904) Adolescence: Its psychology and its relation to physiology, anthology, sociology, sex, crime, religion in education. In this we can see the importance of the chimera of quantifications and comparisons for avoiding

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uncertainty in social and societal planning as well as a central notion of ‘experts’ having to act on the basis of a higher moral order.

The Thorndike context of ‘expertise’ Thorndike was a product of his time, but he was also a scholar who constructed ideas and beliefs. His career, which stretched from the late nineteenth century and 50 years ahead, is to some extent typical for an educational ‘expert’ at that time, even though it could be said that his career was in many ways extraordinarily successful. His dissertation Animal Intelligence, completed in 1898 was considered a landmark in the history of psychology (Woodworth, 1952). It inaugurated the laboratory study of animal learning and demonstrated that animal behaviour observed under experimental conditions could help to solve general problems of psychology. The animal laboratory was quickly followed by many other scholars and universities and has continued to be an important factor in the development of scientific psychology and the understanding of human behaviour and social lives at large (cf. Haraway, 1991). Besides performing experiments on animals, he used statistical methods to systematise and analyse his observations. Thus, already at the start of his career, experiments and measurements were his guiding stars. Thorndike’s most important ‘discovery’, which gave him a reputation as an educationalist, was that by performing his experiments he contested a dominant belief in the theory of learning. Previous experiments on learning had given the learner something to memorise and then tested what had been learned (or remembered). Thorndike instead placed the animals he tested in a situation where they had to solve some kind of problem. By performing experiments in this way, the epistemology of knowledge was contested – instead of remembering facts, knowledge became synonymous with solving problems. This proved important in the history of education because previous theories had accepted repetition as the potent factor in learning. Instead, Thorndike emphasised ‘effects’ – understood as something that you can succeed or fail in. Thorndike’s suspicion of the doctrine of ‘formal discipline’ also became important. His critique started in 1901 but was repeated at intervals, always with new data to legitimate his attack. Traditionally, education was supposed to develop mental capacities, so that if you trained in e.g. geometry, it would also develop your capacity in e.g. language. Thorndike questioned this doctrine. He conducted several experiments to test whether the ‘formal discipline’ had any effect in other subjects, but found that the theory did not hold true. As a result, Thorndike stated that the ability developed by training in one line of work was specific and did not automatically spread to other lines of work, except when what been learned could be utilised in a concrete way. Consequently, throughout his career Thorndike maintained that school subjects were valuable for their content and not only for drill. By the end of his career he claimed that the only

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general ability that really mattered, and on which all curricula should be based, was the ability to learn associations or connections. His conclusion was that a higher level of ability by an individual simply depended on the ability to make more numerous and subtle connections between different issues (e.g. Woodworth, 1952). This conclusion was significant in Thorndike’s continuous work. With these two discoveries, Thorndike gradually abandoned animals as experimental objects and instead became more interested in the testing of humans. The years before World War I were very formative for Thorndike in the sense that he started to combine learning theory and psychometrics and applied research on school-related subjects to form a psychology of education (Beatty, 1998). World War I was a real opportunity for Thorndike to test some of his ideas in the work of the army to measure individuals’ abilities and personalities. In this work, he contributed with e.g. the group intelligence test (Woodworth, 1952). After the war, his work was directed towards making educational psychology a mass-market industry. As a result of this interest he produced numerous commercially successful tests and textbooks. At the end of his career Thorndike also proposed a ‘science of values’ and as a consequence of this engagement developed quantitative indices of moral and social goodness which he tested in different American cities to determine which cities were good to live in (Beatty, 1998). Thorndike’s project of creating a science of education was not a new project. Earlier nineteenth century attempts had included deriving pedagogy from classroom practice, psychological philosophy and the pedagogical theories of e.g. Pestalozzi, Fröbel or Herbart (Roberts, 1968). A forerunner in America was the work of G Stanley Hall, who gathered survey data that he claimed constituted a scientific approach to the study of children and education (e.g. White, 1990). Psychological methods were also used by educators outside universities, but some American psychologists like William James were sceptical of the idea that education could become a science (Danziger, 1990; Kliebard, 2004). However, in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century several psychologists saw a connection between science, education and morality for social order and efficacy. They believed that this kind of research would aid the creation of a more rational, orderly and beneficent society (Kloppenburg, 1986). Thorndike was one of the scientists who believed that they could contribute through science. The reasoning at that time and the ‘Zeitgeist’ made it possible for them to contribute and gradually they, and the sciences that they represented, were perceived as legitimate and reasonable. In this way, they instituted a specific way of making education and society intelligible. What is important in this study of Thorndike is his work to constitute a science of educational psychology based on a chimera of quantifications and comparisons. We evoke the chimera to talk about this seeming beauty of rigour in research as wildly imaginative about people’s nature and its material effects. This is most evident in his claim that knowledge about education is derived from measurements and statistics. Thorndike also looked for general, or even

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universal, laws of education. In relation to the argument put forward in this chapter, it can be said that Thorndike is most important as a forerunner for understanding the state of the art of the reasoning of today’s education. It can also be said that Thorndike’s authority and legitimacy as an expert is based on his close connection to the chimera of quantification and comparisons. Thorndike is therefore an early example of an ‘expert’ who based his role as an expert on quantifications and comparisons for making educational ‘truths’.

Large numbers for a new ‘Weltanschauung’ 2 Torsten Husén (1916–2008) is probably Sweden’s most internationally known scholar in the field of education. Husén’s academic background is in many ways comparable to Thorndike’s entry into education. In 1942, while still writing his doctoral thesis, the Swedish army hired him to construct psychological tests. The task was to devise tests and interviews for military selection. Several publications on psychological warfare, attitude surveys and studies of soldiers with adjustment problems emerged from the Husén’s and his co-workers’ applied studies. One of the more successful results that came of this period was a standardised and individual intelligence test for adults that all young men in Sweden had to take before entering military service. Theoretical problems could be tackled thanks to the applied research undertaken by Husén in his work for the army. As a result, Husén presented texts on test reliability, scaling and validity (Postletwaite, 1993). With these military experiences of large-scale testing, in the 1940s Husén became interested in the relationship between individuals’ ability, social background, occupation, length of schooling and school performance. In the early 1950s he combined this interest with long-term studies of the relationship between ability test scores at 10 and 20 years of age. By estimating the influence of schooling on changes in ability over a ten-year period it can be said that Husén’s reasoning on education was fully developed. What became evident in his studies was that under a highly selective system, much of the talent in society was not being fully developed (Postletwaite, 1993). By presenting these results an alignment came about between Husén’s results and the dominant Swedish social democratic reasoning on education, and for a long time the central question for the governing Social Democrats was the same as for Husén – is it possible to identify people with a more academic prowess and those with practical skills? If so, at approximately what age would it be possible to undertake this diagnosis? With this alignment between his research interest and path trodden by the governing Social Democrats, Husén became an important representative of what can be called ‘state intellectuals’. The term ‘state intellectuals’ indicated the new role of educational experts in which they were involved as important delegates in the creation of educational policy. Educational policy as such became aligned with the arenas of policy and research, with ‘bridges’ between the two constructed by some ‘appointed’ experts. Asking and trying to answer

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these questions, as well as being ‘appointed’ as a ‘state intellectual’, are the reasons why Husén’s research became so internationally disseminated, because the question of selection was most evident in several educational systems around the globe at a time when educational systems were expanding. Also, the fact that the development of the welfare state in Sweden at that time was seen as a progressive success further boosted interest in Husén’s research on developing Swedish educational policy. Another reason why Husén’s reputation grew was due to his involvement in developing international large-scale assessments. Husén’s international work began in 19523 when he was invited by the American High Commissioner to serve as a consultant at a workshop on the role that psychological research could play in solving the problems in German education. At this workshop Husén appears to have established contacts with American educators, which marked the beginning of an extensive interaction in which Husén was invited to be Visiting Professor at different American universities. Husén’s international work took a further leap at the end of the 1950s when he took part in a small group of researchers who met under the auspices of the UNESCO Institute for Education. This group decided that national systems of education were worthy of investigation using empirical methods consisting of quantifications and comparisons. What was at the core of this interest was that previous outcomes of education had been measured in terms of the number of students graduating from the different levels of the school system. What was not measured as outcomes was what the students actually learned. What was actually learned in the different educational systems and in different subjects later became a priority research area. The task was huge, though and included how to deal with the different ages of entry to school, the different system structures, the curriculum content, different teaching methods, the differences in teacher training and so on. Nevertheless, the group set to work on the task and later on formed themselves into the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), which eventually became an important actor in the development of international large-scale assessments of students’ performances (for a more elaborated description of the development of the IEA see Chapter 3 by Sundberg in this book). Husén was chairman of the IEA from 1962 to 1978. This was at the time when IEA developed from being a collaboration between twelve countries to becoming an organisation undertaking seven large-scale studies in over twenty countries.

The Husén context of ‘expertise’ As stated above, when Husén started out as a researcher asking questions about education the context had gradually changed and research and policy had gradually become intermixed, thus enabling a situation in which scholars could function as ‘state intellectuals’. Husén is an eminent example of this. He first became a ‘state intellectual’ in the context of Swedish policy, but with

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his research focus and his dominant position in IEA he also became a ‘state intellectual’ in an international arena. This can be exemplified with several of his commitments, where he was invited by different governments and several international organisations to discuss and make recommendations on education. Some of his appointments include membership of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, a foreign member of the United State National Academy of Education, the Finnish Academy of Sciences and the Polish Academy of Sciences. He also became an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served on several UNESCO committees and was a regular consultant to the OECD. During the 1960s and 1970s several ministries of education asked Husén to serve as a consultant on different aspects of education, including the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) and the UNESCO Institute for Education in Hamburg. He was also one of the reviewers of OECD’s policy on education. He was a co-editor-in-chief of the first and second editions of the International Encyclopedia of Education and a founding president of the International Academy of Education. In addition, he was a professor of education and the chairman of the IEA between 1962 and 1978 (Genova, 2015). The exceptional career of Torsten Husén is of course a product of the time in which he lived and the opportunities he was given. But why did Husén receive such acclaim? First of all, it had to do with a growing movement among some comparativists who felt an urgent need for what was called comparable ‘dependent variables’ (Lehmann, 2010) – today known as ‘output indicators’ or ‘success criteria in education’. In fact, these ‘dependent variables’ are the perfect construction of the chimera of quantifications and comparisons, due to the fact that the method for constructing and elaborating them is as follows: first you measure the achievement distribution in a particular domain, in a sample representing the entire population of a given country, then you perform tabulations on what are considered meaningful indicators of the measures aggregated and then you rank or order the countries investigated and finally you are in a position to interpret the figures obtained as sufficient statistics for making judgements about the quality of the investigated educational systems (Lehmann, 2010). This is in fact the basic idea of all international large-scale assessments, even though it has been refined and elaborated on considerably over the years. The second fact for understanding Husén’s position is to do with the political context that motivated several educational policymakers of the time to support, authorise and fund the early investigations undertaken by IEA. The interest among politicians can be motivated by the development of comprehensive schooling. Based on Husén’s findings that a lot of the talent that existed in society was not fully developed, IEA studies can be seen as a cooperation for investigating whether the emergence of comprehensive schooling in several nations would improve this development. Therefore, a gradually shift can be seen in ‘expertise’ between what in this chapter is exemplified by Thorndike

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and Husén. If pre-WWII ‘expertise’ was more occupied with solving the issue of selection, the post-WWII ‘expertise’ gradually became engaged with enabling the ‘educational productivity’ of students for societal and economic development. Consequently, the research undertaken by IEA made it both possible and necessary to use these kinds of studies to find reasons (indicators) for the distribution of achievements in the systems that were compared (Lehmann, 2010). The studies that were undertaken were seen by many as ‘educational productivity’, as introduced by Herbert Walberg and his school of thought (cf. Walberg, 1984). There were several interactions between this school of thought and IEA, which led to some criticism being directed towards IEA for being too committed to a ‘productivity paradigm’ (Lehmann, 2010). There is also a third fact that directs attention to the idea of conceptual personae discussed earlier. Husén’s emergence as embodying an international expertise has to be placed with European and North American mobilisations of science in relation to the expansion of the welfare state. The new international and national agencies gave focus to science as providing knowledge for recovery, reconstruction and the reimagining of societies and education (Popkewitz, in progress). This mobilisation of science gave visibility to a new kind of expertise related to theories of systems analysis and cybernetics in social, psychological and educational research to manage the potentialities of change. To quickly summarise this expertise in which Husén worked, discussed earlier in relation to the conceptual personae, an ‘unprecedented synthesis’ of a biological metaphor of social life as an analogy of social affairs inscribed the relationship between the mind and the machine – the machine as the computer and its analogy to the mind as artificial intelligence (Halpern, 2014). The expertise of science was talked about as knowledge utilisation. Its objects of knowledge were the processes and communications that construct the constellation of a system that can achieve optimal relations. Algorithms were also important for the management of the system. Information, as expressed in Husén’s work, was not about meaning, but choices between possibilities in a structured situation, structurally denoting a formally defined range of possibilities for communication and between discrete units (Halpern, 2014).

Educational entrepreneurship and dissemination The last example of an educational ‘expert’ used in our argument on ‘expertise’ is the German-born Andreas Schleicher (1964–), the Director for Education and Skills and Special Advisor on Education Policy to the Secretary-General at OECD. Schleicher studied physics and mathematics and became a Master of Science. His other academic merit is that he in 2006 he was named as Honorary Professor in the Faculty of Behavioural and Cultural Studies at the University of Heidelberg. There is a substantial difference in the background of Schleicher compared to Thorndike and Husén, both of whom entered education from psychology and tests in the military. Schleicher instead comes from a natural

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science background and has transformed educational knowledge by using statistical science data to contribute educational knowledge. Schleicher began his career in education by working for a year at IEA, but in 1994 started to work as a project manager at the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) at OECD. This was at a time when IEA had been criticised for not being policy relevant enough (Pettersson, 2008). OECD took this critique seriously and as a consequence in 1995 started to develop an international large-scale assessment of their own in which Schleicher was involved. Schleicher advanced within OECD by working on this task and in 1997 became the manager of OECD’s Indicators and Analysis Division, Directorate for Education. In this role, he became a spokesperson when the first PISA study was presented. Since 2002 he has been responsible for the PISA programme, but has also been an important ‘expert’ in other educational research. In many ways, it can be said that Andreas Schleicher as an ‘expert’ in education is more grounded in his expertise as an educational entrepreneur, a skilled technician and something of an ‘expert’ in disseminating educational knowledge than being well rooted in the science of education. However, this issue can be discussed from another angle – Schleicher is in fact not only an educational entrepreneur, a skilled technician or really good in disseminating educational knowledge, but (together with others) has taken educational sciences out of the hands of ‘experts’ in academia and placed the dominant expertise on education in the hands of entrepreneurs, technicians and statisticians. As such, educational knowledge has been transformed into something other than what Thorndike and Husén thought as educational knowledge. Even though the purposes of gaining knowledge seem to be similar – the ordering and development of society – the methods for doing this have shifted in terms of who is ‘knighted’ as an expert. In order to understand this shift we need to say something about the context in which Schleicher and others have been so important for the ‘facts’ on education.

The Schleicher context of ‘expertise’ In our journey of how educational expertise has changed, Andreas Schleicher is an interesting actor to investigate. In many ways, the background and the way that Schleicher acts and thinks about knowledge differ from how Thorndike and Husén acted and thought. Before becoming ‘experts’ Thorndike and Husén were well established scholars. Schleicher was never an established scholar, he made his mark as a skilled technician with statistical knowledge and an effective administrator. His most visible skill is his ability to disseminate educational knowledge by using the opportunities afforded by Information and Communication Technology (ICT). On his twitter account @SchleicherOECD4 he disseminates the results of OECD studies. This account contains more than 3500 tweets by Schleicher (or at least co-workers who probably manage his twitter account) and has many

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followers. The tweets mostly make use of OECD’s important findings to tell ‘truths’ or ask questions. Tweets made in March and April 2018 say: “Read our new report on how communities can value teachers and raise their status” (posted 22–03–2018), “How can #teachers implement innovative pedagogies in the classroom?” (posted 13–04–2018), “What kind of #math should students be learning in the 21st century” (posted 10–04–2018), “#Teachers as Designers of Learning Environments: the Importance of Innovative Pedagogies” (posted 09–04–2018) and “Classrooms with a more balanced or mixed group composition can ensure both #equity & #quality in early childhood #education & care” (posted 04–04–2018). Attached to the tweets are reports presenting findings made in international large-scale assessments performed by OECD. Andreas Schleicher has also been invited to TED5 where he has talked about the following issues: “Use data to build better schools”6 and “What are the keys to a successful education system?”7 In both these appearances he has leaned heavily on the fact that tests and statistical analysis help us to understand education and to adjust our educational systems for better performances. Schleicher has also been asked by the international edu-business Pearson Foundation8 to reflect on five things he has learned about education. The five things Schleicher considers important are: In the global economy, the benchmark for educational success is no longer merely improvement by local or national standards, but the best performing educational systems internationally. . . . The skills that are easiest to teach and test are also the skills that are easiest to digitize, automate and outsource.  .  . . Deprivation need not be destiny. Equity in education is also the key to social mobility and democratizing knowledge. . . . Modern education is about enabling professional autonomy within a collaborative culture. . . . There is no future without investment in education.9 In sum, Schleicher’s tweets, his talks on TED and the five things learned about education confirm that the chimera of quantifications and comparisons constitutes a strong base for how the reasoning of education is formed by this kind of educational expertise.

The changing nature of educational expertise What, then, can be said about the changing nature of expertise in education by simply highlighting these three actors? What are the common denominators and where do they differ? First of all, let us start by saying that they all have a strong belief in that education can change society and can preserve the ‘good things’ in society if the schooling is accurate. What needs to be changed and what can be preserved differs between the three ‘experts’. Thorndike believes in a social order based on moral values, which should be the foundation on which tomorrow’s society is built.

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In this, the issue of selection is important, because one way of developing society is by separating and guiding the ‘talented’ so that they can use their potential to the full by placing them in positions where they are useful. Husén’s views differ slightly here because early on in his research he found that many people in society were talented but their ‘life chances’ did not enable them to develop them further. Giving the talented a chance in life was therefore foremost in Husén’s thinking. As such, ‘separating’ students was not the most important question. Rather, what was important was when to differentiate between the more academically and the more practically talented and how. When we compare Husén and Thorndike with Schleicher, there is a big difference. Ordering and making society well-organised were at the centre for Thorndike and Husén, whereas a ‘production paradigm’ is central to Schleicher’s thinking. For Schleicher, society had stagnated due to the lack of efficacy in education. For him, making education more effective was important for increasing societal production and development. The ‘expertise’ on education has therefore made a ‘turn’ in a reasoning based on the chimera of quantifications and comparisons. At the beginning, the legitimacy of educational knowledge was based on a profound belief in educational science as a way of ordering and developing society and the humans living in it. Lately, this reasoning has more or less left the domain of education as a ‘moral’ or ‘philosophical’ place and has instead transgressed into a domain of ‘methods’ and ‘statistics’. By using the three examples of ‘experts’ we can conclude that a reasoning based on quantifications and comparisons is well suited for the ordering of society and humans and for making education more effective. Instead of just basing the ordering of society and humans on moral claims, effective measurable methods of schooling itself become the moral claim. The new educational moral is a methodology for effective and measurable practices to achieve high grades and successful performances. As such, educational ‘expertise’ becomes a language of ‘best practice’, or “evidence-based practices and research”. Second, amongst the ‘experts’ we highlight we can recognise a change in the  epistemology of educational knowledge. Thorndike changed the educational epistemology from primarily being a matter of memory to being a matter of problem solving. In this he developed tests and other means for measuring individuals and creating different hierarchies and typologies of individuals. Husén, on the other hand, inscribed theories of systems and cybernetics in which algorithms and big data were beginning to appear as models of analysis and interpretation. He was more concerned with measuring the results that were to be achieved in relation to national curricula. Here, hierarchies and typologies of individuals were not based on the ability to solve problems, but on the ability to achieve the content of the curriculum. Also, Husén and his co-workers in IEA created a methodology in which nations were also sorted into hierarchies and typologies. When looking at how Schleicher and colleagues thought about educational knowledge, there is a further shift in the

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epistemology in that the curriculum content of ‘today’ is no longer important, but the knowledge of ‘tomorrow’ is. In this it can be said that the results of today’s large-scale assessments create tomorrow’s hierarchies and typologies of countries. The concept of achievement has as such changed from individuals’ personalities and personal skills, to a measurement of the fulfilment of tomorrow’s curriculum, which becomes a ‘myth’ of tomorrow’s possibilities. The educational ‘expert’ working with quantifications and comparisons has conclusively ‘travelled’ from being the ‘measurer’ of individuals to becoming the ‘measurer’ of collectives as the ‘oracles’ of tomorrow. Third, the activities performed by educational ‘experts’ have changed considerably over the years. If we take Thorndike as an example, his legitimacy was based on him being a well-known scholar formulating and elaborating on methods to present ‘facts’ about education and individuals’ abilities to learn. The same can be said for Husén, but ‘experts’ also chose to organise themselves differently – in bigger ‘communities’ to gain more legitimacy and align themselves with politicians functioning more or less as ‘state intellectuals’, but always from a strong position as scholars. This changed dramatically when looking at Schleicher as an ‘expert’ on education. Instead of having legitimacy as a scholar, his legitimacy is based on a strong organisation with several resources for disseminating results and the ‘soft governance’ of national educational systems. Here the ‘expert’ no longer performs research. This is instead conducted in large research conglomerates, where the ‘expertism’ of the educational ‘expert’ no longer lies in a scholar but in the ability to communicate educational knowledge. The role as an ‘expert’ is therefore not legitimised by a strong scholarly position, but is gained by adopting some of the rationalities within ICT and a medialised world. Fourth, a new mode of telling the truth through the visual culture of science is visible in Schliecher’s way of acting. Statistical expertise works backwards to form standards, expressed as benchmarks, and empirical evidence that makes a particular action for school change plausible through the macro analysis of visualising standards and comparisons of schools as a system, with OECD as an example. The visual techniques function as maps to organise the flow of information about stable objects that move among different social spaces to ‘tell’ of the route to innovation (Halpern, 2014).10 The graphs, statistics and charts serve as ‘immutable mobiles’ (Latour, 1986) and are visualisation technologies that collapse complexities into standardised categories and calculations in which phenomena seem well arranged, easily accessible and monitored to steer what is seen and acted on. Mosaics of numbers are assembled as truth bearing statements about the effective functioning of schools that appear as a unified abstraction of ‘nation’ and its potentialities (see e.g. Popkewitz, 2018). The complexities of the differences between nations and cultures disappear and reappear as standardised and comparable descriptions of numbers that represent a singular, universal population of nations from which differences are calculated. The visualisation technologies of numbers no longer measure personality

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and inner qualities, but are about nations ‘seen’ through the standardisation of those qualities and characteristics of people that need development (see e.g. Borgonovi & Przemyslaw, 2016). The optical consistency translation of statistical distinctions into information appears to have a ‘communicative objectivity’. The ‘optical consistency’ entails a particular calculative rationality in which process and method are fabricated as material objects, with statistics as a tactic for visual information. Numbers are given as the transcendent ordering of what nations need for development, growth and equity. Cultural distinctions are erased to order and to create a different layer for the comparison of differences through the superordinate qualities of the statistical equivalences. Numbers, as such, become a communication practice through which statistical equivalency performs as the reasoning about comparability and differences. Also, change is given its directionality as bringing about educational improvement. The processes of change are then visualised in e.g. tables and graphs. The change models are shown as orderly, linear processes that instantiate clear and logical procedures. The procedures are available to all if they are wise enough to follow the ‘highways’; a word used, for instance, by OECD and in the McKinsey Reports (see e.g. Mourshed, Chijioke & Barber, 2010). Conclusively, by looking into how educational ‘expertism’ has changed over time we can illuminate that ‘expertism’ is nothing given, but is something that has to be constantly seized and debated. Different strategies have been used at different times. One important observation we make in illuminating the three ‘experts’ is that today educational ‘expertism’ is about communication rather than producing educational ‘facts’. This is not to say that no educational ‘facts’ are produced today – on the contrary, considerably more educational ‘facts’ are produced today, but the sheer amount of ‘facts’ means that the ‘experts’ of today are those with an ability to assemble and organise and are backed up by large organisations to disseminate these ‘facts’. This development started out with scholars like Husén, but since then scholars have found it difficult to keep up with the accelerating speed of producing educational ‘facts’, or as Hacking (1990/2008) states – “the avalanche of printed numbers” – and instead other actors with other skills are now the new ‘experts’. This has changed the educational mise-en-scène considerably. It has also changed how we think, talk and write about education. This chapter exemplifies these changes.

Notes 1 See footnote 1 in the introductory chapter on how chimera is used in this chapter. 2 The German concept of ‘Weltanschauung’ is well suited for discussing the major thinking of Torsten Husén, because on the one hand this is at the very core of his perception of how the world could be grasped – using quantifications and comparisons for building the ‘truth’ of education and educational achievements as a ‘world view’ of education. On the other hand, the concept is also used by his close co-worker Neville Postlethwaite in his writings about the life and work of Husén (Postletwaite, 1993). It also shows that

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4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Daniel Pettersson and Thomas S. Popkewitz Husén initially belonged to a German speaking generation of Nordic academics who after WWII gradually orientated themselves to the English-speaking world and from that developed a greater interest in the ‘international’. The fact that Husén was invited by the Americans as having something to say about the German educational system is interesting and marks a transition from primarily being oriented towards the German sphere into becoming more oriented to the American sphere and from there being more involved in ‘international’ and comparative education. Husén had studied in Germany and his second language was German, not English. This was common amongst Nordic academics at that time, but gradually changed after the defeat of the Germans in Stalingrad with the acknowledgement that Germany would probably be defeated in the war. Husén as such is typical of the displacement that took place amongst Nordic scholars. https://twitter.com/schleicheroecd TED broadcasts talk given by invited speakers. The website is found at: www.ted.com www.ted.com/speakers/andreas_schleicker www.npr.org/2017/08/11/541644277/andreas-schleicher-what-s-the-secret-to-asuccessful-education-system www.thefivethings.org/index.html www.thefivethings.org/andreas-schleicher/index.html Systems theories were applied in OECD’s approach to study the conditions of education in the late 1950s (see e.g. Pettersson & Mølstad, 2016) and as a method for interventions in research related to the US War on Poverty and the Great Society, among others.

References Beatty, B. (1998). From laws of learning to a science of values: Efficiency and morality in Thorndike’s educational psychology. American Psychologist, 53(10), 1145–1152. Borgonovi, F. & Przemyslaw, B. (2016). An international comparison of students’ ability to endure fatigue and maintain motivation during a low-stakes test. Learning and Individual Difference, 49, 128–137. Burke, C. & Grosvenor, I. (2013). An exploration of the writing and reading of a life: The ‘body parts’ of the Victorian school architect. E. R. Robson. T. S. Popkewitz (ed.) Rethinking the History of Education: Transnational Perspectives on Its Questions, Methods, and Knowledge (pp. 201–222). New York: Routledge. Danziger, K. (1990). Constructing the Subject: The Historical Origins of Psychological Research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1994). Conceptual personae: Introduction: The question then . . . (H. Tomlinson & G. Burchell, Trans.). G. Deleuze (ed.) What Is Philosophy? (pp. 61–84). New York: Columbia University Press. Desrosières, A. (1998). The Politics of Large Numbers: A History of Statistical Reasoning. Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press. Feyerabend, P. (1974/2006). How to defend society against science. E. Selinger & R. P. Crease (eds.) The Philosophy of Expertise. New York: Columbia University Press. Genova, T. (2015). Torsten Husén: A co-founder and chairman of the IEA from 1962 to 1978. N. Popova, C. Wolhuter, K. Ermec, G. Hilton, J. Ogunleye & E. Niemczyk (eds.) Quality, Social Justice and Accountability in Education Worldwide (Vol. 13[1], pp. 33–40). Sofia: Bureau for Educational Services. Habermas, J. (1987). The Theory of Communicative Action. Boston: Beacon. Hacking, I. (1990/2008). The Taming of Chance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Hall, G. S. (1904). Adolescences: Its Psychology and Its Relation to Physiology, Anthology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion in Education. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Halpern, O. (2014). Beautiful Data: A History of Vision and Reason since 1945. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Haraway, D. J. (1991). Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. London: Free Association Books. Horkheimer, M. & Adorno, T. W. (1948). Dialektik der Aufklärung: Philosophische Fragmente. Frankfurt: S. Fischer Verlag. Jasanoff, S. (2006). States of Knowledge: The Co-Production of Science and Social Order. London & New York: Routledge. Jones, G. S. (2008). An end to poverty: The French Revolution and the promise of a world beyond want. R. Scazzieri & R. Simili (eds.) The Migration of Ideas (pp. 59–71). Sagamore Beach: Science History Publications. Kett, J. F. (2013). The History of a Founding Ideal from the American Revolution to the TwentyFirst Century (American Institutions and Society). Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Kliebard, H. M. (2004). The Struggle for the American Curriculum. New York & London: Routledge. Kloppenburg, J. T. (1986). Uncertain Victory: Social Democracy and Progressivism in European and American thought, 1870–1920. New York: Oxford University. Latour, B. (1986). Visualization and cognition: Thinking with eyes and hands. Knowledge and Society: Studies in the Sociology of Culture Past and Present, 6, 1–40. Lehmann, R. (2010, July 1–3). The Scientific Contributions of Torsten Husén and Neville Postlethwaite to the development of international comparative research on educational achievement. Gothenburg: 4th IEA International Research Conference, Gothenburg, Sweden. Mitchell, T. (2002). Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press. Mourshed, M., Chijioke, C. & Barber, M. (2010). How the World’s Most Improved School Systems Keep Getting Better. New York: McKinsey & Company. Neves, L. M. P. (2000). Putting meritocracy in its place: The logic of performance in the United States, Brazil and Japan. Critique of Anthropology, 20(4), 333–358. Pettersson, D. (2008). International Knowledge Assessments: An Element of National Educational Steering. Uppsala: Uppsala University. Pettersson, D. & Mølstad, C. (2016). PISA teachers: The pope and the happening of educational development. Educação & Sociedade, 37(136), 629–645. Popkewitz, T. S. (2008). Cosmopolitanism and the Age of School Reform: Science, Education, and Making Society by Making the Child. New York: Routledge. Popkewitz, T. S. (2018). Anticipating the future society: The cultural inscription of numbers and international large-scale assessment. S. Lindblad, D. Pettersson & T. Popkewitz (eds.) Education by the Numbers and the Making of Society: The Expertise of International Assessments (pp. 222–228). New York: Routledge. Popkewitz, T. S. (in progress). The Impracticality of Practical Research: A History of Science of Change That Conserve. Porter, T. M. (1995). Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Postletwaite, T. N. (1993). Torsten Husén. Prospects: The Quarterly Review of Comparative Education, 23(3/4), 677–686. Roberts, J. R. (1968). The quest for a science of education in the nineteenth century. History of Education Quarterly, 8, 431–446.

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Sapin, S. (1994). A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Stigler, S. M. (1986). The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty before 1900. Cambridge & London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Thorndike, E. L. (1940). Human Nature and the Social Order. New York: Macmillan. Thorndike, E. L., Bregman, E. O., Tilton, J. W. & Woodyard, E. (1928). Studies in Adult Education. New York: The Macmillan Company. Tomlinson, S. (1997). Edward Lee Thorndike and John Dewey on the science of education. Oxford Review of Education, 23(3), 365–383. Turner, S. (2006). What is the problem with experts? E. Selinger & R. P. Crease (eds.) The Philosophy of Expertise. New York: Columbia University Press. Walberg, H. J. (1984). Improving the productivity of America’s schools. Educational Leadership, 41(8), 19–27. White, S. H. (1990). Child study at Clark University: 1894–1904. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 24, 131–150. Woodworth, R. S. (1952). Edward Lee Thorndike 1874–1949: A Biographical Memoir. Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences.

Chapter 2

Society speaks back On the intimacy and complexity of comparative education research on a welfare state Agora Rita Foss Lindblad and Sverker Lindblad

Introduction The ambition with this chapter is to address and explore the intimate and complex relations between educational research and its social and political embedding as seen from the perspective of comparative education in Sweden, in which several activities are based on educational ‘numbers’. When talking about science-society interactions, the chapter takes a theoretical stance by focusing on the conceptualisation of complexity, Agora and the ‘society speaks back’ metaphor. This is in line with those scholars who are engaged in rethinking the science-society interactions (Gibbons et al., 1994; Nowotny et al., 2003). However, we also take a critical stance against the holistic perspectives that we consider too dominant in their claims for transformation and their conceptions of the boundaries between science and society (see also Rip, 2010). Thus, although our main line of argument takes its starting point in the rethinking of science-society relations, the chapter also aims to contribute to the ‘re-thinking’ of the meaning of the ‘re-thinking’ itself. In this sense, our inquiry is not carried out in a contextual vacuum. Instead, the intention is to explore comparative educational research in Sweden in ways that demonstrate our theoretical argumentation for the importance of widening both its scope and perspectives when it comes to its formation and institution. It is important to open up for more elaborate understandings of comparative education as a complex system and to not lose sight of the different modes of moral and political orderings operating in different contexts and with different rationalities. After all, what we call science or society are seen more as hybrids rather than monolithic entities and practices, discursively as well as institutionally. Our chapter also aims to bring these links to the fore when our story of changed Agoras and the fluid specificities of comparative education in Sweden is told. The studied case is the trajectory of international comparative education research (here called comparative education) in Sweden since WWII. Before that, in Sweden and elsewhere, comparative education was a matter for philosophy and history. Only after WWII was it increasingly connected to the expanding social and behavioural sciences. Our case concerns the foundation and the foundational father of the Institute of International Education (IIE) at Stockholm

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University in 1971, as well as the closing down of IIE in 2009.1 At that time, international comparisons of school results focused on education policy discourses, whereas today international comparisons are essential parts of the public debate on education and schooling more generally. It therefore seems that the contours, meanings, conceptualities and localities of comparative education have changed. Our research questions concern how these transitions and reorganisations can be understood in the context and contours of the presented case. In the following section, we conceptualise our inquiry in relation to analyses of the science-society interaction and how these relations help us to understand the presented case. Within this framework we present our ‘case’ by first of all naturalising some of the factual circumstances and then problematising what has been said and deconstructing it in order to reconstruct a new story that highlights some of the complexities at work in the constitution of the field.

Discourses on science/society interactions and the search for the specificity of comparative educational research in Sweden At least since the late 1960s we have witnessed dramatic changes in the practice and understanding of science2 in general. These changes are also important for understanding the specificities of comparative educational research in Sweden. When it comes to practice, notions are presented for the radical transformation of the ‘contract’ between science and society;3 changes that are said to have been made: • • • •

the sciences more sensitive and accountable for societal and social needs weakened their disciplinary structures as new forms of epistemic and institutional organisations have emerged, such as multi-, inter- and trans-disciplinarity altered and intensified forms of governance an orchestration of neo-liberal influences, especially visible in such things as the favouring of new public management, marketisation and increased competition for research funds.

These embeddings have parallel epistemic consequences. Contextualisation is a key word here and refers to the increased expectations and pressures on the sciences to be engaged in and designed for the production of what Ferné (1995) has called exploitable results.4 Highly influential, spread and debated5 has without doubt been the work of Gibbons et al. (1994) and Nowotny et al. (2001) who, besides introducing concepts such as ‘Mode 1’ and ‘Mode 2’ to explain the contrast between old and new forms of knowledge production and their social embedding, also make use of the “science speaks back metaphor” and the ancient concept of Agora. The metaphor points to a situation in which science and its effects are as much embedded in society as society is embedded in science. This has led to a situation in which science

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is bound to listen to its own creations and do this in new ways, even if older yet still vital conceptual schemes and categorisations have been weakened or even broken. As we know it, this has come in parallel with new systems of reason, not only on and in society, but also concerning the rise of a riskier and more changeable world. When it comes to the Agora concept, this is clarified as: the new public space where science and society, the market and politics, co-mingle . . . a space that transcends the categorization of modernity. (Nowotny et al., 2001 p. 203) As we will now try to show and argue for in this chapter, the Agora concept can be more productive and fitting in times of categorisations of modernity and beliefs in scientific rationality and progress than in times of uncertainty and fluidity. Also, the Agora concept facilitates the analysis and linking of processes that are at work when a specific subject or research area is established or changed. Differently put, and with significance for our case, it can help us to understand the social and political embedding that is involved in the constitution and constitutional changes of the trajectory of comparative education and IIE, as configurations of linkages between co-existing and multiple discourses, institutional, economic, ideological and epistemological domains and phenomena. These cannot be expected to work in harmony. In order to dismantle and identify these links, e.g. the Agora constitutive of IIE and comparative education, we take our starting point in one of its central actors, namely Thorsten Husén.6 It is not our intention to continue to celebrate this man as one of the founding fathers of the national and international institutionalisation of comparative education, but to use some of the writings about him and by him to demonstrate the complexity of how comparative education is a dynamic part of the existing Agora.7 In this way of looking at things, the trajectory of Torsten Husén becomes both an intermediator of worlds and an indicator that can direct our attention to the Agora, comparative education and the success of Torsten Husén himself. But what is complexity? As has been pointed out by Law and Mol (2002), complexity finds its opposite meaning in simplicity and refers first of all to the complexity of the world – making it relevant to claim the plurality and co-existence of worlds. It is a complexity of world(s) that the sciences have to handle and which they have handled by means of simplification. Reductionism is, and has been, both a promising and problematic solution of how to handle the epistemic and ontological links embedded in our knowing and knowledge. It can also be seen as a necessary and productive component of all research (as well as knowledge more generally) and its formation. In this paper, we give examples of how problems of complexity and reductionism have been dealt with in the field of comparative education. In terms of practices such as the institutionalisation of the field and the knowledge produced

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within it, these complexities point to the Agora as a composition of its links. As we are aware that words such as complexity, simplification and reductionism are all abstractions that are supposed to clarify these links (between signifier/ the signified, word/world and so on), we take our starting point in complexity as it has been clarified by Law and Mol: There is complexity if things relate but do not add up, if events occur but not within the processes of linear time, and if phenomena share a space but cannot be mapped in terms of a single set of three-dimensional coordinates. (Law & Mol, 2002 p. 1)

On the trajectory of international and comparative education in Sweden The history and characteristics of international and comparative education are portrayed in different ways and from different perspectives. For instance, Robert Cowen and Andreas Kazamias (2009) point to a growing field of publications and journals and question the intellectual qualities in this field. Maria Manzon (2011) presents comparative education as an institutional and intellectual field over different contexts. Erwin Epstein (2008) analyses comparative education as a variety of epistemological foundations, while Rolland Paulston (1999) presents postmodern paradigms in comparative and international education. With a special interest in teaching comparative education, Charl Wolhuter et al. (2008) present comparative education country-wise as it appears in higher education in different parts of the world. Comparative education in Sweden is not very visible in these international reviews and publications in terms of texts or publications. Alongside these more specific studies of the identity and characteristics of the field, there seem to be some consensus in considering comparative education as a somewhat fragmented and theoretically weak research field that is in need of re-orientation and specification. For instance, in later discussions about alternative routes for research problems and research orientation, the work of Robert Cowen has been important. In New Thinking in Comparative Education, Honoring Robert Cowen, edited by Larsen (2010), scholars with different solutions continue the ambition of re-orientation and renewal by (differently) problematising the meaning of comparison, as well as the conceptualisation of spatial relations (space/time/place concepts) that have both concretely and methodologically played such an important role for comparative education, especially in the change of name from comparative education to comparative and international education (see Little, 2000). Cowen (ref in Larsen, 2010) has claimed that the need for fresh thinking includes: what we study (unit of analysis), the interpretive concepts, frameworks and theories that we deploy in our work; the influence and context that shape

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the work we do as comparatists, and the epistemic consequences of these broader changes for our field. (Larsen, 2010 p. 1) Considering an expanding yet institutionally weak field of study that has also been the subject of great political interest and pressure, Bob Cowen’s conclusion is hardly surprising. When dealing with comparative education in Sweden it is our ambition to show that it is a result of several space/time scenarios – local, regional, national, international and global – and several agencies, with the involvement of a collective of individuals and organisations. Besides the general and international expansion of the field it is important to understand the specific Swedish context as changing over time, where pedagogy as a discipline (in line with the German discipline ‘Pädagogik’) and its assumed social relevance plays a key role in the restructuring of higher education and research in Sweden.8 Making Torsten Husén as our case: a naturalised, linear and rationalistic story

However, let us start by telling a naturalising and linear story. When going through the literature on comparative education in Sweden one person immediately appears in the foreground – Torsten Husén, a well-known scholar both inside and outside Sweden. He has published extensively on comparative education and held important academic positions both nationally and internationally. A brief biographical presentation to locate Husén in time and space could be written like this: Torsten Husén (1 March 1916 in Lund – 2 July 2009) was a Swedish educator. Husén became Master of Arts in 1938, was an assistant at the Department of Psychology at Lund University from 1938 to 1943, became Doctor of Philosophy in Lund in 1944, and Associate Professor of Education at Stockholm University in 1947. He was professor of education and educational psychology at Stockholm University from 1953–1955 and 1956–1971 in practical pedagogy at Stockholm Institute of Education and in education at Stockholm University from 1971 to 1981. After his retirement 1981 Torsten Husén continued to publish and was visiting professor at a number of universities. He was also the chair of the International Academia of Education from 1986–97. Torsten Husén passed away in 2009. Here we read that Husén received his PhD at Lund University in Sweden, where he studied psychology, differential psychology and testing, including large-scale intelligence testing.9 The above presentation does not tell us that he was also an expert in military psychology, wrote a book in this field, worked at

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the army’s central office in Stockholm and developed and standardised tests for military recruitment. His PhD thesis on adolescence was based on such tests. Husén developed scientific competences in the testing and organisation of large-scale studies. Furthermore, his work at the military office led to international cooperation with researchers working for the reconstruction of Europe after WWII, such as Lee Cronbach, who also visited Sweden.10 Such cooperation was not uncommon at the time of WWII and during the rebuilding of Europe. In his autobiography and bibliography, we read how he turned to educational matters of relevance of the expanding welfare state. Here we note that Husén gained several positions and assignments in commissions and academia. In the 1950s Torsten Husén turned to international education. Here he participated in UNESCO meetings, e.g. in Hamburg, where he is said to have had a leading role and where he received special support from US researchers such as A. W. Foshay and Arnold Anderson.11 It was in such meetings that the idea of international comparative studies of achievement tests began to take shape as a way of analysing education systems in different parts of the world. International cooperation was accompanied by a set of visiting professorships and consultancies at OECD and the World Bank. In 1967, Husén became a member of the US National Academy for Education and in 1972 a member of the Swedish Academy of the Sciences. Given these events and networkings, Husén gained a central position in the emerging field of comparative education and in the founding of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) in 1958, which ten years later moved its coordinating centre to Stockholm University. His position in Sweden was further manifested by the fact that he was appointed by the government to a chair in international and comparative education in 1971. Before this, in 1970, the Commission of Educational Research had presented its inquiry (SOU 1970 p. 18). This Commission was rather silent about comparative education, but despite this the government decided to establish the IIE at Stockholm University. The Swedish Government also hosted the IEA meeting in 1972 and the IEA office was also located at the IIE for several years. Torsten Husén was together with Neville Postlethwaite the editor of International Encyclopedia of Education.12 He worked with the International Institute for Educational Planning in Paris for 24 years and was on the editorial boards of various scientific journals, e.g. Comparative Education Review. Husén retired in 1982, a few years after the Stockholm Institute of International Education lost the hosting of IEA. The IIE department continued until 2009, when it was closed down by Stockholm University and was moved as a section to the university’s Education Department. A few years later the faculty decided not to replace the chair in international and comparative education.

The Agora – destabilisation and reconceptualisation The story so far reveals how separate events merged into one and the same unit of analysis – a story of the progress and denial of the institutional establishment

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of comparative and international education, with a focus on one of its leading scholars. It is, of course, a story that is somewhat limited in terms of the descriptive ins and outs, but that nevertheless gives us the opportunity to mark out some of the so far unproblematised and hidden links and ordering between events and phenomena and to problematise them according to our research interest. One such problem is our claim that Agora is constitutive of comparative education, IEA and the IIE but also, under these circumstances, to give a reasonable tribute to the professional life of Torsten Husén. How can we make sense of and clarify the complexity of orderings and links that were at work here? Can we point to some key events and important actors? Also, what conclusions can be drawn from that? Another problem concerns the relation between science and politics, between what motivates comparative education as something relevant or politically useful and how and by which epistemic strategies and means comparative education has manifested itself as a science among sciences in both the Swedish and international context. In short, we call this a question of politics of knowledge – which knowledge matters? A third problem, which from our point of view is obvious but also hidden, is that the changes in the science-society nexus are twofold. As research usually has its focus on science rather than society (not surprisingly, due to its key interest in the social understanding of science) the disregarding of social contexts is important for the understanding of education, comparative education and pedagogy. Thus, it is important to ask which societal changes are involved in these processes of emergence, institutionalisation and breakdown. Of course, more possibilities of the ‘invisible’ in our story could be brought to the fore. But we will limit ourselves to these three and reconstruct the story according to the new questions that arise from these three problematics. Agora as constitutive of comparative education, IIE and the professional life of Torsten Husén

If we accept Agora as the extension of a physical place and embrace it as an abstraction that is meant to clarify complex interrelations and co-mingling in science-society interactions, it does not lose its constitutive power. On the contrary, we can suppose that at least some of the specificities of disciplines and research areas are related to the composition of the science-society interrelatedness and the possibilities and limitations that such an Agora produces. The specificities of the complexities at work could be considered as intertwined spatio-temporal condensations of practices. For example – and more obviously – we state that comparative education in Sweden is entangled: • •

In the condensation of the discipline of ‘Swedish Pedagogy’ and in the entanglement and condensation of practices of educational research internationally. In the organisation and condensation of higher education practices worldwide and in the intersection and condensation of educational and welfare

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state policies in different nations and localities, such as international and supranational agencies and institutions. Due to the constitutive powers of the specific composition of these Agora, comparative education in Sweden came into being and grew internationally, was loosely coupled to the discipline of ‘pedagogy’ in Sweden and was supported by political welfare interests nationally and internationally. Over time, the loose coupling to the discipline of pedagogy became an abyss. The establishment and trajectory of IIE is regarded as a result of an Agora of linkages, entanglements and condensations of practices, where its: • •

Institutionalisation and establishment was a result of the intersection of national and international research and welfare state policies and activities. Closing down was a result of the re-organisation of Stockholm University, where the previous teacher education college was incorporated in the university and where the interest in comparative education moved from academia to transnational agencies, which also influenced the central focus of comparative education itself.

When it comes to the professional life of Torsten Husén, it can be considered to be a result of an Agora of endless interconnection of science-society interactions related to: • •

Contingences of personal choices and actions (Husén’s own as well as those of other agents).13 The entanglements and linking of interests and practices – his own and those of his colleagues, including his own and those of the international comparative education community, as well as interests in research and higher educational plus governance practices. Most certainly, many and much more could have been mentioned.14

With this in mind, and of course without presenting a personal assault or denying agency in our case, the social construction of the professional life of Torsten Husén’s conglomerates, mainstream interests and activities helped to turn him into a successful intermediator. The politics of knowledge – specificities of comparative education as a research field

While the establishment and institutionalisation of comparative education must be understood as including the politics of policy, its intellectual shaping should also take into account the politics of social and situated scientific knowledge as essential for the powers of ‘arenas’ constitutive of comparative education. Conceptualised as a composition of discourses and practices that, on the one

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hand, manifest and construct the identity of comparative education as research and, on the other hand, manifest and construct what motivates its existence as a research field in its social and political settings, the politics of knowledge becomes bilingual – speaking the languages of the sciences and politics and thereby giving voice to different modes of the political and moral orderings inscribed in scientific knowledge production. Whereas the language of the sciences addresses the realism of knowledge claims (its validity), the language of politics addresses what motivates it and makes it good (e.g. Thevénot, 2002). Although only briefly touched on in our presentation of comparative education in Sweden and the Agora of the science-society interrelation of powers and practices that constitute it, we can conclude that: •

•

•

At the time of its institutionalisation, the intellectual focus of educational research in Sweden was on solving practical problems within the (reforming) school system. Its identity was that of an applied science in search of the general principles responsible for the effects and outcomes of different school systems. Comparative education shared this orientation with the discipline of pedagogy in Sweden, whose expansion by that time was related to a politically declared need for the expansion and improvement of teacher education and schooling guided by scientific knowledge.15 Comparative education departed from the practice-based and applied discipline of pedagogy through its interest in the comparison of educational systems. Its epistemic groundings are found in the – by that time common – way of categorising different forms of scientific knowledge production, where the distinction between basic and applied research was central. Comparative education was grounded in the belief that objective and generalised forms of knowledge were the best way of making it relevant for teacher education and schooling, much in line with a belief in “science speaks truth to power”.

The science-society nexus – identifying the transformational powers of the Agora

Comparative education and its institutional and organisational settings have changed over the years and it makes sense to argue that these changes are intimately related to changes in the science-society nexus and the powers of a constitutive Agora. In relation to what has been argued as characterising changes in this nexus, we find that: •

•

With the naming of comparative and international education this research field has moved into global scenarios of expectations and increased societal relevance pressures on this kind of research. Its multi-and/or transdisciplinary nature does not only indicate weak disciplinary structures and a high degree of incorporation and translations of

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•

•

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a mix of theoretically divergent theories, but also intellectual controversies over what could and should be its central units of analysis. Here there is a clash between arguments for the need for theoretical re-orientation and suggestions and examples of what this means, and the theoretically much more silent production of large-scale comparative educational research, based on the measurements of test results and achievements. The dominance of large-scale comparative educational research, and its strong position in transnational organisations and institutions, points in a direction that indicates that comparative international educational research has now turned into an essential part of educational governance in our time. The fact that the OECD created its own research programme for international large-scale assessments in order to analyse the quality and efficiency of national educational systems can here be taken as an example of the entrance into a mode-2 society, where the border between science and society is blurred and where “the context of application” is further underlined in research. In a similar way, the Pearson takeover of PISA from the OECD is a further argument for the blurring of the borders between the state and the market, which also indicates the entrance of new actors on an increasingly complex education Agora16 and the demands that this entails (e.g. Sellar & Lingard, 2014) The dominance of these particular research practices (large-scale assessments and analyses) are by their particular form of reasoning well suited for neo-liberal regimes and ideologies focusing on competitive comparisons. Educational numbers can also be regarded as effective tools for critical or hierarchical comparisons of educational systems and fit well with interests in marketing schools.

Concluding comments In the trajectory of comparative education in Sweden our explorations have identified a complex case made up of different actors and processes on an educational Agora, which is in turn connected to ongoing changes in research and policy – for example in different ways of ‘relevancing’ or contextualising research in educational governance or the globalisation of knowledge production. For us, it is important to comprehend and conceptualise this complexity in order to understand the rise and fall of the IIE in Stockholm and the social and intellectual organisation of comparative education over time and space. We have used the construction of a significant actor to portray the dynamics of the comparative education trajectory. This way of working made it possible for us to capture the interconnectedness of different worlds in the making of comparative education. One consequence of this focus is that other actors (or agents) and strategies have been made less visible. Below we expand our analysis of comparative education a little, which will hopefully also show some of the limitations and potential of the approach chosen here.

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So, what was our case of the IIE (the Institute of International Education at Stockholm University) a case of? The answer given here is that it first and foremost is a case of a changing Agora, where opportunities are opened and closed by different events. Part of this is that the position of science in society is in transition, closely connected to phases in the welfare state’s decision-making and governing. For instance, changes in the structure and governance of higher education leading to increased autonomy for universities and departments made it possible to close down the IIE. Another example is OECD’s analyses of different national sectors, their highly recognised reports, such as Education at a Glance, and the inclusion of research in education governance in its PISA programme as examples of the ‘scientification’ of society through socialisation and the globalisation of science. To this is added how international cooperation started and functioned, where the decision about the location of the IEA office – to Stockholm and away from Stockholm – is an interesting example of supranational governing. In a similar way, we note how OECD changed the rules of the game by emphasising governing by results instead of resources in education and how these rules now make it possible for new agents to enter the educational Agora. Given this, the case of IIE is one of changing times in a dynamic and increasingly complex Agora. In sum, in this chapter we have presented examples of society speaking back to science in the case of comparative education research in a late modern age. This is in need of further scrutiny and debate in both science and society.

Notes 1 The IIE was integrated in the Department of Education at Stockholm University. Some years later the chair in international and comparative education at the university was not replaced. 2 Our use of ‘science’ makes no distinctions between the sciences, but includes them all, concretely as well as symbolically (science as a signifier for such things as truth, validated knowledge and, or, as a signifier for more naturalistic views on the science). 3 The science-society contract was used by Vannevar Bush (1945) as way of keeping the more traditional understanding of the social role of science intact, while at the same time allowing for and announcing changes. The contract argued for made the distinction between basic research versus applied research (or R&D) important. While basic research should be autonomous, self-regulated and free from external pressures and interests (science for the sake of science), applied research should direct its interest towards external (political, societal) needs and interests and was also seen as an ideal target for political steering. See for example Elzinga (1997). 4 Contextualisation is an expression that is explicitly used by many scholars and is most spread by the works of Gibbons et al. (1994) and Nowotny et al. (2003). The changes referred to have been described by many other scholars in the field of higher education and the sociology of scientific knowledge, see for example Arie Rip (2002, 2010). 5 See for example Rip (2002) and Audétat (2001) for the presentation of and critical discussion on these volumes. 6 Documents used in our analysis are a set of texts by Husén from (1962, 1968, 1969, 1979a, 1979b, 1987) and Husén and Postlethwaite (1996). 7 We know Torsten Husén as a very productive and recognised member of the educational research community, but we have not worked with him or had any special affiliation

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Rita Foss Lindblad and Sverker Lindblad with him. To our knowledge he was a person who was much liked by those who worked with him, and we have enjoyed reading his work. But this text is not about Torsten Husén as a person or professional. Our inquiry is an analysis of international and comparative education and how it is constituted in its various contexts. See Foss Lindblad and Lindblad (2016) and the evaluation of educational research in Sweden, Rosengren and Öhngren (1997). On psychological testing and school reforms in the 1910s and onwards, see Ydesen et al. (2013). Conversations with former colleagues, March 2018. See Husén and Postlethwaite (1996) for a review of important actors at the comparative education Agora and their relations to different organisations at that time. For a detailed analysis of the encyclopedia editorial work process in the making of a canonic text, see Lundahl (2014). On documentation, see here for instance Husén (1968, 1969, 1979a,b, 1987) and reflections on the development of IEA in Husén and Postlethwaite (1996). See also Kungl. Maj:ts proposition (1971 p. 38), plus the evaluation of educational research in Sweden (Rosengren & Öhngren, 1995). For instance, by referring to archive work with the Husén Collection at Linné University. Foss Lindblad and Lindblad (2016). Read the Pearson announcement on the web on December 10, 2014 “Pearson, the world’s leading learning company, today announces that it has won a competitive tender by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to develop the Frameworks for PISA 2018”. www.pearson.com/corporate/news/media/ news-announcements/2014/12/pearson-to-develop-pisa-2018-student-assessment-21stcentury-fra.html

References Audétat, M. (2001). Re-thinking science, re-thinking society. Social Studies of Science, 31(6), 950–956. Bush, V. (1945). Science, the Endless Frontier: A Report to the President. Washington, DC: US Govt. print. Cowen, R. & Kazamias, A. M. (eds.) (2009). International Handbook of Comparative Education (Vol. 22). Amsterdam: Springer Science and Business Media. Elzinga, A. (1997). The science-society contract in historical transformation: With special reference to ‘epistemic drift’. Social Science Information, 36(3), 411–445. Epstein, E. H. (2008). Setting the normative boundaries: Crucial epistemological benchmarks in comparative education. Comparative Education, 44(4), 373–386. Ferné, G. (1995). Science & technology in the new world order. Science and Technology in Brazil: A New Policy for a Global World. Paris: OECD. Foss Lindblad, R. & Lindblad, S. (2016). Higher education and research in a steady state: On changing premises and practices for educational research in Sweden. Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 2016(1), 32371. Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P. & Trow, M. (1994). The Production of Knowledge. Amsterdam: Sage. Husén, T. (1962). Problems of Differentiation in Swedish Compulsory Schooling. Stockholm: Scandinavian University Books. Husén, T. (1968). Lifelong learning in the ‘educative society’. Applied Psychology, 17(2), 87–98. Husén, T. (1969). Educational research and policy-making. Western European Education, 1(4), 8–22.

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Husén, T. (1979a). General theories in education: A twenty-five year perspective. International Review of Education, 25(2–3), 325–345. Husén, T. (1979b). An international research venture in retrospect: The IEA surveys. Comparative Education Review, 23(3), 371–385. Husén, T. (1987). Higher Education and Social Stratification: An International Comparative Study. Paris: UNESCO, International Institute for Educational Planning. Husén, T. & Postlethwaite, T. N. (1996). A brief history of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 3(2), 129–141. Kungl. Maj:ts proposition (1971). Om Pedagogisk Utbildning och Forskning m m (p. 38). Stockholm: Utbildningsdepartementet. Larsen, M. A. (2010). New Thinking in Comparative Education: Honouring Robert Cowen. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Law, J. & Mol, A (eds.) (2002). Complexities: Social Studies of Knowledge Practices. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Little, A. (2000). Development studies and comparative education: Context, content, comparison and contributors. Comparative Education, 36(3), 279–296. Lundahl, C. (2014). The book of books: Encyclopaedic writing in the science of education in the 1980s. A. Nordin & D. Sundberg (eds.) Transnational Policy Flows in European Education: The Making and Governing of Knowledge in the Education Policy Field. Oxford: Symposium Books Ltd. Manzon, M. (2011). Comparative Education: The Construction of a Field. Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong, Comparative Education Research Centre. Nowotny, H., Scott, P. & Gibbons, M. (2001). Rethinking Science: Power and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity Press. Nowotny, H., Scott, P. & Gibbons, M. (2003). Introduction: Mode 2’ revisited: The new production of knowledge. Minerva, 41(3), 179–194. Paulston, R. G. (1999). Mapping comparative education after postmodernity. Comparative Education Review, 43(4), 438–463. Rip, A. (2002, June). Co-evolution of science, technology and society. Entschede: University of Twente. An expert review for the Bundsministerium Bildung und Forschung’s Förderinitiative Politik, Wisenschaft une Gesellschaft. Rip, A. (2010). Social robustness and the mode 2 diagnosis. Science, Technology & Innovation Studies, 6(1), 71. Rosengren, K. E. & Öhngren, B. (eds.) (1995). An Evaluation of Swedish Research in Education. Uppsala: Humanistik-samhällsvetenskapliga forskningsrådet (HSFR). Sellar, S. & Lingard, B. (2014). The OECD and the expansion of PISA: New global modes of governance in education. British Educational Research Journal, 40(6), 917–936. Thévenot, L. (2002). Which road to follow? The moral complexity of an ‘equipped’ humanity. J. Law & A. Mol (eds.) Complexities: Social Studies of Knowledge Practices (pp. 53–87). Durham and London: Duke University Press. Wolhuter, C., Popov, N., Manzon, M. & Leutwyler, B. (2008). Comparative Education at Universities World Wide. Sofia: Bureau for Educational Services. Ydesen, C., Ludvigsen, K. & Lundahl, C. (2013). Creating an educational testing profession in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, 1910–1960. European Educational Research Journal, 12(1), 120–138.

Chapter 3

Three waves of education standardisation How the curriculum changed from a matter of concern to a matter of fact Daniel Sundberg

Introduction This chapter explores three waves of standardisation in education. It starts in 1962, when the now full-scale megatrend International Large-Scale Assessment studies in education were established. The chapter addresses aspects of its history and trajectory related to the making of the national curriculum. Although it is beyond the scope of this chapter to elaborate on the history of educational standards, the argument is put forward that it is crucial to draw attention to processes of standardisation, their driving forces and special constructs (see Sundberg, 2017). Three waves of education standards in international curriculum policy discourses are outlined, each of which is exemplified by a specific project in the nexus of educational policy, practice and research. The first, entitled the terminological phase, emerged in the 1960s and focused on creating a language of curriculum terms and definitions. This is exemplified by the first pilot assessment study, the ‘Twelve-Country Study’ (Foshay et al., 1962). The second wave, standardisation by indicators, emerged in the early 1990s in order to develop more specific measures of quality in the teaching and learning processes and to contribute to a shift in educational reasoning. The 1994 ‘Setting Standards’ conference was low-profile in international terms, yet is an illustrative case in the upscaling of developing quantitative indicators for comparisons of students’ achievements (Boyle & Christie, 1996). The third wave, standardisation by design principles, represents a new wave in curriculum policymaking that is characterised by a specific programmification, i.e. specified procedural standards of how to implement the curriculum. The ‘Education 2030’ project illustrates how a recent wave of standardisation has emerged as a response to what has internationally been labelled as the gap between curriculum policy and practice, pushing education standardisation one step further.

Kinds of education standards Comparing educational achievements across contexts and populations has been a central topic of interest at least since Marc-Antoine de Jullien proposed a

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comprehensive schema for studying foreign educational systems in 1817 (Fraser, 1964). Throughout the nineteenth century, as school systems were developing in the more industrialised nations, observers travelled abroad to study those practices and policies that might explain differences in the achievements of students and the contributions of a nation’s schools to societal cohesion. A century later, when the role of education was emphasised in building a modern welfare, nation states concerned themselves with their school systems’ potential to serve their interests: economic growth, political stability, social development and educational advancement. Comparisons were stimulated by the desire to learn from foreign examples and to seek yardsticks against which to measure performance. However, this second purpose was rarely public and explicit. Due to the growth in communications through national and international organisations, the accumulation of educational and social data, newly emerging discourses on research concepts and techniques and cross-national studies of educational achievement gained ground. The role of comparing educational achievements has moved from the early statistical studies and impressionistic observations of the later nineteenth century to the developments of more systematic empirical studies starting in the 1960s. Comparative studies of curricula, examinations, textbooks, teacher training and instructional practices across several countries began to appear with increasing frequency, as did efforts to assess pupil attainment in areas such as arithmetic and reading. Nevertheless, despite its centrality as a topic for comparative investigation, achievement was relatively neglected in contrast to other aspects of education. The reasons for this were obvious at the time: cross-national assessment of students’ school performance is fraught with problems of equivalence and comparability, complicated by differences in national objectives and practices and confused by language and conceptual ambiguities. This led comparativists to lean heavily on systemic variables of retention and promotion rates between different levels. As enrolment or attendance figures were generally available and rates could be calculated from official statistics, seemingly reliable and objective measures could be used. Questions related to the curriculum, i.e. the content, processes, methods and outcomes of teaching, were considered politically messy, professionally gate-guarded and culturally fixed in various historical traditions.

Content and performance standards in curriculum making While a general common-sense understanding and definition of education standards constitutes the expected levels of achievement for all children of a particular age, the standards need to be placed in the historical context of curriculum making in order to understand their emergence in education. Kliebard (2004) specifically refers to scientific curriculum making and the rise of social efficiency as an educational ideal in the early decades of the twentieth century.

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The allure of having a clear and coherent system for teaching, learning and assessment is closely related to the scientific outlook: “Standards are presented as a rational and scientific way of making and controlling a curriculum” (Waldow, 2015 p. 59). The principles of Taylorism in the 1920s and 1930s were developed in the realm of industrial production, but were increasingly deployed in other sectors, such as the scientific management of the development of the curriculum and the organisation of schooling. The principles provided specific premises for the early comparisons of curricula between nations. Although many researchers focused on the key figures, such as Franklin Bobbitt (1876–1956) and Frederick W Taylor (1856–1915), the networks and epistemic objects involved in developing standards have been less salient in the literature. Standards are usually represented as technical objects in contemporary educational discourses, i.e. fixed, stable and universal. However, a closer critical investigation indicates the contested nature and ambiguities inherent in processes of standardisation. Conceptualising standards as epistemic objects first means that standards are defined by a struggle between different power alliances, i.e. standards are carriers of an implicit normativity. Second, presenting them in a uniform way across contexts underestimates the dynamics of standardisation by different actors and institutions in translating them into norms and actions (Brunson et al., 2012). Broadly speaking, when it comes to education, there are content standards that include prescribed goals and curriculum knowledge (input) and performance standards that define levels of student achievement (outcomes). This chapter explores the gradual shift in curriculum discourses, from content to performance standards, from the late 1960s to the present day. In general terms, standardisation can be defined as the process of building uniformities in time and space through agreed rules (Bowker & Star, 1999). As the three empirical examples will show, new international institutions located on the Agora – the interface between research and policymaking – are crucial for establishing standards for regulating processes of teaching and learning at national and local levels in that they frame and specify certain constraints for actors as well as new possibilities for action and interaction as they become neutral solutions to difficult controversies. By adopting some insights from actor network theories, the chapter explores how actors (scientists, experts, bureaucrats and so on.) deploy techniques to mobilise other actors and govern at a distance, beyond local spaces via calculative devices and translation processes into new patterns of actions.

The kick-off in comparing school achievements The rapid rise of a discourse on standards and evaluations of school achievements was undoubtedly fuelled by a flow of critical studies on school performance in the United States at the beginning of the 1960s. Rickover’s book American Education, a National Failure (1963) and Coleman’s report, Equality of

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Educational Opportunity (1966) are well-known examples. Other studies include Caswell’s City School Surveys (1929), the Eight-Year Study (1942) and Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (1956). However, the ‘Tyler Rationale’ provided in Ralph Tyler’s book, Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction, published in 1949, is considered by many to be the single most important representation of the new outlook on education. The emergence of performance standards was certainly not a complete success story. There were early examples of disasters (for example, the Kentucky experience), stormy discussions about the validity and reliability of the assessments and failed attempts to introduce state standards. The International Association for the Evaluation Educational Achievements’ (IEA) Pilot Twelve-Country Study was conducted in order to investigate the feasibility of undertaking more extensive assessments of educational achievement, pushed by earlier disappointments. The 1960s is an interesting decade in the history of education reforms. There was an obvious increased demand for policy-relevant educational knowledge from the mid-1960s in Western Europe and North America (Wagner et al., 1991). In the Nordic countries, it is often referred to as the golden era of education reform (Nordin & Sundberg, 2014). New types of networks between different kinds of expertise in the education field emerged. Academic content standards were, for example, translated by statisticians into measurable variables, and new kinds of performance standards (e.g. linked to adequate yearly progress) made their way into data sets and big data. The golden era of education reform was carried by a general optimism for the future, public beliefs in rational planning and instrumentalism. New, fresh outlooks on education were also provided by the promise of experimental science and its methods spreading into education: If only one could design a good enough experiment, with effective controls, precise evaluative measurement and appropriate sensitive statistical analysis, it should be possible to establish objectively the one best method, the ideal curriculum, the optimum period of instruction, the correct use of aids to learning. (Nisbet, 1974 p. 3, in Whitty & Furlong, 2017 p. 28) The emerging ‘new science of education’ provided premises for formulating polices and reforms in a new technical language. UNESCO, the International Bureau of Education and other international agencies started building databases based on classified comparative information. The first wider effort to implement standardisation in education was consequently about collecting and classifying data more systematically, elaborating on taxonomies and models and fixing some points of reference outside the established national outlooks (Holmes, 1963, 1984). Problems became immediately obvious, however, in that the terminology gave rise to ambiguities. Translating terms like ‘primary and secondary schools’ and ‘higher education’ was not easy, because what was

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termed a ‘secondary school’ in one country could be called by another name elsewhere. The classifications of subjects in curricula were also radically different from the labels given to national and local constructs of content and syllabuses.

The first wave of terminological standardisation One example of the early efforts to develop common terms in education is the work by Saul Robinson and Brian Holmes, researchers from London and Hamburg, respectively. In 1963, they organised a conference at the UNESCO Institute for Education in Hamburg to discuss how relevant data in comparative education could usefully be classified (UNESCO, 1963). One important outcome was that school systems should be divided into levels and stages broadly representing age bands and the points of transfer within systems. Three main levels – first, second and third – were accepted, each of which was divided into stages in order to more precisely locate points of transfer, identify different school types and compare the numbers and proportions of children at each level and stage. However, when it came to the content and curriculum, more detailed comparisons of educational provisions depended on locating the types of subjects and courses offered at each level. The first wave of terminological standardisation thus depended on broad agreements of common characteristics, describing not only the general characteristics of the systems, but also the content and subject structures. To meet such a need, researchers (for example, Joseph A. Lauwerys and Leo Fernig) set out to develop a taxonomy called the International System of Classifying Education (ISCED) (UNESCO, 1976) and the Education Thesaurus prepared by UNESCO (UNESCO, 1973). These examples were foundational for the first wave of terminological standardisation and a new kind of scientific reasoning in curriculum making. However, the different transnational organisations often had different and conflicting agendas, especially when it came to curriculum issues. Notwithstanding, at this time the education systems of nations were thought to be incommensurable. After all, education was about fostering cultural identities.

The IEA as a mediator in curriculum making The IEA was founded in the late 1950s with the aim of conducting international comparative studies in which educational achievement would be assessed in relation to student background, teacher, classroom and school variables. At the time of its establishment, there was a growing awareness among international agencies of the role of formal education in social and economic development. The only problem was that the terminology and indicators for educational performance were lacking. The IEA began when researchers from a dozen countries convened under UNESCO auspices to consider the feasibility of

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conducting such research. In the early 1960s, a group of researchers, including Torsten Husén and colleagues, decided to undertake a first study of mathematics achievement in twelve countries in order to explore the feasibility of international comparative achievement studies. This first study marked the birth of the IEA as well as large-scale assessment. The emerging IEA organisation was not a singular happening. It became a node in important networks beyond the universities. It not only provided policymakers with data and analyses, but also international organisations such as the OECD (the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) before PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) was established. One response to these demands was the creation of comparative education societies. However, at first the emerging IEA research had little or no direct effect on policy. The first investigations and reports mostly dealt with methodological problems for researchers, a kind of experimentation. There were few educational or societal problems in mind. After starting as a group of researchers, the IEA soon became a cooperative of research institutes with a primarily academic research focus, but also with the aim of indirectly influencing policymaking. We, the researchers who . . . decided to cooperate in developing internationally valid evaluation instruments, conceived of the world as one big educational laboratory where a great variety of practices in terms of school structure and curriculum were tried out. We simply wanted to take advantage of the international variability with regard both to the outcomes of the educational systems and the factors which caused differences in those outcomes. (Husén, 1973 p. 10) The vision of the IEA was thus not only methodological, but was also intended to enhance the quality of education. First, it was to assist in understanding the reasons for the observed differences in educational systems. Second, it was to provide policymakers and educational practitioners with information and data ‘from the laboratory’ about the quality of their education in relation to relevant reference countries. Given these purposes, the IEA aspired towards two kinds of comparisons: the first consisting of straight international comparisons of effects of education in terms of scores (or sub-scores) on international tests and the second on how well a country’s official curriculum was implemented in schools and achieved by students. General enlightenment was the flag under which experts conducted their studies and where the curriculum was considered as a no-go, as primarily a matter of national concern. By analysing data from the comparisons, policymakers obtained some indications of general patterns, which provided some hints for identifying issues of national concern. The general enlightenment approach was not a direct link to decisions, but a gradual diffusion of ideas

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and hypotheses into the policy sphere of decision-making in order to acquire some additional points of reference to the national deliberations on the curriculum. For example, in Australia, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand and the United States, specific curriculum changes were attributed to IEA findings, although in the first wave of education standards there were no convergences in those reforms (Holmes, 1984; Husén and Postlewaite, 1996).

The twelve-country study The first concerted effort to compare achievement levels according to internationally accepted measures was the so-called ‘Twelve-Country Study’ (Foshay et al., 1962). The report on the pilot study concerned itself with many of the administrative and methodological problems involved in international collaboration on this scale, while the mathematics study (Husén, 1967) presented the results of the first completed survey of student achievement in twelve countries. The purpose was exploratory: “to see whether some indicators of intellectual functioning could be deduced from patterns of responses on short-answer tests. . . . If one could on basis of this attend a large-scale international study” (a.a. p. 20). The working group consisted of educational researchers, such as Torsten Husén and Benjamin Bloom, as well as directors of national education agencies. The group had members from eleven countries, all European except for the United States. Half of the members came from a psychology background and half from educational research and pedagogy. The background data collected included some variables that reflected psychological theories of the time, such as a student’s number of siblings, place in the birth order and scores on non-verbal intelligence tests, but also reflected societal debates of the time, such as whether or not students attended kindergarten or preschool. Additionally, pedagogical issues were reflected in questions about class size, parents’ education levels and students’ levels of interest in school (Foshay et al., 1962). Although, as expected, nations differed in curriculum content and emphases on particular subjects, they also differed in their orientations towards the subject matter itself and the very nature of learning. The mathematics study had revealed, for instance, that students in the United States were more inclined to guess than those from Belgium. The literature survey showed that students’ attitudes towards literature and their approaches to interpreting and evaluating it also differed according to nation or culture. The early collaboration was centred on specific issues for each study, such as a conceptual framework, determining target populations, curriculum analysis and instrument development (including pilot testing, translation and so on). It also included sampling, data collection, cleaning and file building, quality control in participating countries for each component, data analysis and report writing and allowance for national options. The early IEA studies did not provide answers to complex educational problems, but were crucial in the first wave of creating terminological standards

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in education. They evoked a discussion about a common terminology, and in 1970, UNESCO created the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED), which was updated in 1997 (ISCED, 1997). However, with regard to curriculum issues, standards in the 1960s were simply general statements about content levels, rather than performance standards. By the mid-1990s, people and organisations began to formulate important characterisations of what they assumed constituted quality standards.

The second wave of curriculum standardisation At the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, a new internationalisation wave swept over the education sector. Here, several European programmes, including Erasmus, Petra and Lingua, were launched and facilitated by transnational networks, especially in vocational education and higher education. In the 1990s, the expansion also increasingly included other parts of the education system (by, for example, the European Commission’s programmes Socrates, Leonardo Da Vinci and so on). In the mid-1980s, international indicators and the evaluation of education system indicators were initiated and carried out by the OECD and its subunit CERI (Centre for Educational Research and Innovation). This assembled three networks: i that led by the United States, interested in international survey assessments, ii that led by Sweden, which mobilised representatives from the European Commission and the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training and produced indicators for ‘Education at a Glance’ (the annual report of OECD on education) and iii that led by the Netherlands, mobilising officials from UNESCO to construct educational indicators for school inputs, processes and outputs (IEA, 1998; Boyle & Christie, 1996). It also led to the first edition of ‘Education at a Glance’ at the beginning of the 1990s. The report was positively received by policymakers, as it allowed for new concepts and measures to address questions about the quality of the education system (i.e. human capital theory and the measurement of cognitive skills). Yet, in the international discourse on curriculum making, some voices cautioned against formulating explicit performance standards. In 1995, the National Academy of Education in the United States, for example, endorsed two guiding principles for standards: 1 2

Because there is not one best way to organise subject matter in a given field of study, rigorous national standards should not be restricted to one set of standards per subject area. Content standards should embody a coherent, professionally defensible conception of how a field can be framed for purposes of instruction. They should not be an exhaustive, incoherent compendium of every group’s desired content. (McLaughlin, Shepard & O’Day, 1995 p. xviii)

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‘The setting standards’ conference The international conference in 1994 was part of a joint collaboration between the OECD and a United States government initiative entitled ‘Performance Standards in Education’. It involved 10 of the 25 OECD countries at the time that were thought to be representative (including both centralised and decentralised, federal and unitary states and so on). At a seminar in Paris in October 1994, representatives discussed the country studies and their discussions were later disseminated in the 1995 OECD publication, ‘Students’ Performance Standards’ (OECD, 1995). The context in which the project was launched was the move to establish outcomes-oriented standards for education in many OECD countries at the beginning of the 1990s. From a standpoint of concern for educational processes, many policy actors were dissatisfied with student performances, which led to a gap between educational outcomes and society’s needs in the shift towards a more knowledge intensive and competitive economy. Reports from the individual countries showed a similar concern. The pressure for higher standards was accompanied by budgetary constraints. The discourse surrounding educational effectiveness was emerging. The policy window for education reforms was open, as long as the reforms proved to be cost-effective. The accountability movement led governments to focus more selectively on aspects of the education system and the curriculum that did not appear to meet expectations. After the Sputnik shock an intense debate took place in the United States about the falling standards in education, especially in the high technology industries, and which parts of the curriculum should be tested (i.e. mathematics and science). The evidence of failing results came mainly from IEA studies. From the inception of the IEA in the early 1960s, the United States had been one of its major drivers. The conference dealt with issues such as whether individual countries were prepared for new performance standards. The diversity between countries in this respect was overwhelming. Some national governments (e.g. Ireland) tried to organise national debates in an attempt to create a consensus on basic concepts for standards reforms (Harlen, 1996). Other countries (e.g. Germany) were described as a ‘self-stabilising system’ in which teachers mainly monitored and set standards. A number of countries started to set up baseline data for monitoring the educational achievements of all students throughout compulsory schooling at the beginning of the 1990s. These included i) national diagnostic tests, ii) largescale national surveys, iii) standardised testing and iv) international surveys. However, few countries used all four of these measures. Japan, for example, tried national testing in the 1950s and 1960s, but abandoned it because it led to competition between local authorities and distorted teaching goals. Most of the participating countries started to revise their national curriculum or national curriculum guidelines, which often included benchmarks of requirements for student performance at key stages. However, the conference also raised many

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concerns about how to define standards and how to combine national standards for countries with a long-standing tradition of centralised curriculum planning with decentralisation and a greater autonomy for schools and teachers. The differences between countries included their approaches to examinations. Some had long traditions of summative national examinations at the end of secondary schooling in a wide range of curriculum and subject domains (e.g. Germany, France, Spain and the United Kingdom). Other countries, most notably the United States, had strong traditions of standardised psychometric testing for defining norms. In other countries (e.g. France and the Nordic countries), national testing was mainly diagnostic and pedagogical. The German representative expert at the conference stressed the ‘selfstabilising system’, which gave greater responsibility to the teachers in terms of monitoring and setting standards (Boyle & Christie, 1996). The Swedish expert participating in the conference stated that there was no equivalent term in the Swedish or Nordic context, and that it had caused a confusing discussion with many different meanings. The Australian expert concluded that the attempt to marry the curriculum and psychometric testing caused great problems, as they rested on totally different premises, both epistemically and in terms of established practices. In Scotland, for example, testing was not compulsory at the beginning of the 1990s, but was carried out at a time determined by teachers, was not reported centrally and was intended to enable teachers to check their own assessments. The discourse was centred on the different ‘assessment styles’ (Boyle & Christie, 1996) even within the United Kingdom. The obvious national differences were not merely accepted, but also triggered a push towards the international dimension of comparison, and there was an extensive debate about how to create consensus on what constituted performance at each level in the education system. One central task was thus to develop specific criteria and standards for educational achievements that could be used on a regular basis by the OECD. However, in 1996 the OECD still acknowledged the potential risks with standardisation: The standardisation of school learning, and testing, could be at cross-purposes with cherished ideals of diversity, individualisation and incentives to learn. . . . There is currently a danger that what can be most reliably assessed will become the criterion of quality. (OECD, 1996 p. 203) Amongst the hot topics at the conference were the potential risks for legitimising measurement-driven instruction with strengthened standardisation. Participants warned about mechanical rote learning for anticipated test responses (Russell, 1996). While general policy issues, such as comprehensive schools, were frequently politicised along party lines, it was argued that curricular policies were mostly a matter for professionals and were debated almost exclusively by teachers. Differences between teachers may lead to controversy, but

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eventually it is they who enact and enable policies. National, regional or local governments may adopt standardised curriculum indicators and issue regulations, but in the end, they are implemented by professionals in lecture halls and classrooms.

The third wave of standardisation in education Finally, let us turn to the present third wave of education standardisation. This wave is exemplified by the mega-project ‘Education 2030’, driven by the OECD along with all the other major international organisations (UNESCO, World Bank, UNICEF, UNDP and so on). In a way, the issue of context when it comes to understanding education standards has now been acknowledged, at least from a research perspective. Pure ‘inductionism’ as the premise for comparisons has been largely abandoned, although established theories of causation, the nature of knowledge and political and sociological theories about the nature of society and schooling (for example, Human Capital Theory) have become background assumptions in the interplay between researchers, policymakers and experts. However, standardisation in education clearly has driving forces other than comparative research. External experts are increasingly playing a crucial role in country reviews in the contemporary education reform landscapes as reform coalitions are formed across countries and different parts of the world. Pilot studies carried out by the OECD have played a crucial role in education standardisation by soft regulations, i.e. recommendations, models and statistics on how national educational problems could be solved (Djelic & Sahlin, 2006). Using Sweden as a case study, techniques designed to persuade national governments to look carefully at practices and reconsider them have been introduced. In 2015 the OECD appointed an examining team, which visited Sweden to observe and discuss Swedish educational policies and practices and their planning techniques (OECD, 2015). The visit coincided with the publication of a national report on education that served as a reference point for discussions about reviewing policies with the intention of introducing major systemic changes. This innovative study has been followed by a considerable number of national policy reviews. The procedures represent a new development in the practical application of comparative education to the planned reform of education, including curriculum making (Wahlström, 2017). Infrastructures, techniques and technologies bringing experts together for this purpose have been developed, and to a large extent PISA studies provide the point of reference in the comparisons. The Agora, where researchers, experts, administrators and policymakers can meet, shows an exponential curve in the extensions, magnitude and scope. For example, in 1964 12 different education systems participated in the first mathematics study. In 2000, 50 countries participated in IEA studies, and in 2015 participants from 160 countries participated in the World Education Forum held in 2015 in Incheon, South Korea, to set the vision for Education 2030.

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Many countries are currently making major changes and revisions to their curriculum frameworks. The leading motives are often to strengthen their comparability and internal coherence. The third wave of standardisation in education aims at creating more externally aligned curricula (comparable with other countries at the different education levels) as well as internally aligned coherence, for example, between the prescribed curriculum, assessments and tests, teacher development activities and textbooks. This gradual, continuous curriculum standardisation is arguably more effective and sustainable than overly swift curriculum revolutions. Manifest top-down curriculum standardisation generally produces more resistance. Soft governance by coordination via external expert recommendations and benchmarking is reconfiguring the Agora, where a successful appearance on the international scene of comparisons is increasingly defining the educational aspirations for the future.

The education 2030 project The OECD’s Education 2030 project (The Future of Education and Skills, 2030) is one of the largest initiatives ever launched in the international curriculum domain. The project aims at helping countries to provide answers to which knowledge, skills, attitudes and values are needed and how instructional systems can develop such competencies effectively. A learning framework has been developed in a position paper called ‘The Future We Want’ (Akker, 2018; OECD, 2018), in which three transformative competencies are formulated and a set of design principles outlined. The paper is explicitly based on empirical research and the tacit knowledge and experiences of policymakers in the participating countries. The principles have been developed in an iterative and continuous process of refinement in informal working groups. The twelve principles are intended to help address the policy issues tackled in the project, e.g. curriculum overload, time-lag dilemma, achieving deep understanding, ensuring equity and effective implementation. Moreover, the principles will (ideally) endure over time, different countries and different thematic challenges. The design principles concern curriculum construction, not only in terms of the written plan, but also the attained and operational curriculum in practice, i.e. how the curriculum is enacted. A key question is, thus, how process and product characteristics can be linked and aligned. The chapter addresses and acknowledges issues of context and complexity (for example, between different levels of the education system). It is not a matter of simple standardisation. The contested nature of curriculum making is also briefly acknowledged (for example, the potential clashing values and interests of different stakeholders). Nevertheless, curriculum design is pointed out as a common task for achieving and developing standards. The project is part of a ‘discourse of coordination’ that translates messy local and national curriculummaking processes into careful and systematic planning and alignment in order to implement reforms effectively.

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While the first and second waves of standardisation have been primarily concerned with terms and indicators, the third wave includes new elements. Design standards concern how curriculum-related policy documents are specified and structured. Procedural standards refer to how processes are specified in advance (prescribing the actions and behaviour of teachers and students) (Timmermans & Berg, 2003; Nerland & Karseth, 2014). The third wave of standardisation concerns content and outcome indicators, as well as how processes can be prescribed. The authors of the report conclude that: The practically most relevant outcome of CDP (Curriculum Design Principles) is its contribution towards optimization of the curricular product and its actual use, leading to better instructional process and learning results. However, a major contribution to knowledge to be gained from CDP is in the form of (both substantive and methodological) ‘design principles’ to support developers in their task. (OECD, 2018 p. 7) According to the authors, design principles can address ‘substantive’ characteristics (on content and form of the curriculum as a product) and ‘methodological’ or ‘procedural’ issues (on processes of curriculum design, development and implementation). The transnational curriculum policy discourse and the project reports acknowledge that curriculum choices are deeply culturally and contextually embedded and that ‘universal principles’ would be difficult, despite the aspirations of the OECD project. However, by emphasising and attending to ‘procedural’ design principles (i.e. process-oriented, methodological and strategical principles) about the ‘how’ of curriculum design, new standards could and should anticipate future curriculum-making processes.

The three waves of standardisation in curriculum making In this chapter three different waves of standardisation in education related to curriculum making have been discussed. I have attempted to tell the story of how the curriculum changed from being a (national and local) matter of concern to becoming a (global) matter of fact. The first wave in the 1960s was about creating a common language and vocabulary in education in order to compare and measure outcomes. There was no regular state-run evaluation of the outcomes of teaching. In the golden era of education reforms after World War II, input management still dominated curriculum making in the Nordic countries as well as in many other Western countries. The terminological standardisation was part of the wider project to learn from other countries. However, internally set content standards in the different curricula are gradually becoming less relevant, especially as performance standards are now primary targets for transnational collaborations amongst researchers, policymakers, school administrators and so on.

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When it comes to governing the school curriculum, the Swedish and Nordic model of curriculum making up to the 1990s mainly relied on curriculum guidelines that had been developed by state administrators in committees consisting of experienced teachers and subject matter specialists. There was no regular state-run evaluation of the outcomes of teaching. In the Nordic educational tradition, the selection, organisation and evaluation of teaching were seen as issues to be dealt with by educational professionals. Thus, curriculum change was primarily seen as a matter of deliberations between local experience and national needs. Curriculum changes were typically introduced by way of lengthy trial periods. In the second wave of standardisation in education, in the mid-1990s, indicators were developed and spread and performance standards were incorporated into national curricula. The role of the International Large-Scale Assessment in school achievements changed from delivering material to the long-term planning of educational provisions to agenda setting in the core processes of national curriculum making, i.e. the priority, organisation and assessment of school knowledge. By the third wave of standardisation in education, we can see how design and implementation standards are developed and circulated in the international educational Agora. Technical and instrumental packages for delivering the curriculum are at the forefront of deliberations about the very core ideas and purposes of schooling. The measurements and comparisons of pupils’ academic skills have been intensified and become the drivers of educational standards, together with international experts’ reports and resolutions on school reforms in the Nordic countries. In short, the story of standards in education is increasingly becoming a matter of fact.

References Akker, J. van den (2018, May 14–16). Education and skills 2030: Curriculum analysis: Preliminary findings from an international literature review on design principles in curriculum design & redesign. Paper presented at the 7th Informal Working Group (IWG) Meeting, Paris, France. Bloom, B. S. (ed.) (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals: Handbook 1, Cognitive Domain. New York: David McKay. Bowker, G. C. & Star, S. L. (1999). Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Boyle, B. & Christie, T. (eds.) (1996). Issues in Setting Standards: Establishing Comparabilities. London: Falmer Press. Brunsson, N., Rasche, A. & Seidl, D. (2012). The dynamics of standardization: Three perspectives on standards in organization studies. Organization Studies, 33 (5–6), 613–632. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840612450120 Caswell, H. L. (1929). City School Surveys: An Interpretation and Appraisal. New York City: Teacher’s College. Coleman, J. S. (ed.) (1966). Equality of Educational Opportunity. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

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Djelic, M. & Sahlin, K. (eds.) (2006). Transnational Governance: Institutional Dynamics of Regulation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Foshay, A. W., Thorndike, R. L., Hotyat, F., Pidgeon, D. A. & Walker, D. A. (1962). Educational Achievements of Thirteen-Year-Olds in Twelve Countries: Results of an International Research Project, 1959–1961. Hamburg: UNESCO Institute for Education. Fraser, S. (1964). Jullien’s Plan for Comparative Education 1816–1817. New York: Teacher’s College, Columbia University, Bureau of Publications. Harlen, W. (1996). Assessment styles in the home countries. B. Boyle & T. Christie (eds.) Issues in Setting Standards. Lodon: Falmer Press. Holmes, B. (1984). Paradigm shifts in comparative education. Comparative Education Review, 28(4), 584–604. Holmes, B. & Robinsohn, S. B. (1963). Relevant Data in Comparative Education. Hamburg: UNESCO Institute for Education. Hopmann, S. T. (1999). The curriculum as a standard of public education. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 18, 89–105. Husén, T. (1967). International Study of Achievement in Mathematics: A Comparison of Twelve Countries (Vols. 1–2). Stockholm & New York: Almqvist and Wiksell & Wiley. Husén, T. (1973). Foreword. L. C. Comber & J. P. Keeves (eds.) Science Achievement in Nineteen Countries (pp. 13–24). Stockholm & New York: Almqvist & Wiksell & John Wiley & Sons. Husén, T. & Postlewaite, N. T. (1996). A brief history of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). Assessment in Education, 3, 129–141. International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) (1998). IEA Guidebook, 1998: Activities, Institutions, and People. Amsterdam: IEA Secretariat. International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) (1997). Report presented at the UNESCO General Conference, Paris, 21 October–12 November 1997. Kliebard, H. M. (2004). The Struggle for the American Curriculum, 1893–1958 (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge Falmer. Martin, M., Rust, K. & Adams, R. (eds.) (1999). Technical Standards for IEA Studies. Amsterdam: IEA Secretariat. McLaughlin, M. W., Shepard, L. A. & O’Day. J. A. (1995). Improving Education through Standards-Based Reform: A Report by the National Academy of Education Panel on StandardsBased Education Reform. Stanford: The Academy. Nerland, M. & Karseth, B. (2015). The knowledge work of professional associations: Approaches to standardisation and forms of legitimisation. Journal of Education and Work, 28 (1), 1–23. Nordin, A. & Sundberg, D. (eds.) (2014). Transnational Policy Flows in European Education: The Making and Governing of Knowledge in the Education Policy Field. Oxford: Symposium Books Ltd. Organisation for Economic Cooperation Development (OECD) (1996). Student Performance Standards. Paris: OECD Publishing. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2015). Improving Schools in Sweden [Elektronisk resurs]: An OECD Perspective. Paris: OECD. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2018). The Future We Want – The Future of Education and Skills – Education 2030. Paris: OECD.http://www.oecd.org/ education/2030/ (visited 7 Jan 2019) Rickover, H. G. (1963). American Education: A National Failure: The Problem of Our Schools and What We Can Learn from England. New York: Dutton.

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Russell, T. (1996). Tests, curriculum and classroom practice in primary science: Establishing standards. B. Boyle & T. Christie (eds.) Issues in Setting Standards: Establishing Comparabilities. London: Falmer Press. Sundberg, D. (2017). Curriculum standardisation: What does it mean for classroom teaching and assessment practices? N. Wahlström & D. Sundberg (eds.) Transnational Curriculum Standards and Classroom Practices: The New Meaning of Teaching (pp. 116–132). London: Routledge. Timmermans, S. & Berg, M. (2003). The Gold Standard: The Challenge of Evidence-Based Medicine and Standardization in Health Care. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Tyler, R. W. (1949). Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. UNESCO (1963). Education 1955–1960, International Guide to Educational Documentation. Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO (1971). World Survey of Education (Vols. 1–5). London: UNESCO & Evans Bros. UNESCO (1976). International System of Classifying Education (ISCED). Paris: UNESCO. http://uis.unesco.org/en/topic/international-standard-classification-education-isced (visited 7 Jan 2019) UNESCO (1997). International System of Classifying Education (ISCED). Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO/IBE (1973). Education Thesaurus. Paris: UNESCO Reports. UNESCO/IBE (1979). International Guide to Education Systems (prepared by Brian Holmes). Paris: UNESCO. Wagner, P., Wittrock, B. & Whitley, R. (eds.) (1991). Discourses on Society: The Shaping of the Social Science Disciplines. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Wahlström, N. (2017). The travelling reform agenda: The Swedish case through the lens of the OECD. N. Wahlström & D. Sundberg (eds.) Transnational Curriculum Standards and Classroom Practices: The New Meaning of Teaching (pp. 15–30). London: Routledge. Waldow, F. (2015). From Taylor to Tyler to ‘no child left behind’: Legitimating educational standards. Prospects: Quarterly Review of Comparative Education, 45(1), 49–62. Whitty, G. & Furlong, J. (eds.) (2017). Knowledge and the Study of Education: An International Exploration. Oxford: Symposium Books Ltd.

Chapter 4

Old power, new power and ontological flattening The global ‘data revolution’ in education Radhika Gorur

Introduction In a publication from the United Nations Expert Advisory Group (2014) you are able to read the following: “As the world embarks on an ambitious project to meet new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), there is an urgent need to mobilise the data revolution for all people and the whole planet in order to monitor progress, hold governments accountable and foster sustainable development” (a.a. 2014 p. 2, emphasis by author). These dramatic ambitions on the part of UNESCO for a data revolution for the whole world and the whole planet follow from a vision that has mobilised the health and well-being of the world as a matter of shared concern. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) had already managed to bring the nations of the world together to draw up a common agenda, to set global priorities, and to make pledges to each other to achieve these goals. These promises to achieve the MDGs proved somewhat challenging to keep. Donors found their commitment to the volumes of donation challenged by the global financial crisis. Enthusiasms faded somewhat with time. In education, the low-hanging fruit of access to primary education for all was more or less universally met, but other aspects such as the quality of education, access to secondary, tertiary and continuing education, gender equality, improved infrastructure and access to better quality of teacher education were neglected in many cases. The global resolve to improve education was reassembled by the SDGs as part of a comprehensive agenda that included economic, social, political and environmental agendas. All the 184 UN member nations pledged in 2015 to institute a new set of plans between 2016 and 2030 to achieve a series of sweeping and ambitious global goals: We resolve, between now and 2030, to end poverty and hunger everywhere; to combat inequalities within and among countries; to build peaceful, just and inclusive societies; to protect human rights and promote gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls; and to ensure the lasting protection of the planet and its natural resources. We resolve

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also to create conditions for sustainable, inclusive and sustained economic growth, shared prosperity and decent work for all, taking into account different levels of national development and capacities. (UN General Assembly, 2015) This global agenda was formed by a consensus in which “Heads of State and High Representatives” (UN General Assembly, 2015 p. 3) of all the nations participated, and it is one which “All countries and all stakeholders, acting in collaborative partnership, will implement” (UN General Assembly, 2015 p. 1). The goals are global in the sense that they involve all the countries of the world and were developed through consensus and with all the countries as signatories to this pact. They are also global in the sense of being high level and comprehensive. It is not just about reducing child mortality or providing access to clean water – the goals involve broad social, economic, political and environmental goals. Finally, they are global in that they were developed through public consultation processes that involved a range of stakeholders, beyond government actors. Its implementation anticipates global collaboration and participation. To aid the implementation of these strategies and the realisation of these agendas, elaborate global accountability frameworks are being devised which will at once allow governments to hold national actors accountable, and allow global agencies (which are themselves made up of member nations), to hold member nations accountable. In effect, nations of the world are to be governed by a body that is made up of nations like themselves. But for such accountability, monitoring and tracking, more data is needed: Data are the lifeblood of decision-making and the raw material for accountability. Without high-quality data providing the right information on the right things at the right time; designing, monitoring and evaluating effective policies becomes almost impossible. (UN Independent Expert Advisory Group, 2014 p. 2) These global agendas, accountability measures and datafication ambitions raise new questions about power and politics. How do we explain the dynamics of power when the global agenda and policy brief for the next 15 years for some 200 countries, involving the expenditure of billions of dollars, and determining the fates of hundreds of millions of children, is contained in a 41-page document which lacks even page numbers and publication details? We cannot explain these events using such concepts as policy borrowing and lending (Steiner-Khamsi, 2006), or of countries trying to emulate or invoke reference societies to develop or justify their policies (Waldow, 2014). Neither does this fit into the pattern of marketisation and the buying and selling of policy (Ball, 2009). In this paper, I offer some speculative thoughts to start a conversation around the new forms of globalisation that appear to be developing in the

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pursuit of the SDGs. I suggest that we are witnessing today a different form of globalisation through ontological flattening. This flattening is characterised by recursive relations between the national and the global, which are bound up in mutual obligations that blur ontological distinctions between them. It involves governance arrangements that combine ‘new power’ and ‘old power’ technologies (Heimans & Timms, 2018), and entangle regulators and the regulated in complex relations of consensus, partnerships, agreements, demands and requirements. This flattening is further strengthened by the new inscription devices that are envisaged in the form of global monitoring frameworks and accountability mechanisms which are both mobile and immutable (Latour, 1986). These mechanisms, which render complex worlds into much simplified 2-D versions of the world, present an ‘optical consistency’ and promote a flattened vision of the world in which perspective is lost. Ontological flattening, I venture to suggest, renders the world into a continuous, recursive space which is constantly collapsing on itself.

Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 4 To explore the mechanisms of this ontological flattening, I focus empirically on the data revolution in the pursuit of SDG4, the education Goal (“inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”). Achieving the education targets is seen as key to the attainment of the other SDGs. The education agenda in SDG4 is framed in holistic and global terms, as: comprehensive, holistic, ambitious, aspirational and universal, and inspired by a vision of education that transforms the lives of individuals, communities and schools, leaving no one behind. . . . It is rights-based and inspired by a humanistic vision of education and development, based on the principles of human rights and dignity, social justice, peace, inclusion and protection, as well as cultural, linguistic and ethnic diversity and shared responsibility and accountability. (UNESCO, 2015 p. 24) SDG4 was developed against the backdrop of the alarming statistics generated when stock was taken of the unfinished business at the end of the MDGs: Despite significant progress since 2000, an estimated 59 million children of primary school age and 65 million adolescents of lower secondary school age – of whom girls remain the majority – were still out of school in 2013. In addition, many of those in school are not acquiring basic knowledge and skills. At least 250 million primary-school-aged children, more than 50% of whom have spent at least four years in school, cannot read, write or count well enough to meet minimum learning standards. (UNESCO, 2015 p. 36)

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To achieve the urgent and important task of realising SDG4, the UNESCO Education 2030 Framework has placed enormous emphasis on measuring learning and on the generation of data for both accountability (governance and regulation), and reform (improving pedagogic and schooling practices as well as policies and governance). Indeed, the primary strategy outlined in Education 2030 appears to be accountability, promoted through the overwhelming force of data. A global datafication project is seen as the main strategy to guide reform and improvement – a way to see through the fog of ignorance that is assumed to have historically hampered efforts to improve education systems: In many countries, education ministers are like air traffic controllers, who see a storm on the horizon but find that 80% of their navigation instruments are either malfunctioning or non-existent. They simply don’t have the data to steer their way out of a global learning crisis that affects more than one-half of all children of primary and lower secondary school age, according to estimates by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). (Crouch & Silvia, 2018) These tools and frameworks are not only for regulation and development at the national level. They are part of a global monitoring and data infrastructure, which enable global agencies to monitor the nation and hold national governments accountable as well. These data infrastructures are thus Janus-faced, acting as instruments of power as well as of submission, casting national governments as both demanding accountability and being subjected to it. Moreover, this exercise is both political, serving as a regulatory mechanism, and technical, involving the development of data infrastructures such as management information systems and data gathering mechanisms to feed these systems. To understand how such tools are being generated and used in contemporary times, we need contemporary theories of power. In the next section, I introduce the ideas of ‘new power’ and ‘old power’.

New power and old power Citing such examples as the #MeToo movement, the downfall of Harvey Weinstein, and the way ISIS operators use social media to recruit jihadis, Heimans and Timms (2018) distinguish between ‘old power’ and ‘new power’. They argue that old power acts like currency. It is something that is possessed by a few, and it is accumulated and hoarded. It is a closed system – its power is derived from shutting out others. In contrast: New power operates differently, like a current. It is made by many. It is open, participatory, and peer-driven. It uploads, and it distributes. Like water or electricity, it’s most forceful when it surges. The goal with new power is not to hoard it but to channel it. (Heimans & Timms, 2018 p. 2, emphasis by author)

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Heimans and Timms argue that Harvey Weinstein’s power is ‘old power’. He centralised power, wielding it to control the fates and careers of others – and this enabled him to act with impunity without repercussion. In contrast, the #MeToo movement which brought Weinstein down exemplifies ‘new power’. In the wake of the first stories appearing about Weinstein’s sexual crimes, Alyssa Milano, an actress, shared the hashtag #MeToo on Twitter, encouraging others to share their stories of sexual assault. Terri Conn, who had been sexually assaulted years earlier, searched Twitter for posts with #MeToo and #JamesToback, her abuser, and, finding a number of such tweets, formed a private Twitter group. Eventually this group took their stories to the Los Angeles Times. In the days that followed, 300 women shared their stories of assault by Toback. Across the world, many such events were taking place – with a million tweets using #MeToo in 48 hours. In France, #MeToo went by the name #BalanceTonPorc (Denounce Your Pig). It Italy, it was #QuellaVoltaChe (The Time That). As the movement spread to various spaces, politicians and business tycoons were outed and forced to resign. The power of the #MeToo movement derived from its peer-to-peer connections. No one ‘owned’ the movement – people in different countries and different industries took it in new directions, held rallies, tweeted, started Facebook groups and protested in a range of ways. No one masterminded or planned what should happen next. Things occurred spontaneously. Strangers became co-prosecutors. Heimans and Timms observe: The most striking thing about #MeToo was the sense of power it gave to its participants: many who had felt for years that they were helpless to stop longtime abusers, or had been afraid of retribution, suddenly found the courage to stand up to them. Every individual story was strengthened by the surge of the must [sic] larger current. Each individual act of bravery was, in fact, made by many. (Heimans & Timms, 2018 p. 4) Heimans and Timms provide a number of other examples, including contrasting approaches used by a young Scottish woman who became an ISIS recruiter, and the US government which was trying to combat ISIS recruitment. Aqsa Mahmood operated by building a “close-knit, girl-to-girl network” (Heimans & Timms, 2018 p. 6), encouraging other young women to follow her example, and offering friendly and intimate advice. Her upbeat tone makes the journey to Syria seem no more than a lark to cut school and meet up at the local mall. Women who might never have conceptualised themselves as jihadi material could now visualise themselves taking that step, since someone so much like themselves was doing that. In contrast, the US Government “printed thousands of cartoons of ISIS recruits being fed into a meat grinder and dropped them out of an F-16 fighter jet as it flew over ISIS strongholds in Syria” (Heimans & Timms, 2018 p. 7). In

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addition, a clumsy online attempt was made as well, with a State Department Seal and the exhortation to “Think Again Turn Away!”. The distant, superior and officious tone of the State Department could never match the effectiveness of Aqsa’s intimate and informal talk of organic coconut oil and its many uses in the Syrian desert (Aqsa adds “maybe grab an extra jar for me as well lol”) (Heimans & Timms, 2018 p. 6). ‘Old power’ is distant, disinterested in detail, intent only in getting its own way and fulfilling its own agenda. Its power is in exerting its might and remaining exclusive. ‘New power’, on the other hand, is inclusive, informal and encourages everyone to take the event and make it their own. Heimans and Timms argue that we find both old and new power modalities operating simultaneously in societies. Here, ‘old’ and ‘new’ should not be taken as adjectives denoting chronology, but simply the terms used to describe two different forms of power dynamics. In the next sub-section, I will analyse how the global ‘data revolution’ that aims to link ‘the whole planet’ through its monitoring framework deploys both old and new power strategies to pursue its datafication and reform project. Following that, I will examine how these new monitoring frameworks and other inscription devices are both mobile and immutable (Latour, 1986), and how they produce material-semiotic practices which collapse scale and flatten ontologies.

SDG 4, the data revolution, and ontological flattening The UNESCO document Education 2030 Incheon Declaration and Framework for Action (UNESCO, 2015) sets out the manner in which SDG4 is to be achieved. Broadly, the realisation of SDG4 can be seen as consisting of a) building a shared agenda; b) breaking down the broad agenda into specific targets; c) translating the targets into observable indicators to monitor progress towards the targets; d) enabling the implementation of improvement plans through coordinated funding, capacity building and other forms of support; and e) measuring progress towards the attainment of SDGs (Quick Guide). In this section, drawing on Heimans and Timms (2018) and on Latour (1986), I offer two analyses. First, I analyse the ways in which ‘old’ and ‘new’ power mechanisms are manifested in the SDG4 datafication project to produce ontological flattening through a collapse of scale. Next, drawing on Latour (1986), I will explore how the inscription devices of the monitoring and accountability mechanisms make the nations of the world mobile and immutable. I describe how the ontological flattening that is effected produces a global continuity that is producing new forms of globalisation.

Old power, new power and the collapse of scale A project as complex and ambitious in scope and scale as the realisation of SDG4 within the short time-frame of 15 years requires a great deal of planning

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and a great many actors. The SDG4 project is carried out under the broad umbrella of the SDG 2030 Steering Committee. A complex array of interlinked agencies and bodies are charged with various responsibilities. Each works in consultation with national and regional representatives as well civil society representatives. UIS (UNESCO Institute for Statistics) is designated as “the official source of cross-nationally comparable data to monitor progress towards SDG 4” and, in coordination with the SDG 2030 Steering Committee, it “works with partner organizations and experts on the development of new indicators, statistical approaches and monitoring tools to assess progress towards SDG 4” (UNESCO-UIS, 2018 pp. 11–12). The UIS coordinates a range of other bodies, such as the Technical Cooperation Group, made up of “38 regionally representative statistical experts from Member States, international organizations, civil society and the Co-Chair of the Education 2030 Steering Committee;” the Global Alliance to Monitor Learning (GAML) “that brings together a broad range of stakeholders, including experts and decisionmakers involved in national and cross-national learning assessment initiatives, as well as donors and civil society;” and The Inter-Agency Group on Education Inequality Indicators (IAG-EII) “led by the UIS, UNICEF and the World Bank, and includes as members other organisations involved in the production and use of household survey data: the Global Education Monitoring Report, Global Partnership for Education (GPE), ICF, the OECD, RTI International and USAID” (UNESCO-UIS, 2018 p. 12). The responsibility for the key task of “coordination of the SDG data and indicator development at the international level” is vested with the “SDG custodian agencies”. As UIS explains: Custodian agencies are UN bodies (and in some cases other international organizations) responsible for compiling and verifying country data and metadata and for submitting the data, along with regional and global aggregates, to the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD). The agencies ensure that the data are internationally comparable and develop international standards and methodologies to help countries in monitoring. Country-level data may be published in their databases and used for thematic reporting. (UNESCO-UIS, 2018 p. 11) This ‘custodial’ role is a hybrid role which gives the appointed agencies the responsibility and the ability to exert some level of pressure – technical and moral – on the member nations, without the formal authority to enforce any agreement. The moral authority derives from having all the 184 member nations sign up to a shared set of goals and the appointment of UNESCO as the coordinating agency to achieve these goals. The technical authority comes from the range of experts that are assembled in various advisory groups with participation from a vast range of stakeholders. By creating

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globally standardised frameworks to effect comparisons, UIS determines what data are generated in all 184 nations, and in what format they will be published. These complex structures that have been set up to measure, monitor and hold actors accountable in the pursuit of SDG4 manifest both ‘old’ and ‘new’ power modalities. On the one hand, there is the new power inclusivity, with a focus on collaboration, consensus, choice and the freedom to particularise global goals according to national priorities and preferences. Nations voluntarily participate in this project. There is a great emphasis on consultation and on including diverse views. There is an acknowledgement that expertise in this area is distributed and that many agencies will be involved in the many activities – including that of generating indicators, developing instruments for tracking and monitoring and so on. The inclusion of a variety of actors across different levels in various committees and the partnerships collapses these hierarchies of scale and flattens the terrain. However, there is an inherent contradiction between the notion of partnership, which has no scale (Jensen & Winthereik, 2013), and that of accountability, which implies an ‘old’ power hierarchy, with authority (voluntarily) vested with UNESCO to coordinate this global effort. There is an emphasis on shared understandings, shared goals and a shared sense of urgency to do global good for the health and well-being of the whole planet. The focus on shared agendas and strategies and the focus on consensus is unlike the ‘new’ power strategy of allowing ideas to mushroom in different ways in different parts and among different actors. Bodies such as GAML and the Technical Group for Cooperation are developing indicators, assessment and monitoring tools, and plans and strategies for the nations of the world to follow and implement. At the same time, these bodies have no legal authority to force any nation to do their bidding, relying instead on gaining authority through trust, mutual cooperation, consultation, openness and consensus. Frank (1997) has argued that datafication creates an ‘official world’ which may be quite different to the ‘real world’. The ‘official world’ presents and obscures selectively so that uncomfortable realities are kept out and gaps and other unwelcome issues are smoothed over or hidden. These are, however, often quite readily visible in the ‘real world’. Those working in the area of development aid, says Frank, are often well aware of the discrepancies between these two worlds, and they make choices about whether to inhabit the ‘official world’ or the ‘real world’. You have to make a choice about the world you live in. Nowadays I live in the official world. The real world is infinitely complex and even the people, who are part of it don’t understand it. And we are here for only four weeks, most of that in office meetings. When you discover that the official world does not correspond to the real world, you can either accept the official version or make your own judgment. It’s always best to take the

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government figures. That way you save yourself work and do not tread on anyone’s toes that matter. We are here, after all, as guests. (Frank, 1997 p. 271) Frank calls this the ‘development game’. In their ethnographic work, Jensen and Winthereik (2013) confirmed this dual ontology that confronts aid workers in development. Although Frank (1997) sees a choice between the two worlds, I would like to suggest, after Latour (1993), that these two worlds – the official (pure and modern) world, and the (messy, postmodern) ‘real world’ are not two entirely separate ontologies, but worlds that are closely intertwined and which blur into each other. Indeed, as Berg and Timmermans (2000) have shown, such categories imply and co-produce each other. Latour (1993) argues that we have never truly believed in the fictions we create in which categories are pure and unambiguous and actors can be clearly labelled, because in our daily lives, we are adept at invoking heterogenous and hybrid ‘monsters’ routinely. Ironically, while data are generated precisely to reduce corruption and increase transparency and accountability, aid workers become complicit in perpetuating the fiction of the data world. Denying the ‘real world’ and promoting the fiction itself perpetrates a form of dishonesty and corruption. Extending these arguments, I want to suggest that the commitment to ‘ownership’ is another part of this ‘development game’. In SDG4, there is an anxiety that nations should develop their own plans, as appropriate to their situations, and that donors should be seen merely in the role of ‘support’. The idea is that unless nations own these plans, they are unlikely to commit to it and to make sincere efforts to achieve the goals. However, the radical transparency demands of the monitoring mechanisms require that all nations report on global indicators on global platforms. Nations are encouraged – even required – to develop their education sector plans in accordance with particular global requirements, on globally agreed indicators. These requirements necessarily shape the reform agenda – the reporting tail wagging the policy dog is a well-known phenomenon (see, for example, Gorur, 2016). With nations acting in partnership with global agencies and donor nations, the idea of who owns what become blurred. This is even more evident when it comes to being funded for the projects that are endorsed by the international community through such bodies as the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). Funding agencies like to see what their money will be spent on before they provide money, and some may intervene actively to shape how spending is prioritised. They also want to be assured, through the production of appropriate data, that funds are spent usefully. The blending of ‘ownership’ and imposition, of demands and offerings, of support and accountability create interactions in which ontological slippages, overlays and overlaps become enacted. Another aspect of this sense of ontologies collapsing on themselves is the blurring between accountability/audit and learning. Transparency, evaluation and learning from evaluations to improve programmes is a major aim of the datafication project. But when the two activities – audit and learning – are

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combined, what appears at first glance to be a ‘chain of accountability’ ends up looping in on itself in complex and recursive ways. Talking with regard to the Danish National Audit Office which must audit the ways in which the Danish government’s donations have been spent, Jensen and Winthereik (2013) argue that these loops are: Enacted in and as an infrastructure of loops between auditors and auditees. These loops put auditors in a position in which, while interacting with the organizations they audit, they must remain detached from them. . . . [W]e argue that the tension between detachment and interaction creates ‘wormholes’ through which auditing passes, mutating as it does so. (Jensen & Winthereik, 2013 p. 122) Monitoring devices being developed by UIS are meant for nations and various organisations to keep track of their own progress and to inform their planning. But they are also used for monitoring and tracking by the ‘global community’ and the UNESCO-led Steering Committee as well as independently audited by the audit offices of donor nations. Ontological flattening is thus a matter of blurred identities and collapsed hierarchies created by a complex – and often forced – set of relations that emphasise partnership, ownership, consensus, collaboration, inclusion, alignment and transparency and so on. ‘Old’ power hierarchies, centralisation, standardisation and global mandates are softened by ‘new’ power anxiousness to ensure inclusion, giving voice and ownership to local actors and so forth, leading to a flattening of ontologies with different entities seeming to subsume each other.

Immutable mobiles, optical consistency, and inscriptions What is so important in the images and in the inscriptions scientists and engineers are busy obtaining, drawing, inspecting, calculating and discussing? It is, first of all, the unique advantage they give in the rhetorical or polemical situation. “You doubt of what I say? I’ll show you”. And, without moving more than a few inches, I unfold in front of your eyes figures, diagrams, plates, texts, silhouettes, and then and there present things that are far away and with which some sort of two-way connection has now been established. I do not think the importance of this simple mechanism can be overestimated. (Latour, 1986 p. 13)

The role of material-semiotic technologies of inscription in mediating controversies, in persuading opponents, in settling agonistic debates and in domesticating and disciplining what can be thought and said have been elaborated by Latour (1986). If one seeks explanation for how one set of actors become more convincing and more successful in extending their ideas and influence, Latour

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argues, one need look no further than the ubiquitous, mundane and modest inscription devices such as maps, tables, charts and other textual devices. Whoever has access to them and is able to marshal them is often the victorious one in these acts of persuasion. Although a focus on inscription devices affords powerful explanations, they are often overlooked by social theorists in their quest to understand the mechanisms and practices of power, because these devises are ubiquitous as well as modest: It seems to me that the most powerful explanations, that is those that generate the most out of the least, are the ones that take writing and imaging craftmanship into account. They are both material and mundane, since they are so practical, so modest, so pervasive, so close to the hands and the eyes that they escape attention. (Latour, 1986 p. 3) Given the persuasive power of socio-technical devices, it is little surprise that the global education reform project is placing such premium on datafication. If nations of the world can be persuaded to generate data in the required format, and if standardised monitoring frameworks are able to be populated with numbers from across the world, various actors could be moved to act in ways that would advance the achievement of SDG4. Recalcitrant actors and those who are unconvinced of the path to take will be persuaded of the need to cooperate with the programme by these devices. Indeed, Latour points to the ‘deflation’ that can be effected by these devices. An inscription device: deflates grandiose schemes and conceptual dichotomies and replaces them by simple modifications in the way in which groups of people argue with one another using paper, signs, prints and diagrams. (Latour, 1986 p. 3) Visual-cognitive devices such as measurement frameworks participate in the ‘construction of harder facts’ – and in winning agonistic battles. This is why: we should concentrate on those aspects that help in the mustering, the presentation, the increase, the effective alignment or ensuring the fidelity of new allies. We need, in other words, to look at the way in which someone convinces someone else to take up a statement, to pass it along, to make it more of a fact, and to recognize the first author’s ownership and originality. This is what I call ‘holding the focus steady’ on visualization and cognition. (Latour, 1986 p. 5) Key to the data revolution is the development of monitoring frameworks which will be used by nations to organise and present their data. These frameworks

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are a trigger and a mechanism for setting agendas, clarifying priorities, aligning strategies and for holding a multitude of stakeholders – at national and global levels – to a compact. In other words, the monitoring frameworks are not merely technical frameworks for representing and reporting data – they are powerfully productive tools which set the agenda for reform. This performativity, or the productive character, of such frameworks (Gorur, 2014, 2015; Knorr-Cetina, 1999; Woolgar, 1991) is recognised by UIS, which says: “The global governance mechanisms currently in place provide an excellent context to define a sound strategy” (Case for investment, p. 2). The monitoring framework serves to align national agendas and strategies to the global agenda, and it also configures the strategies and activities of a range of stakeholders: To achieve the SDG 4 agenda, everybody (national statistics offices, international organizations, donors and other stakeholders) needs to be aligned according to some sort of global compact or strategic plan or agreement on what matters, how to fund it, and who does what. The notion of a thorough, one-off planning re-set (without pretending one can have a one-off blueprint for more than a whole decade, but with cost estimates in any case), implemented with more energy and funding, is key.1 The monitoring frameworks are thus not just dictating government policies and strategies, but also the priorities and activities of a host of other actors within and outside nations. Monitoring frameworks can be seen as part of a visual culture. Here, after Alpers (Alpers, 1983) and Latour (1986), ‘visual cultures’ are taken to be “how the culture sees the world, and makes it visible. A new visual culture redefines both what it is to see, and what there is to see” (Latour, 1986 p. 9, emphasis in the original). This is a powerful way of understanding the visual power of such inscription devices as monitoring frameworks. Two features contribute to this ability of inscription devices to exercise their sway over the configuring of debates and the settling of accounts. One is mobility. As Latour (1986) explains, a cathedral or a coastline in its real life, 3-D format cannot be easily transported across the seas – or, for that matter, even moved a few metres to another location. But once it is translated into a map or a drawing, it can be taken easily to distant lands where it can mobilise action among actors who might not be moved without the persuasive power of such devices. It was this mobility that brought far-flung lands near enough for expeditions to be launched in the 1600s, for example – expeditions which have changed the world forever. Without a variety of inscriptions – maps and the astronomical charts and the calculations made by early explorers – such power over oceans and continents would not have been possible. A related second feature is that of immutability – an inscription can be moved with little loss of fidelity to its original version. Whereas a change in perspective can provide

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a completely different version of a Cathedral in real life, the flattened, 2-D picture of a Cathedral offers the same flattened view whatever the angle, and whatever the location. This ‘optical consistency’ is a key feature of inscription devices that produce mobility and immutability. Latour likens such immutable and mobile visual summations to a panopticon that redefines all aspects of culture. Focusing on the work of such immutable mobiles provides an economical, empirical explanation for how some ideas gain persuasive power: The new precise scenography that results in a world view defines at once what is science, what is art and what it is to have a world economy. To use my terms, a little lowland country becomes powerful by making a few crucial inventions which allow people to accelerate the mobility and to enhance the immutability of inscriptions: the world is thus gathered up in this tiny country. (Latour, 1986 p. 10) The monitoring frameworks envisaged in the Education 2030 plans are welldescribed as instances of “the world . . . gathered up” in a “tiny country”. As Latour explains, these visual summations provide a meeting place for fact and fiction – a place where people may bring a range of views, and then go away domesticated by the power of the inscriptions. Through these inscriptions: a new meeting place is designed for fact and fiction, words and images. . . . The main quality of the new space is not to be ‘objective’ as a naïve definition of realism often claims, but rather to have optical consistency. This consistency entails the ‘art of describing’ everything and the possibility of going from one type of visual trace to another. (Latour, 1986 p. 10, emphasis in original) Understanding monitoring frameworks as a meeting place of fact and fiction (Latour, 1986) provides a more nuanced understanding than the ‘development game’ elaborated at by Frank which I presented in the previous section. Optical consistency refers to an understanding of the internal invariance that survives locational displacement: In a linear perspective, no matter from what distance and angle an object is seen, it is always possible to transfer it – to translate it – and to obtain the same object at a different size as seen from another position. In the course of this translation, its internal properties have not been modified. (Latour, 1986 p. 7) Such ‘translation without corruption’ allows one to ‘present absent things’ and accords the power to mediate discussions and convince speakers in a discussion.

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Although it may be the map that is physically in the midst of the discussion, the quality of invariance means that it is not just the map, but the coastline or the continent that is present among the discussants. The map carries more than itself into the room. Latour argues that contrivances such as “perspective, projection, map, log book, etc.” (Latour, 1986 p. 8) make such presence/absence possible. To this list, I add our global monitoring frameworks as a prime example of a contrivance that can create presence/absence in discussions. The optical consistency of 2-D visualisations has another major advantage which Latour elaborates, after Edgerton (Edgerton, 1976). This is that fact and fiction – mythologies and nature – share the same advantage of mobility: Not only can you displace cities, landscapes, or natives and go back and forth to and from them along avenues through space, but you can also reach saints, gods, heavens, palaces, or dreams with the same two-way avenues and look at them through the same ‘windowpane’ on the same two-dimensional surface. (Latour, 1986 p. 8) This ability to map fact as well as fiction in symmetrical ways is a critical point. Harking back to Frank’s observation that the ‘official world’ created by official data were works of fiction, they nevertheless looked similar to more believable accounts made up by nations where statistical infrastructures were sounder and where corruption was less rife. I would venture that it is this symmetry that allows development aid workers to pretend that the official world is real and to play the ‘development game’. There is thus no guarantee that the SDG4 standardised formats for education sector planning, school improvement plans, school report cards and other monitoring and accountability devices will promote the ability to tell of fact from fiction. This is because: Impossible palaces can be drawn realistically, but it is also possible to draw possible objects as if they were utopian ones. For instance, as Edgerton shows, when he comments on Agricola’s prints, real objects can be drawn in separated pieces, or in exploded views, or added to the same sheet of paper at different scales, angles and perspectives. It does not matter since the ‘optical consistency’ allows all the pieces to mix with one another. (Latour, 1986 p. 8) This ability of inscription devices to hold objects of different scales on the same sheet of paper beautifully illustrates the power of the global inscription devices that are now bringing into their fold everything from school level data, through district and provincial data, right up to national data and international comparisons. The point is not that there are standardised and global inscription devices at every scale, but that within a single frame, multiple scales may be held. This collapse of scale is enhanced by the architecture of websites and the possibilities

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of hypertext, where a flat surface can telescope to reveal deeper layers, and at the same time, these layers can be contained in a flat surface.

Ontological flattening as globalisation Stories in science and technology are rife with examples of how humble, mundane objects may move heaven and earth and achieve great things. The ability to draw and transport knowledge in the form of maps and charts changed the very shape of the global power maps, launched new empires and created miseries that are still with us, 400 or more years later. Further: A minute bug eating cotton stalks stored in a warehouse is sufficient to harm the transfer of a cooking device from Sweden (where it burned sawmill waste) to Nicaragua. The successful move of a ‘Gasogene’ from its manufacturer in France to Costa Rica, where it ought to generate power, is stopped in its tracks by attempts to feed it with a type of wood it hadn’t met before. While the transport of a photoelectric lighting kit from France where it is made, to Africa where it is intended for use, is impeded by the fact that it depends on a non-standard type of plug – that isn’t available in Africa. (de Laet & Mol, 2000 p. 226) In this speculative piece, I have also focused on seemingly innocuous and humble devices and suggested that they, too, can perform mighty feats – in this case, a global ontological flattening. Globalisation has been a hot topic for several decades and it has been described in various ways – as a shrinking of the globe as a result of faster transport and communication; as the internetenhanced coming together of diverse people with similar interests through chat groups and other forms of connections; as the creation of various scapes through which people, money and ideas could move rapidly; as the collapse of the nation state, associated to a host of challenges to regulation; as global vulnerabilities through pandemics or cyber warfare, and so on. In this paper, based on the empirical examination of a global phenomenon that has brought together 184 nations and mobilised billions of dollars, I have offered a humble and mundane version of globalisation which is generated through ontological flattening effected by the simultaneous exercise of ‘old’ and ‘new’ power and the deployment of global and standardised inscription devices. Interestingly, the generation of data itself is the end sought by the development of monitoring frameworks. The main strategy for attaining the SDGs is gathering the necessary data to generate good policy, and the main strategy for developing good data is to develop global indicators and monitoring structures. In other words, ends and means collapse in this quest for data. This is a project of high modernity par excellence – one which flattens fiction into fact and collapses hierarchies as it gathers up the world, as Latour has so evocatively put it, into a tiny country.

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In his seminal Seeing like a State, Scott alerted us to the dangers that occur when the following set of conditions converge: transformative state simplifications; a high-modernist ideology; an authoritarian state; and a prostrate civil society (Scott, 1998 pp. 4–5). He assures us that each of these elements on their own may not fail us spectacularly in our bid to improve the world. But Scott was writing at a time before ‘new’ power modes were available. Even the #MeToo movement did not take off until it became a hashtag. What remains to be seen is whether, when ‘old’ and ‘new’ power combine, such high-modernity schemes are able to bring positive change through their inscription devices, or whether, like Scott’s Prussian forests of the 1700s (Gorur, 2016; Scott, 1998), this grand project to improve the human condition will, instead, inflict more suffering, with consequences that will be imposed on us for decades to come.

Note 1 http://uis.unesco.org/sites/default/files/documents/investment-case-sdg4-data.pdf

References Alpers, S. (1983). The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the 17th Century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ball, S. J. (2009). Privatising education, privatising education policy, privatising educational reserch: Network governance and the ‘competition state’. Journal of Education Policy, 24(1), 83–99. Berg, M. & Timmermans, S. (2000). Orders and their others: On the constitution of universalities in medical work. Configurations, 8, 31–61. Crouch, L. & Silvia, M. (2018). SDG 4 Data: Investing Millions Today Will Save Billions in the Future. Retrieved from www.norrag.org/sdg-4-data-investing-millions-today-will-savebillions-future-luis-crouch-silvia-montoya/ de Laet, M. & Mol, A. (2000). The Zimbabwe Bush Pump: Mechanics of a fluid technology. Social Studies of Science, 30(2), 225–263. Edgerton, S. (1976). The Renaissance Discovery of Linear Perspective. New York: Harper and Row. Frank, L. (1997). The development game. M. Rahnema & V. Bawtree (eds.) The PostDevelopment Reader. London, England: Zed Books. Gorur, R. (2014). Towards a sociology of measurement in education policy. European Educational Research Journal, 13(1), 58–72. Gorur, R. (2015). The performative politics of NAPLAN and my school. G. Thompson, S. Sellar & R. Lingard (eds.) National Testing and Its Effects: Evidence from Australia. London: Routledge. Gorur, R. (2016). Seeing like PISA: A cautionary tale about the performativity of international assessments. European Educational Research Journal, 15(5), 598–616. DOI: 10.1177/ 1474904116658299 Heimans, J. & Timms, H. (2018). New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected Worldand How to Makie It Work for You. New York: Doubleday. Jensen, C. B. & Winthereik, B. R. (2013). Monitoring Movements in Development Aid: Recursive Partnerships and Infrastructures. Cambridge: MIT Press.

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Knorr-Cetina, K. (1999). Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Latour, B. (1986). Visualisation and cognition: Drawing things together. H. Kuklick (ed.) Knowledge and Society: Studies in the Sociology of Culture Past and Present (Vol. 6, pp. 1–40). Bingley, Jai Press. Latour, B. (1993). We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Scott, J. C. (1998). Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press. Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2006). The economics of policy borrowing and lending: A study of late adopters. Ocford Review of Education, 32(5), 665–678. UNESCO (2015). Education 2030 Incheon Declaration and Framework for Action. Paris. Retrieved from http://uis.unesco.org/sites/default/files/documents/education-2030-incheonframework-for-action-implementation-of-sdg4-2016-en_2.pdf UNESCO-UIS. (2018). Quick Guide to Education Indicators for SDG 4. Montreal, Canada: UIS. UN General Assembly (2015). Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainabile Development. New York: UN General Assembly. Retrieved from www.un.org/ga/search/ view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/70/1&Lang=E UN Independent Expert Advisory Group. (2014). A World That Counts: Mobilising the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development. New York City, NY. Retrieved from http:/undatar evolution.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/A-World-That-Counts.pdf Waldow, F. (Producer) (2014, June 2, 2016). Projecting Images of the ‘Good’ and the ‘Bad’ School: Using Top Scorers in Large-Scale Assessments as Reference Societies [Keynote Video]. Retrieved from http://international-assessments.org/videos/ Woolgar, S. (1991). Beyond the citation debate: Towards a sociology of measurement technologies and their use in science policy. Science and Public Policy, 18, 319–332.

Chapter 5

Intellectual and social organisation of international large-scale assessment research Sverker Lindblad and Daniel Pettersson

Introduction The focus in this chapter is the intellectual and social organisation of international large-scale assessment research (hereafter ILSA research). Here, the term ILSA research is used to frame studies using data from various international large-scale assessments (e.g. PISA and TIMSS) to make scientific claims or conduct research. The chapter is based on an interest in how research produces and communicates educational knowledge on an educational Agora – here understood as a symbol for the interplay between research and policymaking (cf. the chapter by Foss Lindblad & Lindblad). In turn, this interest is based on the conviction that knowledge production is a social phenomenon and that single articles or books should be understood as part of a collective work. Furthermore, if we are to analyse and understand the meaning and impact of educational knowledge production on the educational Agora, it is important to analyse the inner qualities of collective knowledge production. Such qualities are captured under the heading of the intellectual and social organisation of ILSA research. Activities that produce knowledge are at the core of research. Against this background we ask: Which arguments are in focus? How have these arguments been developed or tested? Which statements are valid and which are not? Based on this interest in the collectivity of knowledge production, we also ask how research findings and conclusions are communicated to and received by the research community. In terms of theoretical stances, we are interested in research as a social system (e.g. Luhmann & Schorr, 2000) based on a communication of arguments (von Wright, 1971, 1983) that is valid according to scientific reason (e.g. Hacking, 1992). In other words, we are interested in capturing the intellectual and social qualities of ILSA research as they are displayed in the knowledge production and communication of this research area. This chapter is based on previous research, where the approach partly relates to quantitative analyses of research publications in the field of ILSA1 between 1995 and 2018. In order to capture the qualities in the arguments and the style of reasoning, we focus on research articles in scientific journals that we have

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identified as relevant (Lindblad, Pettersson & Popkewitz, 2015). These articles form the corpus of articles that we term ILSA research and are combined with analyses of communication patterns and nodes found in other parts of ILSA research (Mølstad, Pettersson & Forsberg, 2017; Mølstad, Pettersson & Forsberg, forthcoming).

International large-scale assessments Comparative educational research has developed rapidly since the late 1950s in terms of research programmes, the number of studies in these programmes and the number of publications (e.g. Forsberg & Pettersson, 2015). Conclusively, it can be said that comparative educational research as a scientific branch is based on comparisons of cases or variables (cf. Novoa & Yariv-Mashal, 2003). Here, we focus on the expanding field of variable comparisons that are based on at least two important premises – comparisons of distinct differences and comparable data, or what previously in this book has been referred to as a chimera of quantifications and comparisons (see for instance the chapter by Pettersson & Popkewitz). The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) was the first organisation to be formally established to conduct international large-scale comparative assessments in the 1950s (cf. the chapter by Sundberg). The founders viewed the world as a natural educational laboratory in which different school systems experimented with obtaining optimal results in the education of youth (Husén, 1979). They assumed that if research could obtain evidence from different national education systems, the variability would be sufficient to reveal important relationships that would otherwise escape detection in a single education system (Pettersson, 2014). The purpose was said to be to determine intellectual functioning using multiple-choice items, test the feasibility of large-scale assessments and to be exploratory (Foshay et al., 1962). The first IEA study differed from other comparative studies in that it sought to introduce an empirical approach into the methodology of comparative education; a field that is said to have initially relied on cultural analysis (a.a.) IEA embarked on the task with great enthusiasm and ran a pilot study (beginning in June 1959 and ending in June 1961) in which the researchers concluded that cross-national comparisons of educational performance could be made with comparable results (a.a.). After this pilot study, IEA conducted a variety of studies on different subjects, time spans and periods, of which TIMSS is the most discussed and disseminated. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, a project of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), was similar to the IEA studies in many respects. Although OECD has primarily been concerned with economic policy, education has become increasingly important due to the fact that over the last 40 years, education has been reframed to include economic competitiveness in an economic discourse related to human capital

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and the ‘knowledge economy’ (Sellar & Lingard, 2013; Pettersson, 2008). PISA assessments have been conducted several times. In every assessment, students’ knowledge of reading, mathematics and scientific literacy is tested, together with information about e.g. students’ interests and backgrounds.

On performing a review of ILSA research We limit our chapter to research explicitly using data from the PISA and TIMSS studies, which constitutes our corpus of ILSA research. In order to understand ILSA research and be able to say something about its intellectual and social organisation, we began by analysing the abstracts of 576 articles based on PISA and TIMSS data obtained from database searches and several steps of excluding articles that were not relevant for our purpose (for a description of our process of filtering see Lindblad, Pettersson & Popkewitz, 2015 pp. 59–61). In a next step, we analysed all the articles that compared two or more countries’ responses to research questions on education in detail, a total of 197 articles from the period 1995–2018, which we then coded and mapped with the purpose of investigating the knowledge problematics and styles of reasoning inherent in ILSA research. This was combined with an analysis of research communication in order to capture the collective organisation of ILSA research. Reading the abstracts of the 576 articles enabled us to make some overall categorisations of this kind of research. Figure 5.1, below, shows how the content of the articles was sorted. Here we sorted the articles into (A) articles using PISA and TIMSS data to answer research questions (in the figure these have also been diverted into A1, which are articles comparing/discussing PISA and TIMSS in relation to two or more countries, the complete articles that we 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

A1

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B

C

Figure 5.1 Articles presented according to time and classification Note: 518 articles are presented in the figure, although in total 576 articles were collected. This is due to the fact that 56 articles use both PISA and TIMSS data, which makes them duplicates in our material. The duplicate articles are only reported once in the figure.

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read, and A2, which only discuss PISA and TIMSS in relation to a single country), (B) articles discussing PISA and TIMSS in policy reasons and (C) articles discussing PISA and TIMSS and the methodological implications of the tests. In the figure, the articles are presented according to time and classification.

Knowledge problematics: explanandum and explanans As knowledge problems are vital when reviewing research, a systematisation ‘tool’ is needed that can be used to identify and sort ILSA research so that the various arguments can be discerned. In other words, it was necessary to construct and frame a research object that could deal with the heterogeneous content of ILSA research. In our study, this ‘tool’ is based on the work of the Finnish philosopher George Henrik von Wright, who developed useful ways of characterising research content by identifying different ways of explaining and understanding phenomena. Here we use the concepts of explanandum (plural explananda) and explanans (plural explanantia) (von Wright, 1971).2 Explanandum refers to what needs to be explained – in the broad sense of the word – for instance, a statement, fact or an observed behaviour. Explanans refers to statements that explain the explanandum. For example, an explanandum might be to wonder why a person is running, while an explanans could include alternative suggestions as to why the person is running, such as to catch a train, escape from a dog or exercising. Our study has as its explananda the performances that have been collected and presented by different ILSAs (for instance Finland’s results in PISA, or Sweden’s results in TIMSS). The explanantia for these performances are found in the inquiries that have been carried out in order to understand and explain them. As such, the explanantia that we aim to characterise and describe are the explanations presented in ILSA research. The following concerns the production of explanations in its most general form: EXPLANATION

EXPLANANDUM x EXPLANANS

CONCLUSION

Figure 5.2 Visualisation of the production of explanation in its most general form

This general form can be transformed to capture a style of reasoning that presents how the research problematics are framed and which inquiries are regarded as scientific evidence.

Styles of reason in ILSA research In the ILSA research that we have reviewed the focus is on the correlations between variables that show patterns and regularities over categories and data. As far as we know, this approach is consistent with the ways in which explanations are dealt with in ILSA research.

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The notion of ‘gap’ is important in ILSA research. We found that a large number of studies try to identify and explain achievement gaps in terms of individual school performances in various subjects. Common to these ‘gaps’ are comparisons between countries, but also between the sexes or other population groups to be acted on, such as ethnicity, SES (socio-economicstatus) or immigrant status. Achievement gaps normally refer to stable differences between such categories. For instance: what is the achievement gap in reading performances in different countries? Or, what is the achievement gap within or between education systems in terms of SES, gender or ethnicity? What is to be explained is often an achievement gap measured by performance in science, mathematics and reading, which is then correlated by pointing to patterns of social and psychological factors, such as student careers, family status, attendance at college or dropout. Three different, but sometimes interrelated, research problematics evident in ILSA research have been identified: •

•

•

Equity problematics: Are there biases in education e.g. in terms of gender, social class or ethnicity, and if so, why do these occur? This problematic is sometimes connected with the search for imperatives to increase equity in education. Efficiency problematics: Are there differences in performance in different education systems and schools? Here we find e.g. differences in performance between countries or analyses of measures that are assumed to improve efficiency, such as tracking, or teachers’ performance pay. Direction problematics: Here student characteristics are problematic but assumed to be possible to change. How are student expectations or engagement in different subjects and careers developed or changed, for instance in relation to science and technological occupations?

In these problematics, explananda and explanantia are intimately related to each other and in a way, define each other. For instance, the equity problematic is defined by a combination of achievement measurements and groupings of individuals in taxonomies. Explananda and explanantia are related to each other in various ways. However, here we present a set of overlapping principles that order the kinds of explanations found. Note that we do not present sequences of explanansexplanandum, because the main point is to use them as a basis for the explanations. Below is our reasoning about the kinds of explanantia in relation to data: • •

Internal explanans is where the different variables in the same dataset (e.g. PISA) are related to each other, e.g. students’ homework and reading performances. External explanans is where different data sets (e.g. PISA and TIMSS, or PISA 2003 and PISA 2006) are combined, e.g. to capture language comprehension

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over time. The point is that different measurements are related to each other in order to develop patterns of regularities. Another external explanans is based on the identification of populational characteristics, e.g. income distribution or indicators of gender equity or kinds of migration that can be related to achievement gaps. A logic, or principle, that relates to internal and external explanans is specified, tacitly or explicitly, through an abstract model of the school as a system. The system as an analytic of thought is used in order to capture students’ performances or achievement gaps. The concept of system is not about social system, for example, but about administrative characteristics of education, e.g. in terms of elements that can be managed through organisational theories about, for instance, tracking and differentiation. A specific kind of explanans refers to the production of greater harmony and efficiency in the system’s model through interventions in the school organisation and school management, resource distribution or teaching.

These different kinds of explanantia can be combined in different ways to deal with the explananda, e.g. taxonomic groups and system organisation and so forth. Hence, the results in ILSA research are defined by explananda in relation to explanantia. For instance, achievement gaps are (partly) understood as the result of differences in how schools are organised. In these kinds of studies, the patterns or regularities between data are vital – where the significance is measured by the strength of relations in the investigated patterns, which can be more or less complicated. ILSA research is here regarded as a specific kind of collection, analysis, interpretation and presentation of data. The collected data is information about individuals in different contexts, statements about their individual characteristics and performances in different kinds of tests, combined with information about their education and schooling. The data is analysed by means of different operations and the patterns achieved are interpreted in educational terms. This is a specific kind of production of statements and the evaluation of their objectivity within the framework of this specific style of reasoning. It is important to note that in ILSA research there are vital limits in the transition from correlations to causalities (see below on statistical reasoning) and in the relations between indicators and what is indicated. In the ILSA research context explananda are referred to as achievements in tests – often a combination of several such tests. The tests are basically interpreted as focusing on competence, science, mathematics or reading. Besides these, a rather large number of the analysed articles refer to other forms of explananda, such as teacher-student gender matching, or self-concept in relation to achievement. Explanantia refer to the different inquiries that have been carried out. With explanantia, the notion of taxonomic groups, such as gender, SES or a combination of these, is important. This enables us to understand achievement gaps or control for comparisons referring to other explanantia. Furthermore,

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some inquiries concern educational systems and how they are constructed, e.g. in terms of when differentiation in different programmes occurs or their organisation and use of resources. To this is added a number of publications that refer to combinations of inquiries, e.g. taxonomic groups, system characteristics and organisational characteristics, such as when relating system inquiries and tracking inquiries in the analysis of achievement gaps. But what is referred to as evidence in these inquiries? First, it goes without saying that all the 197 publications refer to PISA and TIMSS – what we here term inside data. Of these a smaller set refers to two or more assessments (e.g. PISA and TIMSS), what we here call outside data. Further, almost a third of the publications refer to other kinds of information or facts, for instance the proportion of women in the workforce and social inequality in relation to reading performances. This information is often conceived of as facts established in international statistics, but there are also references to theoretically based classifications of welfare state models. Finally, a small set of publications refers to different kinds of evidence for explaining the outcomes of education and schooling. Three sets of explananda evident within the style of reason in ILSA research have been defined: equity problematics, efficiency problematics and direction problematics, here given attention as three different sets of gaps. These were inquired in different ways by referring to different kinds of explanantia in the variables and categorisations of subjects and information about educational systems and their organisation. Furthermore, we noted that different kinds of competences were in focus – mathematics, science and reading. Explananda in relation to these problematics can be understood as in the following:

EQUITY PROBLEMATIC

SCHOOL PERFORMANCES X TAXONOMIC GROUPS

EFFICIENCY PROBLEMATIC

SCHOOL PERFOMANCES + EDUCATIONAL MEASURES

STUDENT DIRECTION PROBLEMATIC

CAREER EXPECTATIONS OR INTERESTS OR ATTITUDES X TAXONOMIC GROUPS

Figure 5.3 Explananda in relation to problematics

The equity set of explananda is most common in our corpus of articles – trying to identify biases in education for different taxonomic groups defined by social or cultural backgrounds or gender. The efficiency set is not that common. Here, different kinds of educational measures are compared for school performances. It is notable that the student direction problematic – what motivates individuals or why they choose a specific career or engage in specific educational activities – occurs in several studies, often with a focus on science

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and technology. What are conceptualised as explanantia to these different explananda? In a broad sense, the following three sets are identified: • • •

Student characteristics Educational measures Contextual circumstances

Students are categorised in a number of ways – as members of different taxonomic groups, or as having certain competences or interests – with the assumption that these characteristics will be important in the analyses. Educational measures are based on the characteristics of teaching and learning environments, as well as distinctions in school organisation and educational systems. An important point here is that these measures are often combined in multi-layered analyses, where the composition of school classes and schools, school differentiation, selection mechanisms and the tracking that takes place in schools are taken into consideration. Here, system means the administrative construction of education and how students move over time in this system. In international comparisons, a main point concerns the opportunity to compare different national contexts in different ways. We also note that different national characteristics, such as GDP, or differences in equity, are put forward in the analysis. This structuring enabled us to identify the coordinates for the different inquiries. It should be noted that the explanantia are in one way or another related to student characteristics – as carriers of gender, SES and so on, as well as performance. Not all the studies include these aspects, but a fairly large proportion do analyse the contribution made by education measures, such as tracking the amount of homework, and/or context matters, cultures, variation in prosperity, or capturing the explananda problematics. Table 5.1, below, is a synthesis of what ILSA research is about in terms of explananda and explanantia: Table 5.1 Synthesis of ILSA research Explananda

Explanantia Student characteristics

Education measures

Contextual circumstances

Equity problematic Efficiency problematic Student direction problematic

We were able to put all 197 articles into this model, but at the same time found different as well as similar explananda. We also note that explanantia can be similar or different for a similar explanandum. Given this, if synthesis is a trivial process we would expect that similar explanans for a similar explanandum would provide similar results and conclusions. However, in our understanding, research reviews are not trivial – and that the same holds true for ILSA research as such.

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With regard to the notion of gaps – for instance in terms of gender gaps – ILSA research indicates differences in gender by measuring the school performances of individuals categorised as males and females. Such measures present patterns of outcomes that could show correlations between gender categories and test results. However, according to the styles of reason developed in statistics, stating that gender causes differences in school results is misleading (cf. Hacking, 1992). Other kinds of inquiries, such as experiments, are necessary in order to talk about causalities. From this it also follows that correlations as such do not produce valid directives for action. In other words, ILSA research is strong in producing indications and correlations, but weak in producing knowledge about causalities and technological directives.

What matters as knowledge problematics? As already indicated, many of the inquiries presented in our set of articles deal with equity problematics, i.e. trying to find explanantia for this explanandum in terms of characterisations of students and/or education measures and/or context matters. It would be too unwieldy to present a synthesis of all the equity gaps here, but below we show the three most important problematics: •

•

•

Gender problematics: The gender gaps are different for reading, mathematics and science and are also different over national contexts and in relation to other indicators. It seems to be important to differentiate between gender differences and sex differences when drawing conclusions from research results. The risk of stereotyping gender differences by means of research is worth noting. Socio-economic problematics: There would seem to be stable relations between the construction of educational systems and socio-economic segregation and performance gaps. Thus, early differentiation is connected with higher socio-economic gaps in performance as well as increased social segregation. Similar conclusions are drawn when analysing the associations between marketisation and social segregation. A point to consider is the difference between inside education measurements and the social significance outside the education system. Ethnicity problematics: Taxonomic groups in terms of ethnicity, migration and indigenous students are complicated in many ways. One conclusion is that the distribution of resources at the school level is important for indigenous students’ academic performances. Another is that there is a need for elaborated analyses of different migrant groups. An important issue here concerns the categorisation of students in terms of their home countries.

Considering the efficiency problematic, we note that different kinds of performance or competences are in focus for the explananda. The studies to a greater or lesser extent focus on specific research questions. Based on the inquiries,

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suggestions are made for policymakers or professionals dealing with the efficiency problematic in cross-country comparisons. In our set of articles some publications deal with the efficiency problematic of differences in educational measures and how they are associated with similar or different outcomes. Also, here a detailed explanation of how efficiency problematics in ILSA research are dealt with would be too unwieldy, although the following conclusions can be drawn: • •

•

Gender problematic: In ILSA research comparing two or more nations, gender explanantia are often used to discuss teacher/student gender matching. Socio-economic problematic: In this area, we find a difference between ILSA research using TIMSS or PISA as dominant sources for answering research questions. Research using TIMSS seems to be more open to searching for alternative explanantia connected to SES. Even though SES is considered to be of most importance for explanantia of the performance, many of the studies using TIMSS data also find other indications of importance when discussing gaps in the efficiency problematic. “Inside the black box” problematic: From our selection of articles we find that articles using TIMSS data seem to be more interested in the efficiency of issues related to teaching and learning practices than those using PISA data.

What we note in the synthesis of the selected articles is that the efficiency problematic covers a range of education measures in relation to different outcomes. By just looking at the articles using mathematic achievements as explananda, we can conclude that this minor area of ILSA research focuses on a number of explanantia, e.g. teachers’ salaries, the timing of system reforms, students’ use of ICT and so forth. Based on this diversity, universalistic advice would be highly problematic when translated into practice. By only focusing on studies that discuss and investigate mathematical achievements, we can conclude that the field is scattered and that the interrelations between the different studies are problematic. Studies of student motivation and attitudes to studying different subjects, or interest in choosing certain careers are included under the student direction problematic. The implications of synthesising these articles are discussed with reference to educational policy, contemporary sociological debates and the need for comparative studies in this particular field. The analyses in the set of articles dealing with this problematic usually take a position that is consistent with theory in order to model the underlying causality of the relationship between affect and achievement as bidirectional. Synthesising these studies was therefore not easy. A main point is the concern about students’ interests, especially in relation to orientations and careers in science. These concerns seem to be universal, although they differ in direction according to cross-country comparisons. There seems to be divergent explananda for the impact of family background, e.g. in intergenerational transfer of preferences versus the impact of school measures.

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To sum up: By investigating studies using PISA or TIMSS data, as outlined in the above sections, some conclusions can be drawn about the intellectual organisation of the field of ILSA research. A specific style of reason is evident in ILSA research. In the next section, we draw some tentative conclusions about how this intellectual organisation of ILSA research also gains legitimacy in specific ways through its social organisation. This is also done by making use of previous research (Mølstad, Pettersson & Forsberg, 2017; Mølstad, Pettersson & Forsberg, forthcoming).

Questions about the communication patterns of ILSA research In order to understand how research is socially organised we need to look at how the research results are presented and disseminated within the research community. In this section, we highlight questions about how ILSA research is constructed and presented on the educational Agora. This is done by investigating how the styles of reason within ILSA research are disseminated in scientific research journals. A first question is the role played by scientific journals in constructing, legitimising and intellectually framing a specific scientific research area. The most important point here is related to the question of how research is defined and recognised in a research community. From other studies (e.g. Becher & Trowler, 2001) we know that common practices are to create research societies, produce handbooks, introduce university courses, hold seminars and create scientific journals with a well-specified scope and aim. Leydesdorff (2001) discusses these activities in terms of the self-organisation of a societal field (cf. Luhmann & Schorr, 2000). As such, science is able to create its own reasoning (cf. Hacking, 1992), which then forms the basis for how knowledge is constituted within the research area. However, this is not conducted in cooperation with the journals that create a territory of ILSA research. These journals often have a specific focus that determines which articles are published. Thus, the rather fragmented area of ILSA research is framed by the journals’ policies, not by any well-defined plan for a scientific field. Therefore, it seems difficult to conclude that ILSA research has constituted itself as a specific research field. Rather, ILSA research is disseminated in journals representing different scientific fields. However, the most represented scientific fields are educational research, subject specific didactics and psychology. As such, it is only possible to discuss ILSA research as an area of specific reasoning that is interwoven in various research fields, which is more accurate than characterising it as a specific scientific field. In another study (Forsberg et al., 2017), the reasoning guiding ILSA research is discussed in terms of a ‘comparative curriculum code’ based on economistic educational rationales (Lindblad, 2013). This is perhaps what can be seen when ILSA research is translated into different fields to make claims on educational

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knowledge and affect a wide range of scientific activities. Conclusively, it can be stated that ILSA research appears to be affected by and affects various scientific fields, rather than creating its own well-defined field of research (cf. Paulston, 2009; Epstein, 2008a, 2008b). However, this does not mean that ILSA research is an unimportant field, but rather that the style of reasoning within ILSA research can be used and disseminated in different scientific fields. A second question concerns the important recognition of lingua dependent concepts. When investigating ILSA research we can conclude that it is dominated by countries and institutions that are situated in what is commonly referred to as the western world.3 This observation is not unique, but is rather a general observation of science today. What is more problematic is how the dominance of English legitimises educational knowledge and how it affects educational reasoning. When applying postcolonial theory (e.g. Said, 2016), questions can be raised about how the dominance of English affects what Said calls the fabrication of lingua dependent concepts when they are transported to research and policy areas outside the western world. When applying postcolonial theory on ILSA research, questions can be asked as to whether it promotes an ongoing colonialism outside the western world and whether it helps to transport a specific style of reasoning on educational knowledge to ‘others’ (cf. Pettersson, Popkewitz & Lindblad, 2017), but also how this affects different national contexts and makes them ‘act’ (also see the chapter by Chakraborty, Mølstad, Feng & Pettersson). Nevertheless, the importance of English should not be underestimated when it comes to arranging and framing research and how a specific style of reasoning that is dependent on lingua dependent concepts is constructed (see e.g. Berliner, 2018). A third question highlights that specific actors and nodes in ILSA research seem to be especially important for performing what can be called ‘legitimacy work’. In this context, ‘legitimacy work’ is understood as scientific claims based on the specific style of reasoning that is embedded within ILSA research and how these claims are presented as the ‘facts’ and ‘truth’ of education on an educational Agora (cf. Carvalho, 2012). It has been observed that some actors, and the research environments embedding them, are important for intellectually and socially arranging and framing ILSA research (Mølstad, Pettersson & Forsberg, 2017). This exemplifies that ILSA research is to some extent self-authorising and self-organising when it comes to publishing in specific journals, collaborating with colleagues and who cites who. The notions of self-referencing and self-authorising as activities in ILSA research are important for understanding how the fragmented research area functions and for how ILSA research is then portrayed and used on the educational Agora. For instance, Becher and Trowler’s (2001) notion of ‘scholarly tribes’ and Crane’s (1972) notion of ‘invisible colleges’ help us to understand how recognised scientific nodes function and how they seem to direct and frame how educational ‘facts’ and ‘truths’ are portrayed on the educational Agora based on ILSA research.

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A specific style of reasoning: ILSA research By way of a summary of the chapter, what we have found when analysing ILSA research is that it is mostly to be found within a reasoning of statistical analysis and calculating probabilities. This refers to the fact that most research using data from international large-scale assessments deals with ‘patterns’ of relations between various variables and categories based on decontextualised and universal knowledge interests. This specific reasoning has long historical roots and was developed extensively during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries due to the emergence of probability, the theory of error and the creation of statistical objects (Hacking, 1990). These ‘innovations’ served as preconditions for producing and evaluating statistical statements, e.g. about means and deviations from means within a population, in for instance height or health issues. By looking at the history of statistics we can note changing ways of analysing, testing and intersubjectivity. ILSA research is to a large extent based on the development of such statistical reasoning, for instance by defining and analysing populations and their characteristics (e.g. comparing countries or educational systems), by developing taxonomic groups (in term of socio-economic indicators, sex or cultures) and comparing their progress and failures in educational matters (e.g. dropout rates or kinds of education), by measuring means and variations in performance by means of certain tests, by formulating procedures or methods for the production of valid statements, such as demands for strength of association or significance tests, and finally, by ways of presenting and communicating research. In studying the activity of using ILSA data for research, a broad result concerns what is to be explained – the explananda. We note a large proportion of achievement gaps over population taxonomies, e.g. classifications in terms of social class or gender producing patterns of inequalities and how these inequalities are associated with different kinds of educational measures or contextual variations, such as gender inequity coefficients in different countries. Differences in efficiency are analysed to a lesser extent, e.g. school performance correlation to educational measures or the construction of school systems. We also find research that analyses ways of redirecting or steering students into certain careers – often in science – being highlighted in some studies. Looking at the explanantia, the studies refer to student characteristics, different kinds of education measures and variations in contextual circumstances. These analyses present what is regarded as significant results based on the strength of associations between categories and variables, e.g. late differentiation in a school system is related to increased social equity, or that gender gaps differ between national contexts. In the publications, we find statements by the researchers about which analyses are appropriate and which conclusions are possible to draw in ILSA research, e.g. in terms of associations between variables and what other kinds of research are required in order to improve statements.

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In addition, research questions and inquiries are often based on what the databases have to offer – the information that is possible to explore or hypotheses about. In our understanding, ILSA research entails a particular kind of statistical analysis and construction of data for defining the world of education. Its comparative problematic should not be taken as self-evident, according to the controversies in international comparative studies, and requires the scrutiny of ILSA research beyond its internal analysis criteria. This in turn is connected to displaying the relevance of statements derived from ILSA to policymakers and professionals. Our analyses of the ILSA research area are based on filtrations and categorisations of research publications. In this we have found that many publications appear outside the field of research communication in peer-reviewed journals and that others comment on ILSA or present strategies and solutions to educational problems, rather than presenting primary research using ILSA data. Our conclusion is that, in this respect, ILSA research is quite heterogeneous when the subjects of its research are described. This point is supported by the rather fragmented research communication structure that we were able to capture in our previous study by means of an analysis of journal publication citations in the various articles (Lindblad, Pettersson & Popkewitz, 2015; also see Mølstad, Pettersson & Forsberg, 2017). Although this conclusion is preliminary and needs to be analysed further, it so far points to a research area with many addressees and in need of improved social and intellectual organisation (Whitley, 2000) in order to increase the perceived validity and coherence of the results of ILSA research. Conclusively, we find rather a homogeneous, intellectual organisation of ILSA research in terms of what we, based on Hacking (2002), call styles of reasoning. This refers to how research objects are formulated, how research inquiries are carried out and what are considered as valid statements in this research process. Our review illuminates a research area with distinct characteristics in terms of this style of reasoning. There is also an internal relation in the formulation of explananda and explanantia as knowledge objects, plus accepted procedures for accepting or rejecting statements concerning this relation, e.g. when comparing school performances in different parts of the population. This is to our understanding basic in the style of reasoning at work in ILSA research. Such a style of reasoning limits as well as opens up for specific analyses and the production of valid statements concerning the research problematics in focus. This style of reasoning is at the core of ILSA research and understanding and is needed in order to capture the qualities of knowledge contributions from ILSA research and how it is intellectually organised. This is important for understanding the kind of educational knowledge that is produced and how this frames the uses of ILSA on the educational Agora. Additionally, ILSA research is used by several actors with different interests. However, in our understanding, the social fragmentation of ILSA research provides several possibilities for translating ILSA research into different understandings and policy directions.

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At present, ILSA knowledge production seems to align with economic interests in education.

Notes 1 Note that we differentiate between ILSA, which is an acronym for International LargeScale Assessments, i.e. assessments like PISA and TIMSS, and ILSA research that relates to studies using the data from e.g. PISA and TIMSS. 2 The writings by von Wright can be understood in relation to discussions about scientific explanations with positions referring to nomothetic knowledge interests and functionalism etc. 3 It may be more accurate to consider Connell (2007) and Southern theory as a reminder of which problematics ILSA research works with.

References Becher, T. & Trowler, P. R. (2001). Academic Tribes and Territories. Philadelphia: Open University Press. Berliner, D. (2018). The implications of understanding that PISA is simply another standardized achievement test. S. Lindblad, D. Pettersson & T. S. Popkewitz (eds.) Education by the Numbers and the Making of Society: The Expertise of International Assessments. New York & London: Routledge. Carvalho, L. M. (2012). The fabrication and travel of a knowledge-policy instrument. European Educational Research Journal, 11, 172–188. Connell, R. (2007). Southern Theory. Crows Nest, New South Wales: Allen & Unwin. Crane, D. (1972). Invisible Colleges: Diffusion of Knowledge in Scientific Communities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Epstein, E. H. (2008a). Crucial benchmarks in the professionalization of comparative education. C. Wolhuter, N. Popov, M. Manzon & B. Leutwyler (eds.) Comparative Education at Universities World Wide (pp. 9–24). Sofia: Bureau for Educational Services. Epstein, E. H. (2008b). Setting the normative boundaries: Crucial epistemological benchmarks in comparative education. Comparative Education, 44(4), 372–386. Forsberg, E., Nihlfors, E., Pettersson, D. & Skott, P. (2017). Curriculum code, arena, and context: Curriculum and leadership research in Sweden. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 16(2), 357–382. Forsberg, E. & Pettersson, D. (2015). Meritokratin och jämförande kunskapsmätningar. G.-B. Wärvik, C. Runesdotter, E. Forsberg, B. Hasselgren & F. Sahlström (eds.) Skola Lärare Samhälle: en vänbok till Sverker Lindblad. Göteborg: Göteborgs universitet. Foshay, A. W., Thorndike, R. L., Hotyat, F., Pidgeon, D. A. & Walker, D. A. (1962). Educational Achievements of 13 Year Olds in Twelve Countries. Hamburg: UNESCO Institute of Education. Hacking, I. (1990). The Taming of Chance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hacking, I. (1992). “Style” for historians and philosophers. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 23(1), 1–20. Hacking, I. (2002). Historical Ontology. Cambridge & London: Harvard University Press. Husén, T. (1979). An international research venture in retrospect: The IEA surveys. Comparative Education Review, 23(3), 371–385. Leydesdorff, L. (2001). A Sociological Theory of Communication: The Self-Organization of the Knowledge-Based Society. Irvine, CA: Universal Publishers.

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Lindblad, S. (2013). Curriculum codes and international statistics. M. Pereiyra (ed.) Systems of Reason and the Politics of Schooling. New York & London: Routledge. Lindblad, S., Pettersson, D. & Popkewitz, T. S. (2015). International comparisons of school results: A systematic review of research on large scale assessments in education. Delrapport från SKOLFORSK-projektet. Stockholm: Vetenskapsrådet. Luhmann, N. & Schorr, K. E. (2000). Problems of Reflection in the System of Education (Vol. 13). Münster: Waxmann Verlag. Mølstad, C., Pettersson, D. & Forsberg, E. (2017). A game of thrones: Organising and legitimasing knowledge through PISA-research. European Educational Research Journal, 16(6), 869–884. Mølstad, C., Pettersson, D. & Forsberg, E. (forthcoming). The Intellectual Organisation of a Knowledge Field: An Example of International Large-Scale Assessment Research. Novoa, A. & Yariv-Mashal, T. (2003). Comparative research: A mode of governance or a historical journey? Comparative Education, 39(4), 423–438. Paulston, R. G. (2009). Mapping comparative education after postmodernity. International Handbook of Comparative Education, 965–990. Pettersson, D. (2008). Internationell kunskapsbedömning som inslag i nationell styrning av skolan. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Uppsala Studies in Education No 120. Uppsala: Uppsala universitet. Pettersson, D. (2014). Three narratives: National interpretations of PISA. Knowledge Cultures, 2(4), 172–191. Pettersson, D., Popkewitz, T. S. & Lindblad, S. (2017). Into the Greyzone: Agencies betwixt and between governmental policy, research and practice? Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 3(1), 29–41. Said, E. W. (2016). Orientalism. Stockholm: Ordfront Förlag. Sellar, S. & Lingard, B. (2013). The OECD and global governance in education. Journal of Education Policy, 28(5), 710–725. von Wright, G. H. (1971). Explanation and Understanding. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. von Wright, G. H. (1983). Practical Reason. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Whitley, R. (2000). The Intellectual and Social Organization of the Sciences. Oxford: Oxford University Press on Demand.

Chapter 6

Evidently, the broker appears as the new whizz-kid on the educational Agora Carl-Henrik Adolfsson, Eva Forsberg and Daniel Sundberg

Introduction A number of changes have been made to the international educational Agora in recent decades. This is especially evident in the production, dissemination and use of educational data and knowledge. An extension and manifestation of the Agora in both the public and private sectors can be identified, as can an increase in the actors and activities involved. With the establishment of broker agencies, new relations have emerged. Consequently, the interaction between research, policymaking and educational practice has been redesigned and educational knowledge reformulated. Motives for the changes in the Agora can be traced back to different sources. Educational research has typically been carried out within a discourse of change, such as in research on emancipation, a specific reform or a more modest improvement. This idea of progress is “a teleological and hopeful discourse” (Smeyers & Depaepe, 2016 p. 2). Even though educational research has been criticised, the notion of evidence-based research implies a hopeful research discourse, at least in a technical sense. However, doubts about the quality and relevance of educational research for policymakers and professionals are high on today’s agenda. As mentioned by Gert Biesta (2009), critics have described it as “fragmented, non-cumulative and methodologically flawed and . . . often it was tendentious”. Another reason for the changes and the establishment of broker agencies is the international educational race that is visible in PISA and its ranking system. It is important for a national school system to stay on top, or to find out ‘what works’ so that student performances can be improved. Similar trends can be identified in Sweden, where an intensive debate about students’ insufficient academic achievements is ongoing and the consistent trend of falling results in international ranking systems (especially PISA) is of topical interest. This, in combination with a general international evidence movement, has legitimised the establishment of a new government broker agency, the Swedish Institute for Educational Research (SIER). This agency, established in 2015, has a specific function to compile and distribute evidencebased knowledge to professionals in Swedish schools. The overarching aim is to contribute to research-informed teaching; the assumption being that this

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will eventually improve students’ achievements. In this chapter, we use the establishment of SIER in Sweden as an illustrative case to explore the interplay between research, policy and practice on the educational Agora. Our study, which is framed by actor network theory (ANT), focuses on the production of research reviews by SIER and its epistemic and sociopolitical consequences. We have studied the process from SIER’s political initiation, formation and establishment and, finally, its production and dissemination of the first research reviews. The empirical material analysed consists of policy documents (commission reports and internal SIER policies), interviews within SIER (policy actors as well as research staff and project coordinators) and internal policy documents, such as review guidelines and instructions to reviewers. The following two research questions are addressed: •

•

How can the production of research reviews by the Swedish Institute for Educational Research (SIER) be described in terms of formalisation and legitimacy? What are the epistemic and social consequences of the establishment of the Swedish broker agency?

In our concluding notes we focus on the formalisation and standardisation of knowledge, as well as issues of legitimacy within the scope of the broker agency. Questions are also raised about the relation between evidence and value and who decides what will count as (useful) educational knowledge. In addition, the interplay between research, policy and practice is discussed.

The new production of evidence in education Internationally, a rich variety of intermediaries, i.e. actors whose task it is to disseminate and mediate research and evidence to various target groups, has emerged (Håkansson & Sundberg, 2015). These actors range from established organisations and networks to government authorities whose mandate includes dissemination. The purpose of these evidence-brokering organisations is usually to identify relevant primary studies, systematically scrutinise the quality of such studies by applying explicit criteria and, finally, to summarise and synthesise the results. The goal is to inform as well as instruct various interested parties (those active in the field, decision-makers, researchers) and the public as to what is known within various areas, point to where knowledge is lacking and thus provide knowledge to improve and reform the school (Foss Hansen, 2014). Accordingly, the intermediaries work with evidence production and dissemination in the borderlands between research, politics and practice. The evidence movement defines evidence primarily as synthesised knowledge (Tripney et al., 2014). This knowledge is presented in reviews and is updated when new results appear within the field. However, the methods used to create the reviews vary. The internationally best-known broker organisations – the

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Cochrane Collaboration, the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) and the Campbell Collaboration – have focused on so-called impact factors (Håkansson & Sundberg, 2015). Consequently, these organisations primarily rely on randomised control tests and quasi-experimental approaches. Others have included qualitative methods and studies. The idea that the school system, its policy and practice can be grounded on evidence and research knowledge is not new. In Sweden, the piecemeal social engineering approach framing the science-policy contract in the 1940s and 1950s is well known. The political decision-making was to be guided by expert knowledge, both to discover the problems to be addressed, articulate possible solutions and develop methods to implement the solutions effectively. Even though commissions and long-term broad public participation played a major role in the major welfare system reforms, specially designed expert assignments on a crowded Agora now characterise the interplay between researchers, experts and policymakers in the education sector (Larsson et al., 2012). Today, we argue, the interplay between research, school politics and school practice is framed and configured by other conceptual models and networks that need to be scrutinised. In line with ANT, we regard various organisations on the educational Agora as intermediaries. Usually they are authorities with other and more widespread responsibilities and have a secondary task to promote and aid the spread of knowledge. This means that their primary task has been (as still is, for example in the case of the Swedish National Agency for Education) to supervise and provide support for better schooling for all citizens as the central administrative authority for the public school system. Its legitimacy is grounded in the idea of being constructed on the principle of science and rationality. However, the Agora consists of both formal and informal network relations between actors inside and outside the education system. The legitimacy of educational knowledge is thus dependent on the strength and stability of different network relations. In Sweden, the establishment of SIER is an example of the so-called broker organisations that emerged internationally in the 2000s. This type of organisation is primarily intended to promote the production, distribution and consumption of evidence. The broker thus becomes a new actor in the arena, functioning somewhat as a spider in the web through which knowledge travels and becomes interconnected. Two processes are central to an understanding of how broker organisations operate, i.e. the formalisation and the legitimation of their knowledge production. The first is the formalisation of the production of evidence. This refers to a process of standardising the roles, methods, tasks, work distribution and so forth. This chapter especially looks at the delegation of knowledge and the procedures through chains of translation and inscriptions found in education research reviews. Delegation is about how tasks in a process within a system are differentiated and delegated to different experts and different technical systems. The aim is to secure quality by means of a functional differentiation of roles and tasks. A central question here is who is the expert, or who counts as an expert

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in the production of evidence in education? Taking SIER and its production of systematic research reviews as an example, it is interesting to study how the processes linked to this production are differentiated into predefined phases and steps. This is in turn manifested in inscriptions and a clear division of tasks between actors. Inscriptions are negotiated agreements within an organisation about something. In SIER, these agreements (silent or manifest) are materialised in policy and guidelines for the production process of a research review. The notion of inscription thus refers to the ways in which technical artefacts embody patterns of use. Technical objects simultaneously embody and measure a set of relations between heterogeneous elements. They are: “a material translation of any setting that is to be acted upon. Inscriptions have to travel between the context of action and the actor remote from that context” (Robson, 1992 pp. 691–692). The production of evidence is embedded in procedures of inscription (Latour, 1987, 2005), i.e. the rendering of what is contested and not-yet-fixed immutable or possible to circulate in the form of mathematical formulae or visual representations. Such inscriptions are the outcome of the effective alignment of organisation, procedures and technology (for example by statistical plots and diagrams), as will be highlighted in the empirical case study. Second, we highlight processes of legitimacy. What counts as legitimate evidence in the standardised procedures of research review production? Who is the legitimate actor to contribute their expertise in the production of evidence? Here we are concerned with how the ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ dimensions are strengthened and weakened in different networks, how expert roles are renegotiated and what such changes could mean for the initiation, production, dissemination, consumption and intervention of educational research knowledge. The new production of evidence in the education sector, which is our hypothesis, involves renegotiated contracts between scientific, political and professional spheres in education. Although previous research has mainly been concerned with the formal roles and contributions from broker agencies in education (see for example Masell et al., 2012; Daly, 2014), we argue that the proposed theoretical framework offers some understanding of the internal processes of the formalisation of legitimisation processes that have not been fully acknowledged in previous studies.

The Swedish Institute for Educational Research: the institutionalisation and formalisation of evidence In the light of the general international evidence movement, and in combination with an intensive debate about the falling levels of Swedish school results, the establishment of SIER became a legitimate policy solution. In 2014, the government appointed a special investigator with a mandate to prepare and instigate the establishment of a new school research authority. The authority’s main purpose was to systematically evaluate and disseminate relevant research

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results to schools and preschools (dir. 2014:7). The point of departure was the notion that those working in the school system needed support and directions in order to implement work routines and methods supported by scientific evidence. The investigator’s brief acknowledged the prior existence of a number of government bodies with similar purposes. However, a stumbling block was the lack of an authority similar to that in the healthcare sector that systematically: sorts, scrutinizes critically and methodically evaluates relevant research results with respect to scientific quality and weighs the knowledge that is found in comprehensive, practically useful reviews of knowledge. (Dir. 2014:7) Consequently, the investigator’s report (U2014:02) emphasised medicine’s clinical research as a desirable raw model. SIER was regarded as a new and important intermediary between researchers and the school system, which meant that it became an important solution to the problem of how to build a school education on a scientific foundation. According to the reports, its most important function would be to map reviews, validate existing research and identify knowledge gaps. With these gaps in mind, and in close cooperation with schools and preschools, the institute’s main task was to produce systematic research reviews and to some extent provide funding for practice-based research. It was also envisaged that SIER would be responsible for making available and disseminating research results within the school system (U2014:02). The report is thus an example of the conceptualisation of a system of collectively produced knowledge, where practising pedagogues not only consume knowledge that has already been produced, but also participate in creating new knowledge in cooperation with researchers in various knowledge reviews and research projects. SIER was established in 2015 and its charter reflects the formulations of the earlier report. In the Government Ordinance entitled “With instructions for the Swedish Institute for Educational Research” (SFS 2014:1578), it is evident that the institution’s primary task is to assist school leaders and teachers in developing scientifically based teaching methods, thus creating better conditions for learning and improving pupils’ achievement levels. In SIER’s clear focus on research on subject specific didactics, included as part of its work with ongoing research reviews, the determination to gain control over the actual teaching process is obvious. This is also apparent in the kind of research applications funded by SIER. Thus, SIER’s work involves validating and systematically compiling research results and presenting and disseminating the results to actors within the educational system. Its mandate is also to identify areas where there is a lack of practice-centred research and to advertise and distribute research funding. SIER thus has to combine two fundamentally different ideas concerning the relation between research and practice. On the one hand, there is the concept of practice-based research, which stresses that learning takes place in specific

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contexts and situations. This is countered, on the other hand, by a great faith in systematic reviews, founded on essentially generalisable knowledge. The reviews are meant to establish valid factors indicating progress that can be used in policy creation and in the work of the schools – once professionals have translated them so that they can be applied in the local context. A similar duality can be found in the mediating function of SIER. Decisions as to which areas need to be reviewed should, according to SIER policy, be reached in close consultation with representatives from the schools. In other words, there is a commitment to an interactive, mediating approach in the development of research-based school practices. However, the distribution of the reviews and the implementation of their results follow a more traditional ‘top-down’ strategy of dissemination. SIER translates, packages and disseminates research in a format that enables teachers to effectively apply the results to their own teaching.

Formalisation and legitimation of the procedure of SIER reviews Based on internal SIER policies and interviews with actors at SIER, the production processes of the systematic research reviews within the organisation have been examined. The result points to a highly formalised process in terms of clear delegation and differentiation of functions. The production of SIER reviews is systematised around a number of predetermined steps. One of the interviewed actors at SIER described this systematisation in the following way: Now, we have produced a checklist over all single steps of the process of the production of the research reviews and a list over what every person should do in all these steps. All steps must be included. (Interview with actor at SIER) The motivation behind such a strong formalisation and delegation is primarily to assure a certain quality of the production of the reviews. Additionally, it also serves as a way of obtaining transparency in the production process as such: The purpose of transparency of presented and structured methods for identifying, selecting and compiling research results is to minimize the risk of random or arbitrary effects should affect the results. It should also be possible to follow and evaluate the work of selection of research and the compilation of results. (SIER’s website) Figure 6.1 illustrates the different steps taken in the production of all research reviews at SIER in a schematic way:

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Figure 6.1 Flowchart of the different steps producing a research review at SIER

Brief ly, and in line with the f lowchart in Figure 6.1, the process of the production of a research review starts with a so-called needs auditing phase, where representatives from SIER visit schools and talk to different school actors (primarily teachers) about their teaching related problems. The aim of this phase is to identify knowledge needs and knowledge gaps within the school practice. Based on these discussions, a number of empirically founded questions are formulated. In the next step, these questions are handed over to the information experts at SIER, who then conduct an overarching literature research with the aim of linking research situation to the current questions. In the next step, the head of SIER, in consultation with the SIER ‘Research Council’, decides what kind of research reviews will be produced and the specific focus they should have. Subsequently, a group consisting of a project leader, a number of external researchers, an information expert and a communicator expert is formed. With the aid of information experts, for example composing search strings, the project group is responsible for the production of the research review in line with the steps illustrated in the flowchart. A communication expert and the project leader are finally responsible for the dissemination and intervention of the current research review. While several of the interviewed review producers emphasised that this strict formalisation and delegation was good, especially in terms of ensuring

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transparency, others described the whole production process as a rationalism that in some ways had been drawn too far: When developing questions and conducting reviews, a highly ordered system is applied, appearing very solid. However, it is a form of excessive rationalism . . . there is no sense in it. (Interview with review producer at SIER)

Narratives of legitimation The question of legitimation is closely linked to the narratives of formalisation and the delegation process of the production of research reviews at SIER. A key discourse within SIER centres on the importance of, and how, it should obtain external legitimacy. First, a dominating narrative emphasises that the Swedish school and the teaching within it are not research based and that there is a lack of relevant educational research for teachers: • •

But, was the teaching at Swedish schools not research based before the establishment of SIER? No, that is not my opinion . . . no absolutely not. It is more up to the single teacher . . . it is a wide variation among teachers. (Interview with an employee at SIER)

Another important foundation for legitimacy is SIER’s work to involve teachers in the production process of the research reviews. A strong motivation behind the establishment of SIER is its close connection to school practice, especially in the ‘needs auditing phases’. An argument is that the produced reviews are able to fill identified knowledge gaps within the school practice and can contribute to solving practical school-related problems. At the same time, actors within SIER state that the step between the articulated ‘needs’ school actors and the production of a research review is not an easy process, in that it has been difficult to match teachers’ expressed needs with SIER’s declared purposes: Teachers’ expressed needs had to be compatible with the institute’s assignment. A lot of teachers talked about frame factors and I understand that those are important for them, but it is not our assignment, for us, the teaching practice is in focus. (Interview with an employee at SIER) At the same time, some critical voices within SIER argue that the ambition to include representatives from school practice, both in the process and the socalled ‘board of SIER’, implies that the researcher tends to be sidelined:

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The management prioritizes teacher representation and the board at the expense of the knowledge of researchers and the council. . . . At SIER it is more of a civil servant steering. (Interview with a member of the research board) A final important legitimacy aspect is how the results from the research reviews should be communicated in relation to school practice. How the representatives of SIER consider communication with school practice is interesting, because it also says something about how the they comprehend the teachers with whom they are expected to communicate. The communication strategy can be described as a reduction of complexity in combination with a strong focus on the usefulness of reviews. According to a representative from SIER, the results of the research reviews need to be ‘translated’ into a more practiceoriented language: The practitioners are our target group . . . everybody have [sic] to realize that. Maybe some will think that we simplify too much, but it is all about an adjustment to language of the teachers. (Interview with an employee at SIER) From this perspective, the communication experts at SIER play an important role from the very beginning of the production process of the reviews: Early in the process they [the project group] had a language consultant involved who emphasized the importance of writing clearly and easily . . . this should not be a heavy scientific report. (Interview with a communicator at SIER) In addition, all the finished reviews are summarised so that teachers can easily refer to the results. In these summarised papers, there is obviously no room for discussion about the methods or possible results contradictions. In short, the ways in which SIER actors discuss how the communication with the school should be organised point to an established understanding that the school actors are generally neither interested in nor proficient in reading and understanding educational research.

Concluding remarks In this chapter we have explored SIER, a significant player in the Swedish evidence movement, and the actors and processes linked to the production of research reviews. In policy, the establishment of SIER was legitimised by deteriorating school performances and lower ranking in international comparative tests. A ‘fear of being left behind’ and a demand for a better position

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in the educational race were evident in the arguments promoting the idea of this broker agency. Questions were also raised about the quality of educational research, which was considered non-cumulative, non-transparent and methodologically flawed. Above all, it was seen as non-responsive to ‘what works’ and to professional needs for guidance. The relevance issue was accompanied by dissatisfaction with the large amount of small-scale qualitative research, a lack of research syntheses, the way research was disseminated and the overall (non)use of research. In both policy and the media, changes and improvements in educational practice and research and their interplay were called for. The establishment of SIER was part of a reform era emphasising a scientific foundation of teaching through research reviews and the allocation of resources to practice-based research. The interlinkage between research and technology is obvious in both the test industry and in research syntheses, especially meta-analyses, but also in reviews including qualitative research. Technology has facilitated the collection, classification and comparison of large volumes of data. While this is primarily a good thing, there are also risks. What counts as knowledge and values could be reduced to what can be measured and what is considered as evidence. There may also be a disconnection between what is desirable, i.e. the value-base of education and what is effective practice (Biesta, 2010). In the last decades, a number of knowledge brokers have been established internationally. Their task is primarily to disseminate and mediate research and evidence to various target groups (Håkansson & Sundberg, 2015). In this respect, Sweden can be seen as an ‘early bird, but a late bloomer’. Even though there have been and still are a lot different so-called intermediaries on the Swedish educational Agora, Sweden was rather late in acquiring its first knowledge broker institute compared to other countries. A clear distinction between SIER and many other knowledge brokers internationally is that it is a governmental authority. However, from a Swedish historical point of view, this may not be so striking. The idea of a research based and informed welfare sector, including the school, is not a new phenomenon in the political discourse in Sweden. As mentioned initially, the establishment of the welfare state in the 1950s and 1960s was based on the idea of ‘holistic rationalism’ (Lindesjön & Lundgren, 2000). The welfare state and the research community were considered capable of solving societal problems in close collaboration and able to steer societal development in a desirable direction. Accordingly, the relationship between the political sector, the school and research was for a long time quite strong, and in many ways still is. The rationalism that is embedded within SIER in terms of an extensive formalisation and delegation points in such a direction. Research syntheses conducted by Swedish researchers 1990–2014 were characterised by a low grade of formalisation (Adolfsson, Forsberg & Sundberg, 2018). Against this background, the initiation, production, dissemination and consumption of SIER reviews represent a new era. Formalisation and

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standardisation are manifested through a delegation of purposes and assignments to different actors and resources in the review process. Ways of understanding, designing and conducting reviews are inscribed in the established policy, the review guidelines and the published review. There are indications of a high degree of actor differentiation and rather strict procedures and steps to follow for the different experts involved in the process. This is partly shown in the flowchart in Figure 6.1. Even though only a few reviews are published, there are implications of both epistemic and social consequences. The focus is on empirical questions, intervention studies and empirical evidence. The main questions in the review process concern validity, transparency, inclusion criteria, findings and implications (what works and cost-benefits). There has been the import of an a-theoretical language of educational knowledge from clinical research based on the logics of calculation and extreme applicability. Restricted review questions, evidence, generalisation and effectiveness outweigh conceptualisation, values, contextualisation and understanding. A simple, rather than complex, understanding of the educational phenomena is employed, which has led to a number of otherwise relevant studies being excluded. The relevance of the reviews for professionals needs to be problematised in relation to the conceptualisation of research questions, educational purpose, contexts and the complexity of interaction. As has been discussed in this chapter, the formalised production process of SIER reviews implies a kind of bypassing of the research community. This means that the question of what should count as a relevant, useful and legitimate research review is placed in the hands of an administrative authority (SIER) and the school practice. In line with a strict delegation principal, researchers become technicians or methodological experts. At the same time, it is important to underline that research funding in Sweden is still mainly organised through faculty funding and (inter)national research funding agencies. From that perspective, although SIER might not be considered as the whizz-kid, it is a new actor that influences the relation between policy, practice and research. In the end, the educational system and the nature and use of evidence are questions of power. However, power is not something that is possessed by an actor, but rather something relational and exercised. Judging from the evidence practices of SIER, with its research reviews and grants to practice-based research projects, we can state that any teacher seeking a meaningful participation in these processes must possess competences related to the procedures that generate evidence and be able to critically evaluate that evidence. In addition, professional judgement is needed to decide which evidence is relevant, and in which situations and contexts. Under these conditions, the preconditions for a robust conceptualisation of evidence, anchored in both science, technology and school practice, could be created.

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References Adolfsson, C.-H., Forsberg, E. & Sundberg, D. (2018). When the evidence movement came to the Swedish School [När evidensrörelsen kom till den svenska skolan]. In: Alvunger, D. & Wahlström, N. (ed.) (2018). The Evidence-Based School – the Swedish School in the Intersection Between Research and Practice [Den evidensbaserade skolan: svensk skola i skärningspunkten mellan forskning och praktik]. Stockholm: Natur & kultur. Biesta, G. (2009, March 19). Educational research, democracy and TLRP. Invited lecture presented at the TLRP Event ‘Methodological Development, Future Challenges’, London. Biesta, G. (2010). Why ‘what works’ still won’t work: From evidence-based education to value-based education. Studies in Philosophy & Education, 29(5), 491–503. Commission Report (2014:02). Investigation about the Establishment of a Institute of Educational Research. Stockholm: Department of Education. Committee Directive (2014:7). The Establishment of a Educational Research Institute [Inrättandet av ett skolforskningsinstitut]. Stockholm: Swedish Government. Daly, A. J. (2014). The critical role of brokers in the access and use of evidence at the school and district level. K. S. Finnigan & A. J. Daly (eds.) Using Research Evidence in Education: From the Schoolhouse Door to Capitol Hill. Cham: Springer International Publishing. Foss Hansen, H. (2014). Organisation of evidence-based knowledge production: Evidence hierarchies and evidence typologies. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, 42(13), 11–17. Håkansson, J. & Sundberg, D. (2015). Educational Research in Educational Policy: Analysis and Conclusions about Different Models for Mediation [Utbildningsvetenskaplig forskning i utbildningspolitiken – Analys och slutsatser kring olika modeller för mediering]. Stockholm: Swedish Research Council. Larsson, B., Letell, M. & Thörn, H. (eds.) (2012). Transformations of the Swedish Welfare State: From Social Engineering to Governance? New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Latour, B. (1987). Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the Social. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lindesjön, B. & Lundgren, U. P. (2000). Education Reforms and Political Governance [Utbildningsreformer och politisk styrning]. Stockholm: Liber. Massell, D., Goertz, M. E. & Barnes, C. A. (2012) State education agencies’ acquisition and use of research knowledge for school improvement. Peabody Journal of Education, 87(5), 609–626, DOI: 10.1080/0161956X.2012.723506 Robson, K. (1992). Accounting numbers as ‘inscription’: Action at a distance and the development of accounting. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 17(7), 685–708. SFS (2014:1578). Ordinance with Instruction for the Swedish Institute for Educational Research. Stockholm: Swedish Government. Smeyers, P. & Depaepe, M. (eds.) (2016). Educational Research: Discourses of Change and Changes of Discourse. Educational Research 9. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. Tripney, J., Kenny, C. & Gough, D. (2014). Enabling the use of research evidence within educational policymaking in Europe. European Education, 46(1), 55–74.

Chapter 7

Bridging worlds and spreading light Intermediary actors and the translation of knowledge for policy in Portugal Luís Miguel Carvalho, Sofia Viseu and Catarina Gonçalves

Introduction The vision of a ‘backward’ education system in the light of the rhythm and successes of so-called ‘more advanced’ countries is at the core of the thinking that has guided education in Portugal since the mid-nineteenth century. António Nóvoa writes about this strong position at the turn of the century in the following way: The twentieth century ends just as it began, with a strong sense of ‘backwardness’ towards Europe. Studies, diagnoses and manifestos resent the state the school is in and demand urgent measures. We must put order in school. We must put the school in order. A new ‘education battle’ is announced. . . . By the end of the twentieth century, the country seems as confused and disturbed as it was in the late nineteenth century. Portuguese society is aware of the path taken in the last thirty years, but the indicators explain that the distance towards other European countries is increasing. (Nóvoa, 2005 p. 121) Fed for more than a century with the injunctions of international statistics (Candeias, 2005; Nóvoa, 2005) on the coordinating and communicational spheres of education, the rhetoric about Portuguese educational ‘backwardness’ remains central today. More recently, in the framework of the Europeanisation of education (Lawn & Grek, 2012), benchmarks and indicators such as those used in the Education and Training Monitor have contributed to this. These benchmarks and indicators encourage comparisons between systems and renew the projection of ‘Portuguese backwardness’ in matters related to early leavers from education and training, tertiary educational attainment, or participation in adult learning (see e.g. European Commission, 2017). Significantly, even when the positive variation of indicators (perceived as legitimate for assessing the state of the educational system) allows for praise for national success and for hope to overcome guilt, the rhetoric of Portuguese education ‘backwardness’ persists. For example, in the context of the results of

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PISA 2015, and in the light of the graphical positioning of Portugal indicated above, the public’s reception of the results was on the one hand divided between the dispute over the merit of the identified improvement and the naming of a central problem on the other, namely that of ‘backwardness’ in relation to more advanced systems: the excessive grade repetition of Portuguese students vis-à-vis their European counterparts (Carvalho, Costa & Gonçalves, 2017). The deep-rooted version of a ‘fear of being left behind’ is performed in diverse policy spaces, including emergent spaces where expert knowledge based on numbers is enacted as a ‘driver of improvement’ in education. In this chapter, the focus is on two collective actors immersed in these dynamics: aQeduto and EDULOG. Both became public in 2015, are small-scale organisations with significant web and media presence, are supported by two different philanthropic foundations and build expert knowledge in order to frame and shape other actors’ involvement in policy processes. The presence (and relevance) of actors operating ‘between’ organised spaces of activities, i.e. between knowledge and policy, has been captured in social research by diverse analytical categories, such as ‘mediators’ (Jobert & Muller, 1987), ‘brokers’ (Jenkins-Smith & Sabatier, 1993), ‘intermediaries’ (Nay & Smith, 2002), ‘transnational policy actors’ (Lawn & Lingard, 2002), ‘boundary persons’ (Sultana, 2011) or ‘intermediary organisations’ (Cooper & Shewchuk, 2015). More importantly, their agency is associated with the rise of new transnational and intra-national spaces of policy (Lawn & Lingard, 2002; Ball, 2016) and an intensified knowledge of mobilisation in policy contexts (Levin & Cooper, 2012). We use the notion of intermediary actors (Nay & Smith, 2002) to describe those engaging in cognitive and social operations for the construction and stabilisation of interactions between ideas, individuals and technical devices and to analyse the emergent actors and their specific activities that frame and shape other actors’ involvement in policy processes. As a result, important similarities are found between these two organisations that contribute to their characterisation as intermediary actors. First, expertise and mediation between diverse knowledge and social worlds are two central ingredients in the organisations’ logics of action, in that they basically act in public spaces through processes of mobilisation, fabrication, dissemination and the legitimisation of expert knowledge (a type of knowledge that is depicted as useful and necessary for supporting public policies that will improve educational performance in Portugal). It is also through this knowledge that they intend to connect distinct actors from the world of education – academics, administrators, politicians, professionals, families and lay people – in more informed and enlightened processes of reflection and decision-making. Second, the establishment of relations with those diverse worlds operates in ways that are commonly observed in ‘third-communities’ (Lindquist, 1990), such as information generation, publication and convocation activities, but also through new modes that engage the receivers in interactive relations with data and information. This new presence and its modes of action seem to be

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inseparable from the emergence of new ways of orienting, coordinating and controlling education systems, in which the cyclical monitoring of data and information takes centre stage. This chapter is organised in three sections. First, the two intermediary actors and the methodology used in the empirical study are presented. Second, the main features of these two actors that illustrate their translation(s) of knowledge for policy are presented: self-presentation as experts and mediators, basic assumptions about the social role they perform, such as helping to enlighten their audiences and illuminating public choices, and the role they imagine for education systems and how these might be governed, and main activities that aim to connect knowledge and policy. The chapter ends with a discussion and some concluding remarks.

Methodological notes In recent years in Portugal there has been an increase in the number of organisations that are committed to supporting, producing and disseminating knowledge to improve public policies and private decisions. This follows the trend that has been observed in Europe in the last decades (McGann, 2016). Two collective actors in particular stand out in terms of the ‘novelty’ they bring regarding their purposes and activities in the Portuguese educational scenario, including their public visibility and concerns in providing updated, abundant and detailed information about themselves and their connections to the private and business world. The first actor is “aQeduto (Aqueduct) – Quality and Equity in Education” – which entered the public scene in 2015 as a result of its regular and important presence in the media and its conveyance of credible and useful information and explanations about PISA results to policymakers and lay people. These intentions are new in Portugal, where the work of intentionally transforming PISA results into knowledge for policy has been both occasional and random (Carvalho, Costa & Gonçalves, 2017). Idealised by a former president of the National Council of Education 1 (CNE), David Justino (2013–2017), aQeduto became a joint venture between CNE and Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos (FFMS), a major national philanthropic foundation that funded the project. FFMS was created in 2009 by Alexandre Soares dos Santos, one of the richest businessmen in Portugal, who until 2013 was CEO of a large Portuguese economic group dedicated to the retail and wholesale market in Portugal and internationally. FFMS publishes and funds research, promotes discussions about social issues, works with ‘experts’ and produces data on Portugal and Europe and uses ‘digital media’, with the “mission of providing all citizens with access to this information” (FFMS, 2017). Nowadays FFMS’s website hosts the materials that are produced within aQeduto. The second actor is EDULOG, the first self-titled think tank devoted exclusively to education in Portugal. The purpose of EDULOG is to take objective

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and relevant research and information to decision makers in an “attempt to influence educational policies to solve the most pressing problems of the educational system” (Correia, 2017). This explicit and public educational agenda also embodies a relatively new phenomenon in Portugal (Viseu & Carvalho, 2018). EDULOG emerged from the philanthropic activities of Belmiro de Azevedo (1938–2017), one of the richest businessmen in Portugal, who until 2015 spearheaded an international holding company operating from Portugal in retail, hotels, technology, building materials, real estate and the media. When he announced his retirement from executive positions he embraced corporate social responsibility activities, including EDULOG; a legacy that he wanted to leave to the country (EDULOG, 2017). This study began with a document analysis of the presence and massive online content published by aQeduto and EDULOG. This mainly included internet searches for website documents, Facebook, media pieces and press clippings, conferences and seminars and calls for applications for research funding. Extensive information was obtained about the purposes and activities of aQeduto and EDULOG and we later interviewed the heads of both organisations – aQeduto’s coordinator and EDULOG’s secretary-general, both of whom showed interest in the study.2 Considering the extent of the data available on the internet, the aim of the interviews was to fill in the information gaps and create new insights into the data collected through the internet searches. The interviews took place as informal conversations and the questions emerged naturally around the topics (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2007). The data was analysed in order to better understand how expert knowledge is produced and disseminated and how these two organisations attempt to frame and shape other actors’ involvement in policy processes.

Self-presentation: mediators and experts The first feature to emerge was their self-portrayal as mediators and experts. This was done in different ways: in aQeduto the mediation is carried out by internal experts, whereas at EDULOG this is external. Mediation using internal experts

Presenting itself as a mediator between PISA knowledge, the public and decision makers, aQeduto claims to provide policymakers and lay people with ‘credible and sustained information’ and ‘explanations’ about the variation of the results of Portuguese students in the PISA tests “in simple language but preserving scientific rigor” (aQeduto, 2017). Team members of aQeduto see themselves as inhabiting the space between the complex and difficult language of science and the simple language of ‘the masses’. They also see themselves as expert mediators, who simplify the complex data on PISA’s databases so that lay people can understand it. The challenge of mediation involves the production of secondary analyses and making them available to the masses. In other

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words, the project does not simply offer data for the general public, but aims “to explain the variation of students’ results in the PISA tests” (CNE, 2015 p. 31). These explanations are presented as both necessary and important so that numbers can be useful in “providing public opinion with credible and sustained information on the performance of Portuguese students, through an accessible language but keeping scientific rigor” (aQeduto, 2017). aQeduto recurrently depicts these explanations as evidence-based, solely built from PISA’s data and entirely free of misleading interpretations. From the organisation’s point of view, for the correct understanding of the reality of the Portuguese educational system, data must be kept intact and opinion must be kept apart: “[t]here is no mother, father, politician, commentator or specialist who does not have a connection to the education system or an opinion about it. But data and analyses are not always available to help us move beyond common sense or mere opinion” (Educação em Exame, 2017; see also Ferreira, 2015 p. 19; Flores, Casas-Novas & Ferreira, 2015 p. 226; aQeduto, 2017). In aQeduto, all team members are identified as experts; first of all, as experts in PISA’s statistical methods, which are referred to as extremely complex. aQeduto’s coordinator states that this complexity “is such that one of [the team’s] major difficulties . . . was to find people who would help with the data analysis” (aQeduto’s Coord.). The team members’ expertise is presented as a very complex statistical and psychometric knowledge that is scarce in Portugal. However, simply possessing such knowledge does not appear to fully align with aQeduto’s aims, in that there is a consequent need for “a multidisciplinary team, made up of researchers from different scientific areas, bringing together experts in education policy, evaluation, economic rationality, communication and statistics/data analysis” (aQeduto, 2017). aQeduto’s coordinator is a former PISA national project manager (2012–2013) with expertise in multivariate data analysis in the field of psychology. The project team includes four other members:3 David Justino, CNE’s former president, researcher and professor of sociology at a public university and former Minister of Education (2001–2003), a coordinator for data analysis who studied economics, another researcher and professor of sociology at a public university and a member of the scientific and technical advisory team of CNE.4 There are two distinct levels of complementarity. On the one hand, the team members have expertise in the methods (statistics) and the object (education). On the other hand, there are academic experts (university professors) and experiential experts (connected to school contexts or with experience in communication). As such, it could be said that there is a certain mediation between the different worlds in the team itself. Mediation through external expertise

EDULOG also aspires to work as a mediator, in that it aims to act as a ‘bridge’ between academia, policymakers and practitioners (EDULOG SG) to support

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and provide “objective research and information” about the Portuguese educational system for “policymakers and other actors to make better decisions” (EDULOG, 2017). EDULOG’s has a simple organizational structure and relies on external expertise, i.e. information and knowledge provided by EDULOG are produced outside its formal structure and/or daily tasks. This is accomplished either by EDULOG’s advisory board or through calls for research funding. EDULOG’s advisory board is chaired by a former rector of the University of Porto (1985–1998) and a researcher of higher education policies and consists of “people with high experience and knowledge of educational policies, systems and practices” (EDULOG, 2017). This includes two former ministers of education – who also became consultants for the president of the republic in educational matters – and two former secretaries of education, the former president of CNE, David Justino, who also takes part in aQeduto, former university rectors, senior professors and researchers of higher education institutions, and the CEO of the company that founded EDULOG. All these actors have long career paths with important academic and expertise capital and are recognised by a broader public audience as specialists in education and good ‘bridge builders’ from the different social worlds of politics, business and academia. In addition, EDULOG’s knowledge expertise is also developed externally by outsourcing knowledge production. For that, it opens regular calls for the funding of research projects, with themes, objectives and expected results defined a priori and committed to practice and field interventions. By December 2017 EDULOG had launched six such calls: one on the impact of teachers on students’ learning, one for the creation of an EDULOG education observatory, one for management skills in schools, two calls for research projects on the transition to the labour market from vocational secondary education and one regarding explanatory factors of school failure. It should be noted that educational research has produced considerable knowledge in each of these themes, so that instead of seeking new knowledge, these calls refocus the research agenda on these topics with a view to making “scientific research and its dissemination accessible and intelligible” (EDULOG SG). In this sense, EDULOG selects and chooses the problems that should be on the research agenda and also sets patterns for research (external) communication in its role as a mediator and creator of expertise.

Spreading the light Another strong common feature of these two actors is that they aim to ‘spread the light’ and illuminate their audiences and public choices in accordance with their structures and ways of achieving mediation. For aQeduto, this process is all about making PISA complex knowledge easy and transparent to the public, while for EDULOG the aim is to make unattainable knowledge accessible and understandable to all.

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On information and governance

In FFMS’s scientific coordinator’s words, aQeduto wants to “put information out there and so any proposal or idea may at least be based on information, based on the best there is” (Nunes, 2015). The challenge of delivering information includes the transformation of the secondary analyses that are produced, thus “resorting to an approach in very simple language, one which would allow anyone to understand” (aQeduto Coord.; see also CNE’s former president David Justino’s statements in Nunes, 2015). This transformation involves plain language, ‘accessible graphics’ and a “focus on concrete themes” (Ferreira, Flores & Casas-Novas, 2017 p. 12). Moreover, it comprises a significant effort for the dissemination of what is produced within the project by adopting a “very dynamic approach, by permanently publishing things” (aQeduto Coord.) and by looking for ‘intuitive’, ‘digital and interactive’ ways of “combining the facts’ accuracy with a simple way of communicating” (Educação em Exame, 2017). This mediation is developed in order to construct an understandable reading of what exists by means of its ‘intelligible dissemination’ (EDULOG SG). EDULOG’s Secretary-General expressed her concern about how the knowledge generated from the funding of EDULOG is understood and transferred to contexts of practical application: I’m a lay person, . . . an ordinary citizen. Maybe I’ve even had more education opportunities than most, but I didn’t understand . . . a report from a group of researchers with whom we were working. . . . Our role is to be careful, to prepare the information. . . . We know the world we live in. People read headings and follow the sound bites. . . . We know this, so let’s work this out. (Interview with EDULOG’s Secretary-General) The concerns of spreading the light and informing the public are part of EDULOG’s remit to help “schools and society to know more and more about what is happening in education, to make comparisons and make decisions to prevent problems and set up new interventions” (EDULOG, 2017). For EDULOG, informing the public includes the creation of an Observatory for Education, which provides free online indicators (and statistical data) about the education system in terms of the performance and quality of schools. For this, EDULOG hired a university consortium to “create metrics on the state of education in Portugal, global and detailed, each year” in order “to inform political discussions with facts” and to “encourage policy makers and other actors in the education system to make decisions based on rigor and objectivity” (EDULOG, 2017). Acknowledging aQetudo’s vocation to “provide the public opinion with credible and sustained information on the performance of Portuguese students” (aQeduto, 2017) in transnational testing, EDULOG pointed out that the

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Observatory’s vocation was to seek specific national and contextual indicators relating to the public’s observatory targets (teachers, school managers, families, municipalities, business and employers) (EDULOG, 2017). This Observatory is a good sign of EDULOG’s vision of creating “cycles of reflection, recommendation, measurement and analysis of the educational system” (EDULOG, 2017). On the education system and educational knowledge

How these two actors present themselves as mediators and experts, their ambitions to enlighten the public and the activities they develop to carry out that purpose, includes implicit and explicit assumptions about the workings of the Portuguese education system. Despite the recurrent self-referencing as mere mediators between data and lay people, aQeduto’s materials and the statements from its team members show how the educational system is highlighted as being in need of improvement (Justino, 2015; Ferreira et al., 2017) and that this would be better steered through evidence-based policies (Ferreira et al., 2017; Flores et al., 2015) in order to produce “productive and competitive” adults (Ferreira et al., 2017 p. 19). There are also hints of political and research agendas, such as in the example of the persistent discussion about the issue of grade repetition (Ferreira et al., 2017; aQeduto Coord.; Educação em Exame, 2017; aQeduto, 2017), or the reference to the importance of developing qualitative research on the best practices that are identified by quantitative methods (aQeduto Coord.). EDULOG also displays certain and closed visions about education and education systems. First, the rules expressed in the calls for research funding show a functionalist view of the production of knowledge, in that they aim to “find solutions, foster innovation and educational change” and achieve an “adjustment between what is taught in schools and what the country needs” (EDULOG, 2017). This functionalist view goes hand in hand with the assumption that education can bring social mobility; a certain ideology of schooling that may result from the proximity of EDULOG to the business world and its founder. According to the EDULOG website, this self-made man’s story shows the “impact that a quality education can have on a person’s life”. In his own words: It is well known that one of the figures that marked my life was my primary school teacher. A teacher who demanded a lot of work, a lot of rigor and a lot of discipline, but at the same time he was able to transmit the passion for the discovery of knowledge. . . . This kept me thirsty to learn, . . . determined my course and made me always be connected, in different ways, to education. (EDULOG, 2017)

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Traditional third communities’ activities and beyond These two actors embrace activities close to those characterising the role of ‘third-communities’ (Lindquist, 1990), such as information generation, publication and convocation activities. Information generation

aQeduto aims to reach diverse audiences that may be sensitive to different approaches and pursue different activities. This is noticeable in the variety of products and activities that are put in place and shape the way the ‘knowledge for the masses’ is generated. The information consists of secondary analyses of OECD’s PISA databases and is organised around a set of ten original themes with a strong proximity to PISA in Focus5 (Figure 7.1). This acknowledged mimicry (aQeduto Coord.) is present in the definition of the ten themes and also in the choices that shape the produced analyses in an easy-to-understand way. For example, the themes are turned into catchy questions using plain (or even slang-like) language, the theme under analysis is subject to country comparisons, crossings with other variables (e.g. ESCS) and observed along a timeline, simple but diverse graphs are included together with brief explanations and straight to the point sentences guide the narrative. Following a different approach, EDULOG aims to identify ‘knowledge holes’ (EDULOG SG) in which more research is needed, thus opening regular calls for the funding of research projects. The ethos behind information generation activities is (powerfully) synthesised in the following statement: “We are objective but we are not neutral. We [aim] to feed the policy debate with facts” (interview with EDULOG’s Secretary-General). On the one hand, the statement illustrates the pursuit for a certain objectivity that comes from numbers and the concern to create and make available data that illuminates public and private decisions. On the other hand, the statement also indicates that EDULOG does not intend to be a neutral actor, but one that participates in the construction of the educational agenda, namely the research agenda setting. Publication

aQeduto’s mimicry of PISA in Focus is also present in the eleven monthly leaflets (one for each theme plus a final one) published on the project’s website, Facebook page and in an online national magazine. Moreover, both aQeduto’s website and final report are fully organised around these themes, which shows that the definition of the ten concrete questions structures both the information generation and the publication activities. This monthly rhythm is also visible in aQeduto’s significant media presence, which together with the described

Figure 7.1 Similarities between PISA in Focus and aQeduto’s materials

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products is a result of considerable investment in dissemination, as indicated in aQeduto’s final report: We invested in accessible language and graphics to communicate the results of the project; in an approach focused on specific and delimited topics presented in monthly discussion forums . . .; in the making and monthly distribution of 11 brochures with the synthesis of the studies in a total circulation of 2500 copies; in the mobilization of institutional communication channels, namely aQeduto’s and its partners’ (CNE and FFMS) websites and social media; in the work with the media that covered and disseminated all the topics presented, both the written and the online press. This investment resulted in the publication of about 250 articles in newspapers and magazines, radio interviews, participations in television programmes and opinion blogs. (Ferreira et al., 2017 p. 12) EDULOG is highly oriented towards digital platforms. Its website was conceived as a modern, interactive, responsive and friendly platform and aims to reach a wide range of users. It publishes an extensive range of information online, including news about events, media clippings on education and video clips and research reports that can be viewed and/or downloaded free of charge. In addition, EDULOG is present on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and YouTube. A part-time journalist works for EDULOG and collects news about education and prepares online materials. This shows the importance that is given to these media in order to disseminate a message and gain more visibility in and credence with public opinion. Convocation

aQeduto organised eleven monthly media covered half-day seminars with the strong logistical support of FFMS. These were seen as opportunities for the dissemination of each leaflet and for “trying to talk more with people” (aQeduto Coord.). Ten seminars were dedicated to the presentation of the information generated on that month’s theme followed by questions. The eleventh seminar concluded the series by revisiting all ten themes and was part of ‘The month on Education’, a larger event organised by FFMS that included several talks and seminars. Interestingly, this last seminar included an assessment of people’s reception of the information generated, in what can be seen as an attempt to understand whether the ‘lessons were learnt’.6 EDULOG also promotes informal and periodic events, known as EDUTALKS, which are open to the public, and conferences to disseminate the preliminary results of the funded research projects. Moreover, EDULOG promotes annual conferences with a more scientific focus. By 2017 three conferences had been held: one to discuss the value that Portuguese people assign to

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education, another to look at the economic development in southern Europe and a third to examine “science education and economic development”. The titles of these convocation activities anticipated a debate on education and its relationship with the social and economic development of the country. . . . and beyond

In addition to these publication, information generation and convocation activities, a fourth type of activity is identified that appears to take a step forward in the search for ‘interactive and intuitive’ ways of knowledge dissemination. In association with a national weekly newspaper, the materials produced by aQeduto were also recently turned into a digital platform hosted by FFMS’s website. Called Educação em Exame (Education under Examination), this platform assembles the secondary analyses on the ten themes and is organised in a novel way so that visitors can obtain or interact with other resources: information about the PISA tests, a comparative map in which the user can choose which data to see represented, a sample of PISA’s test questions that can be completed, additional information on the Portuguese educational system, the possibility of comparing the evolution of education expenditure in Portugal with other countries and so on. This device presents new characteristics in the national context. On the one hand because it uses data from a test carried out by an international organisation, comparing national results with those of other countries. On the other hand, and more importantly, because of its high degree of projected interactivity, since users are invited to manipulate the data they want to obtain, complete a test, or watch some videos. In the same direction, EDULOG’s Education Observatory was planned as an interactive online digital platform for users to explore according to their goals and interests. The Observatory aims to help “schools and society to know more and more about what is happening in education”, including the possibility to ‘make comparisons’ of performances between schools (EDULOG, 2017).

Discussion and concluding remarks This study focuses on the emergence of two small-scale organisations that are financially linked to philanthropic organisations in the Portuguese public space of education and, in particular, on their specific activities that frame and shape other actors’ involvement in policy processes. Four aspects stand out from our interpretative analysis of these actors’ mediations between expert knowledge and policy: a) they add complexity to the political process, b) they update and expand the relationships between elites in the fabrication of policies, c) they activate explicit and implicit frameworks for both the reading of and the thinking about the situation of Portuguese education and d) they promote new modalities of education regulation, in which knowledge and the cyclical monitoring of data and information take centre stage.

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The above four aspects can be elaborated on as follows: a)

The rise of these new mediator and expert actors anticipates an increased complexity in the policy processes in Portugal, where two trends appear to be evident. The first is the complexity that results from the expansion of social actors who position themselves as reflexive and/or reflexive-inductor actors and either question educational reality or promote prescriptions – as to how the educational system should be reoriented. The second is the complexity that results from the increase of data, information and knowledge that these new actors want to see circulating in policy construction spaces, as well as in those spaces where policies are deliberated and legitimised. b) The making of these new intermediary spaces merges state actors (or actors that have represented the state for a long time) and experts with important academic, social and political capital. However, many of these actors are not new to education policy processes, but are instead old actors with new ways of asserting their own strategies, legitimising a set of values and spreading their ideas about the educational system and new modes of governance. This could in turn lead to the renovation of an active involvement in decision-making by the formation of close relationships with politicaladministrative elites. c) The diverse activities (publication, convocation and so on) pursued by these actors are pathways through which agenda-setting occurs and where sets of rules that guide the beliefs, attitudes and conducts of the intermediary actors can be observed. These rules establish normative connections between governance and information and between educational knowledge and the steering of education systems. Processes of educational governing based on performance indicators for actors (students, teachers, managers, politicians) and/or systems (schools, national school system) are legitimised, either through their problematisation, or in prescriptions that target the changing of educational reality. Likewise, particular forms of educational knowledge are legitimised – those capable of finding solutions and triggering innovations required for an educational system that is permanently presented as being in need of improvement and/or maladjusted in the face of the demands of its economic, social and cultural contexts. Ultimately, the choice of research to be disseminated or financed legitimises a certain type of knowledge and certain knowledge producers and supports their existence and expansion. Supporting the production of knowledge for policy is also to make a policy of knowledge (Viseu & Carvalho, 2018). d) The beliefs and the dispositions for action that are made known in the official declarations and in the activities of the two studied organisations do not necessarily mean that a change from ‘government to governance’ has taken place in Portugal (cf. Ozga, 2009). Despite this, those beliefs and dispositions do show the emergence of actors who are well connected to political-administrative elites and of a rationale that imagines the processes

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of governing education as a space for the intervention of multiple actors (including the formal actors of politics), i.e. an informed intervention that is based on the evidence generated by expert knowledge and through varied and cyclical accountability practices. These practices include those that are supported by digital platforms and permanent performance monitoring. As Simons (2014) explains, objects – whether individuals, organisations or countries – are called to account for their performance to other relevant actors, with a voluntary and open adherence to the constant feedback those digital solutions offer. The ‘fear of being left behind’ is certainly a part of this cyclical mutual-surveillance obedience.

Notes 1 CNE is an education policy consultancy body of the Ministry of Education. From 2013– 2017 CNE called for a stronger evidence-based knowledge production approach (see CNE, 2015) rather than a broader and less numerically-focused knowledge for policy vocation. 2 Quoted in the chapter as ‘aQeduto Coord’. and ‘EDULOG SG’. 3 In an earlier phase the team also included one other member who had previously worked (2008–2011) as a PISA national project manager. 4 Thus, the team embraces quantitative approaches to psychology and sociology, and economics, which illustrates the importance of data and data sciences in the production of knowledge about education in Portugal as elsewhere (Ozga, 2012). 5 “PISA in Focus is a series of concise monthly education policy-oriented notes designed to describe a PISA topic” (www.oecd.org/pisa/pisaproducts/pisainfocus.htm). The following examples illustrate the mimicry referred to: PISA in Focus 13 – “Does money buy strong performance in PISA?” vs. aQeduto Q1 – “Education and Economy: who goes ahead?”; PISA in Focus 7 – “Private schools: Who benefits?” vs. aQeduto Q7 – “Public or private: is there a perfect model?”. 6 Prior to the seminar, participants were asked to answer (on an online form) ten multiplechoice questions related to the secondary analyses produced by aQeduto (e.g. “Does attending preschool affect student achievement at age 15?” and “What is the percentage of Portuguese mothers who only completed the 9th or a lower grade?”). Graphs on participants’ answers were then presented with the motto “Was the lesson learnt?”, together with a summary of the information generated on each theme.

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EDULOG (2017). EDULOG – Think Tank da Educação [Think Tank for Education]. Retrieved December 19, 2017, from www.edulog.pt/ Ferreira, A. (2015). Projeto AqEDUto – Avaliação, Qualidade e Equidade do Sistema Educativo em Portugal [Evaluation, quality and equity in the Educational System in Portugal]. CNE (ed.) Investigação em Educação e os Resultados do PISA (pp. 19–29). Lisboa: CNE. Ferreira, A., Flores, I. & Casas-Novas, T. (2017). Porque melhoraram os resultados PISA em Portugal: Estudo longitudinal e comparado (2000–2015) [Why PISA Results Improved in Portugal]. Lisboa: Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos. FFMS (2017). Sobre a Fundação [About the Foundation]. Retrieved September 5, 2017, from www.ffms.pt/sobre-a-fundacao Flores, I., Casas-Novas, T. & Ferreira, A. (2015). Projeto aQeduto: O que mudou na educação em Portugal – doze anos de avaliação internacional [aQeduto project: What changed in Education in Portugal: Twelve years of international assessments]. CNE (ed.) O Estado da Educação 2015 (pp. 226–251). Lisboa: CNE. Justino, D. (2015). Encerramento. CNE (ed.) Investigação em Educação e os Resultados do PISA (pp. 19–29). Lisboa: CNE. Nunes, F. (2015). Projeto aQeduto: os alunos têm melhores resultados. Mas porquê? [Students have better results: But why?]. Observador. Retrieved July 20, 2017, from https:// observador.pt/2015/12/15/projeto-aqeduto-os-alunos-melhores-resultados/

Chapter 8

A data-driven school crisis Andreas Nordin

Introduction Although education has been measured for different purposes for a long period of time, it was not until the post-World War II period that this enterprise received considerable attention (Lawn, 2013). In the wake of the war, new international associations and specialist centres emerged, such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 1945, the Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) in 1958 and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 1961, all of which are central to the development of what Nordin and Sundberg (2014 p. 11) referred to as an emerging “test industry in the education sector”. They viewed the world as a laboratory in which they could perform experiments to test different aspects of schooling, such as organisation, content and methods of instruction. In doing so, they contributed to the establishment of what Husén refers to as the “empirical-positivist paradigm” in education (Lawn, 2014 p. 29). However, over the years there was also a growing frustration within the IEA and the OECD regarding how their studies were used and acted out at the national level. Andreas Schleicher, the Director for Education and Skills and Special Adviser on Education Policy to the Secretary-General of the OECD, stated that policymakers tend to use international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) selectively, often in support of their own agendas, rather than as a means for change (Schleicher, 2016). Seamus Hegarty, chair of the IEA from 2005–2012, argued that it is “disappointing, if not totally surprising, that the most visible manifestation of the IEA and other international large-scale assessment studies is the country ranking . . . it is regrettable that they tend to obscure the more substantive purposes served by the studies” (Hegarty, 2014 p. 51). Both scholars also highlighted the important role of the media in distorting the intentions of surveys and thereby, public debates. Hegarty wrote that: “sweeping judgments are made that take no account of key contextual information or the fact that many of the apparent differences are not statistically significant” (Hegarty, 2014 p. 51). This illustrates that when used for political reasons, data always becomes ‘truth’ through social processes, which are not entirely guided by scientific

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principles. It also reveals the double-sidedness of relying solely on statistical data to present the whole truth about a complex matter, such as national education systems. On the one hand, it appeals to a public ‘mindset’ shaped during the emergence of the modern state with great faith in social engineering and creating stable and predictable institutions. As pointed out by Porter (1995), faith in objectivity and making decisions based on numbers provides an answer to the moral demand for fairness and impartiality in modern democratic society, thus lending legitimacy to vulnerable politicians. On the other hand, in today’s late modern society, which is increasingly characterised by globalisation, non-linearity and unpredictability, relying on statistical data that is processed through social practices while working along the modern rationale actually invites uncertainty, in that principles of linearity and predictability are undermined (Bauman, 2006). Lawn (2013 p. 9) describes this phenomenon in the following way: “constant pressure to produce, analyse and act upon the data is now self-generating”. Undecided politicians turn to statistical data for moral relief to such an extent that comparable data has become constitutive for governing education (Fenwick, Mangez & Ozga, 2014). It could be argued that the well-intended initiatives to provide policymakers with robust knowledge to guide policymaking, in late modernity, have simultaneously become selfgenerating practices that continuously fuel the educational system with new uncertainties and unexpected results over which local politicians have little or no control. Steiner-Khamsi (2003) discusses policy responses to unexpectedly poor performance in international large-scale assessments in terms of ‘scandalisation’, meaning that national policymakers respond by highlighting the shortcomings of their own educational systems. In this chapter, scandalisation is discussed as the first phase in the establishment of a national school crisis driven by unexpectedly weak performances in ILSAs. This is followed by a discussion about what is referred to as a second phase, called ‘normalisation’, where the logic and ideational content of the first phase gradually begins to permeate policymaking at all levels, thereby governing the way in which education is understood and acted out. Taken together, these two phases constitute what is henceforth referred to as ‘a data-driven school crisis’ (DSC). The aim of this chapter is to elaborate on the notion of a data-driven school crisis as a way of understanding and analysing how unexpectedly weak performances and the insecurity of results contribute to the production of a national school crisis, which in turn frames and governs education in a specific way. The argument is presented in four steps, which also reflects how the chapter is structured. First, examples of research on different aspects of DCSs are provided, followed by a discussion about policy as a discursive practice. Next, ‘scandalisation’ and ‘normalisation’ are discussed as the two phases that constitute DSCs. Empirically, the argument for the first phase draws on results from two previous studies on the establishment of a Swedish school crisis in the early 2000s (Nordin, 2012, 2014b), while the second phase draws on a previous

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study on the communicative interactions between the European Union and the Swedish Government as expressed in National Reform Programmes (Nordin, 2017). Thus, the main contribution of this text is not the novelty of the empirical findings, but rather the way in which the results from previous studies are combined in the concept of a data-driven school crisis, thus offering a more coherent analytical framework for understanding the fundamental processes that take place at the national level when facing unexpectedly weak results in ILSAs. The chapter ends with concluding remarks and suggestions for further research.

A data-driven school crisis Until recently, the concept of school crisis in research has mainly referred to social problems, such as ethnic conflicts, violence and school shootings at a local level, or best practices for crisis prevention and intervention at a national level. However, in recent years a growing number of publications have linked school crises to unexpectedly weak performances in ILSAs and the ways in which policy actors at the national and local levels respond to them (e.g. Baroutsis & Lingard, 2017; Gorard, 2001; Nordin, 2014b; Slater, 2015; Takayama, 2007, 2008). While some countries are engaged in positive learning processes and share best practices with high-performing countries, others are left in a state of shock (cf. Addey et al., 2017; Gorur, 2014; Grek, 2009; Steiner-Khamsi, 2003). As Porter (1995 p. 17) argues, “numbers too, create things and transform the meaning of old ones”. Recent studies of data-driven school crises have shown that they not only create better practices, but also contribute to the creation of a national school crisis, the radical transformation of education and giving it new meaning(s). An underlying assumption in this chapter is therefore that regardless of the emergence of new transnational policy spaces, geographical context still matters (Steiner-Khamsi, 2003; Waldow, 2012; Nordin & Sundberg, 2014) and that productive processes in which policy is given new meaning(s) are related to the recontextualisation of policy ideas and discourses within and between such contexts (Steiner-Khamsi, 2013; Nordin, 2014a; Carvalho & Costa, 2015). The different ways in which ILSAs are acted out nationally are thus related to the contextual premises established at a given time and their ability to facilitate the process of national politicians lending and/or borrowing policies while maintaining public legitimacy (Waldow, 2012). Historically, international references have not necessarily been part of these legitimation strategies, especially not in countries with strong self-confidence in education, such as Germany and Sweden (see Martens & Niemann, 2013; Nordin, 2014b; Waldow, 2009). However, since ILSAs have increasingly become part of domestic educational policy discourses, introducing a new statistical language that is unfamiliar to many national politicians and where externalisation in terms of international references has become imperative (e.g. Alasuutari &

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Rasimus, 2009; Nordin, 2014b, 2017; Pettersson, Prøitz & Forsberg, 2017; Ringarp, 2016; Ringarp & Waldow, 2016; Takayama, 2010). As this ‘quick language’ (Lundahl & Waldow, 2009) lends legitimacy in times of crisis, it redistributes authoritative power from context-dependent political decisionmaking to decontextualised instruments and external expert groups, over which national politicians have little or no control. In addition, it contributes to making already ‘fast policies’ (Lewis & Hogan, 2016) even faster, thereby placing pressure on perplexed politicians to act quickly and decisively. Simultaneously, the media has begun to play an increasingly important role in scandalising education and creating discourses based on weak ILSA results (Baroutsis & Lingard, 2017). The media has thus become a catalyst in constituting national crisis discourses through ‘tabloid journalism’, in that statistical data is oversimplified and misused in favour of scandal and sensation (Hegarty, 2014; Martens & Niemann, 2013; Takayama, 2008; Wu, 2010). Rather than facilitating in-depth analyses, a seemingly accessible lingua franca is used to discuss education at a superficial level. As described by Martens and Niemann (2013 p. 314), “everybody can understand that being ranked #5 is different from being #77, or that a positive value in any rating differs from a negative”. This instant language appears to be effective whenever and wherever politicians are urged to take immediate action, because it operates instinctively, is inclusive and requires no content knowledge.

Policy as a discursive practice Discursive institutionalism (DI) (Schmidt, 2008, 2010, 2011) is used as a theoretical point of departure to analyse the emergence of a data-driven school crisis and the ways in which it frames how educational policymaking is understood and acted out within national borders. DI is a neo-institutional approach, which in recent years has been used to analyse and develop theories on educational institutions (e.g. Nordin, 2014b; Nordin & Sundberg, 2016; Sivesind & Wahlström, 2017; Uljens & Ylimaki, 2017; Wahlström & Sundberg, 2017). DI views policy as a discursive practice in which discourse is considered an interactive process “by and through which ideas are generated and communicated” (Schmidt, 2011 p. 107), thereby informing the policy-oriented action of sentient agents, which in turn contributes to the transformation (or maintenance) of human institutions with an understanding of institutions as ‘meaning contexts’. DI distinguishes between two types of communicative interactions: a coordinative and a communicative discourse. Coordinative discourse refers to communication that takes place at the level of policy elites, where actors such as civil servants, elected officials and experts coordinate ideas about common policy enterprises. These actors become cognitively united in what Haas (1992) refers to as ‘epistemic communities’. In this chapter, coordinative discourse refers to communication that takes place between policy elites within and between the

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transnational and national levels. Communicative discourse refers to political communication at the national level, where politicians struggle for the legitimation of their ideas amongst the public. This communication also includes other actors, such as community leaders, activists, think tanks, social movements and the media, all of which have played a central role in the establishment and maintenance of a national school crisis (cf. Martens & Niemann, 2013). The coordinative and communicative discourses are multidirectional and have a compound ideational content. DI distinguishes between three different levels of ideas: policy ideas, programmatic ideas and philosophical ideas, all of which constitute the substantive ideas of discursive interactions (Schmidt, 2008, 2011).

Policy ideas Policy ideas are ideas that can change rapidly when ‘windows of opportunity’ (Kingdon, 1984) open during specific policy events, or when old policies become politically unusable. In recent years, unexpectedly weak performances in ILSAs have become increasingly important window-opening policy events. Through the production and use of numerical data, transnational actors such as the OECD and the EU have fuelled educational discourses with a quick, objective and decontextualised language, thus reducing complexity and creating an illusion of universal connectivity (cf. Lundahl & Waldow, 2009). However, as national politicians have little or no control over this statistical language, it creates a distance between national politicians and the events that ‘cause’ their windows of opportunity to open. Although policy ideas themselves are decontextualised, they become part of national policies as they are recontextualised within national borders, making them constituents of more general sets of socalled ‘programmatic ideas’ (Schmidt, 2011).

Programmatic ideas This level of idea refers to the process in which policy is put into practice, such as how schooling is organised and educational programmes are developed. As for the level of policy ideas, policy events are at the forefront of explanations of ideational change at the programmatic level, especially when focusing on crisis-driven policies that radically transform institutional settings and practices (Schmidt, 2011). Programmatic ideas are part of a pragmatic political communication that harbours conflicting ideas and competing agendas. Programmatic ideas are shaped in the tension-field of fast policy ideas that are decoupled from any specific geographical context and the slower philosophical ideas that evolve over time within specific geographical contexts. Put differently, programmatic ideas take shape as national politicians attempt to obtain a balance between transnational pressures to adapt to transnational policy agendas and domestic discourses.

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Philosophical ideas Philosophical ideas refer to broad concepts related to ideology, philosophy, history, academia and culture and are contextual in character. These ideas comprise the organising principles of society that are shared by a majority within a specific population and therefore decide what counts as educational knowledge at any given time. Philosophical ideas change slowly, as they are deeply rooted in the ‘mindset’ of individuals and institutions as part of their self-perception. Historically, philosophical ideas have dominated discursive communications amongst national and local politicians and are still of great importance in maintaining public legitimacy, in that they represent the democratic outcomes of political debates, negotiations and compromises (Schmidt, 2011).

Ideas, space and pace By focusing on the substantive ideas that comprise educational discourses, DI facilitates a multidimensional analysis that acknowledges both the horizontal and vertical dimensions of why policies change in the wake of crisisoriented policy events (cf. Nordin, 2014a). Policy change is thus understood as the result of communicative processes involving different levels of ideas, following different rationales, carried out by different actors and sometimes operating from conflicting agendas. Focusing on discursive interactions also provides a productive dimension, because it guides the thoughts and actions of policy actors, prescribes what is describable and realistic at a given time and contributes to the transformation of educational institutions (cf. Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999). As well as ‘ideas’, the notions of ‘space’ and ‘pace’ are equally important analytical concepts for understanding the productive dimensions of DSCs. As shown by Nordin (2014b) and Lewis and Hogan (2016), these categories are especially important in attempts to understand how unexpected crisis-oriented policy events compress educational spaces and speed up educational reforms. Space and pace facilitate a more elaborate understanding of how the substantive ideas of educational discourses change in times of crisis. These three categories comprise the analytical framework used in this chapter. In the following sections, the framework is used to elaborate on the two phases of data-driven school crises. The first phase involves the scandalisation of education that initially takes place in the wake of unexpectedly weak performances in ILSAs, here exemplified by how PISA results played an important role in the establishment of a Swedish crisis discourse around the early-2000s (cf. Nordin, 2012, 2014b). The second phase involves the normalisation of the national crisis discourse as it is internalised in the ‘mindsets’ of educational actors at different policy levels and governs their everyday thoughts and actions (cf. Nordin, 2017).

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Figure 8.1 Framework for analysing data-driven school crises

Phase one: scandalisation During the 1990s, Sweden underwent a period of extensive reforms in line with neo-liberal principles and Sweden’s 290 municipalities took over the mandatorship of the compulsory school from the state. Nevertheless, unexpectedly weak performances in several rounds of PISA tests soon began to foster reform pressure, urging politicians to rethink some of the reform initiatives of the 1990s. While initially above average in 2000, which was in line with the Swedish self-image of being a progressive and successful nation in terms of education, the results began to decline from 2003 onwards, which created a gap between the national self-image and what was communicated by the OECD. In 2006, the Swedish Government appointed a special investigator to scrutinise the effects of the 1990 reforms in the wake of the declining PISA results and determine which measures should be taken to resolve the issue. In the Swedish Government’s official report (2007:28), the failure of the Swedish compulsory school was considered a fact, and the national curriculum for the compulsory school was described as ‘fuzzy’, ‘vague’ and ‘ideological’. The report argued that the space for interpretation created in the goal-oriented curriculum introduced in 1994 had allowed for a multitude of professional interpretations, thus undermining the overall political efforts towards national equivalence.

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Towards an extreme position Similar to other Nordic welfare states, the Swedish school system has been viewed as an important political tool for developing an equal society based on scientific principles (Telhaug, Mediås & Aasen, 2006). When Sweden officially launched a nine-year comprehensive school for all children in 1962, it was the result of a close and extensive collaboration between the government and the educational research community; an expression of social engineering that gained international attention and shaped the Swedish self-image of being progressive in terms of education. However, when the Swedish Government’s official report (2007:28) was launched, the ideologically influenced policymaking was strongly criticised as one of the main reasons for the declining Swedish PISA results. Therefore, the solutions had to focus on identifying new ways of eliminating the influence of ideology and minimising the space for human interpretation. It was suggested that the space for professional interpretation guiding the selection and organisation of content should be replaced by clear and well-defined knowledge requirements for each grade level in each school subject, that the curriculum should be written in simpler language and that additional national tests should be introduced. All these measures were taken to ensure national equivalence in both teaching and testing. The slow language of politics, informed by ideology, history, philosophy, culture and academy, was replaced by a faster and an abstract numerical language, thereby depriving geographically contextualised politicians of their first language and the foundation on which they based their decisions and pushing the educational policy discourse towards an extreme position.

Politics and media in discursive coalition When the Swedish Government’s official report (2007:28) was released the public debate had already fostered national reform pressure (Nordin, 2014b). As pointed out by Baroutsis and Lingard (2017), the media can play an important role in the co-construction of a national crisis discourse, as was the case in Sweden. In the two leading Swedish newspapers, Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet, the term ‘fuzzy school’ emerged in 2002, and soon the Swedish school crisis became the obvious starting point for any text or programme dealing with the Swedish compulsory school. For example, public service radio published a series of programmes in 2011 on the topic. One programme was called ‘Crisis in the School’ and another ‘The Unjust School’. In 2014, public service television published a series of programmes under the heading ‘The World’s Best Crap School’, and in the same year, the national newspaper Dagens Nyheter published a series of articles under the heading ‘Home to School’, which scrutinised the shortcomings of Swedish schools. These are just a few examples of a wide and varied range of media productions that fuelled the national crisis discourse at the time (for a further discussion on the role of the

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media, see the chapter by Wärvik, Runesdotter & Pettersson). The media and politics formed a powerful discourse coalition that induced reform pressure and urged politicians to take immediate action. Following up on the emerging crisis discourse, a variety of educational reforms were launched in 2011, including a new school law, a new national teacher education programme, new curricula for the compulsory and upper secondary schools and an increased number of national tests. In addition, the Swedish National Agency for Education began to produce new supplementary materials for teachers on how to plan, carry out and assess teaching and learning in a more conformed way (Nordin, 2014b). When the weak PISA results became hegemonic in the Swedish school discourse, politicians were not only deprived of their first language, but also of the resources they usually utilised when seeking support for political actions. During a time when numerical data had become imperative, giving the impression of telling the whole truth about the Swedish school system, ideology, history, culture and academia offered little support in legitimising political reforms, but were instead seen as aspects that contaminated education and as things to be avoided.

Moral relief through externalisation In periods of extensive educational reforms, international references are often used to legitimise national policy agendas (cf. Takayama, 2010; Alasuutari & Rasimus, 2009). However, the ways in which politicians use these references differ between geographical contexts, largely due to issues of legitimation. Waldow (2009) describes the Swedish strategy of referring to ‘the international’ as a ‘silent borrowing’ of ‘undeclared imports’. As Sweden was a role model, acting as a ‘reference-society’ during the 1960s and 1970s, borrowing from other countries has therefore been viewed as a sign of weakness and political stagnation, rather than an approach that strengthens the domestic political agenda. However, Sweden’s position as a role model definitely changed when the first PISA results were presented, placing Sweden in the group of mediumperforming countries (Pettersson, Prøitz & Forsberg, 2017). This unexpected result created a gap between the national self-image and the diagnosis of the Swedish compulsory school communicated by the OECD. As the political and public discourse increasingly viewed the PISA results as telling the whole truth about the Swedish school system, thus replacing the traditional contextdependent language used by politicians with a decontextualised and objective language, Swedish politicians faced a critical dilemma. On the one hand, they could continue to use their first language and maintain a perceived sense of being in control when communicating political solutions, even though they might risk being perceived as being out of touch with the public discourse and the voters and thereby lose political legitimacy. On the other hand, they could attempt to learn the new language, embrace the discourse of numerical data as telling the whole truth about education and thus maintain public legitimacy.

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The Swedish Government moved towards the latter alternative. Unsure of how to interpret and understand the new objective language of numerical data, the Swedish Government turned to the ‘expertocracy’ (Grek, 2013) of the OECD for moral relief, asking them to conduct a thorough investigation on the quality of Swedish schools. Andreas Schleicher presented a report in 2015 which suggested that “Sweden should implement a comprehensive education reform to bring about system-wide change and strengthen the performance of all Swedish schools and students” (OECD, 2015 p. 8). In response to the report, the Swedish Government appointed a National School Commission in April 2015 with the explicit task of following up on the report and making proposals for comprehensive reforms. The full report was then provided to the responsible minister in May 2016, which from a Swedish perspective was a rather short period of time. However, in this case, and because the ‘silver bullet’ solutions were already in place in the OECD report, this reformation rather followed the principle of “reform first and ask questions later” (cf. Lewis & Hogan, 2016). Due to the exceptionally weak PISA performances in 2012 and a growing lack of self-confidence amongst politicians, externalisation became an increasingly important strategy for maintaining public legitimacy in Swedish politics (Nordin, 2014b; Ringarp & Waldow, 2016; Pettersson, Prøitz & Forsberg, 2017).

Figure 8.2 Phase one: Scandalisation

Examining the data-driven school crisis that emerged in Sweden in the early 2000s shows that the discourse of schooling moved towards an extreme position as the fast language of numerical data started to define the very idea

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of schooling. Introducing a decontextualised and objective language offered moral relief for stressed and insecure politicians and transnational policymakers attempting to coordinate national reform agendas. Nevertheless, it was not only the language that became faster in the context of a DSC. The pace of reform also quickened as the crisis discourse put pressure on insecure politicians to take immediate action. An examination of the substantive ideas of the Swedish crisis discourse thus reveals a dramatic ideational imbalance, in that the logic and language of the fast and decontextualised ‘policy ideas’ increasingly defines the educational discourse as a whole. It is therefore likely that DSCs reduce the idea of education and schooling to what is desirable at the level of ‘policy ideas’.

Phase two: normalisation Like Sweden, the European education policy space as a whole was engaged in an emerging crisis discourse in the early-2000s (Robertson, 2008; Nordin, 2012), partly due to the financial crisis and a lack of progress in reaching the common policy goal “to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world” as agreed in the Lisbon Strategy (Council of the European Union, 2000 n.p.). However, bound by the principle of subsidiarity agreed on in the Maastricht Treaty, the EU has to rely on ‘soft power’ exercised through goals, indicators, action plans, recommendations and benchmarking within the realm of the ‘Open Method of Coordination’ (the OMC) in attempting to govern compulsory schooling (Wahlström, 2016). The crisis within the EU in the early-2000s involved the OMC being ‘too soft’ and unable to satisfactorily coordinate national education policies (Alexiadou, 2014; Lawn & Grek, 2012). Like Sweden, the Commission expressed that extraordinary measures must be taken to combat the state of crisis and emphasised clearer goals and transparent benchmarks to better monitor and measure progress (European Commission, 2010). In the ‘Europe 2020’ document, the Commission launched a new architecture for coordinating policy within the EU called ‘the European semester’, in which the need to establish a closer cooperation with member states in identifying ‘national bottlenecks’ that hinder progress and policy coordination was emphasised. This was done by the establishment of a system of developing ‘country-specific recommendations’, a policy cycle running from November to July each year. In this chapter, the focus is restricted to Swedish national reform programmes in order to examine how the Swedish Government communicates with the EU in a context of crisis.

Normalising a ‘crisis rationale’ The introduction of ‘the European semester’ was a response to a perceived crisis and a need to take extraordinary measures. In publishing country-specific recommendations and visualising national efforts and results, the Commission attempted to make the process of national policymaking more transparent and

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hopefully better coordinated through the normative power exercised by strategies of ‘naming and shaming’ (cf. Alexiadou, 2014). Unlike previously, the recommendations were more precise and the Commission described them as ‘tailor-made’. At the time of the launch of ‘the European semester’, the production and use of statistical data had already constituted the European policy space (Lawn & Grek, 2012; Wahlström, 2016). In addition to European institutions, such as the statistical office of the EU (Eurostat) and the Eurydice network supporting European cooperation in the context of lifelong learning, the OECD had become an important ‘co-producer’ of the statistics increasingly constituting the European education policy space (Grek, 2014). Thus, when collaborating with member states to communicate national reform programmes and countryspecific recommendations, statistics were already well established as Europe’s first language for discussing education and schooling. Establishing new policy spaces that guide everyday transnational communication on national politics thus means normalising an extreme position, as the language and logic that characterises the first phase of DSCs begins to permeate all ideational levels, making the exceptional seem normal.

Making compulsory education governable through externalisation In the first round of national reform programmes in 2011, Sweden received complaints about the weak position of young people in the labour market. Despite a focus on young people, no explicit references were made to compulsory schooling. Instead, the Swedish Government used a strategy that has been described as ‘discursive embeddedment’ (Nordin, 2017), meaning that issues concerning compulsory schooling are implicitly being embedded within other policy areas, such as the labour market, social services, adult education or employment agencies. However, in Sweden’s national reform programme in 2012, the governmental strategy radically changed in terms of making compulsory schooling an explicit topic. In the report, the government presents the educational reforms launched in 2011 that aimed at “strengthening the followup and evaluation of students’ level of knowledge” (Sweden’s National Reform Programme, 2012 p. 33). In the subsequent 2013 report, the number of explicit references to compulsory school were still limited, although the role of teachers in combating early dropout rates was emphasised. The 2014 report marked the beginning of a discursive shift towards a more explicit and extensive communication on compulsory education, although it was not until Sweden’s national reform programme in 2017 that the word ‘PISA’ explicitly appeared in the documents. In the 2014 report, compulsory education was emphasised as fundamental to any future educational and/or working life engagement: “Pupils with a good level of knowledge from compulsory school are better equipped to follow a national programme at the upper secondary level” (Sweden’s National

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Reform Programme, 2014 p. 31). It is worth noting that the increased interest in compulsory education in Swedish national reform programmes coincided with a dramatic increase in the number of domestic media articles mentioning PISA from 2013–2014 (cf. Lundahl & Serder, 2017). The catastrophic results of PISA in 2012 were amplified through tabloid journalism, which seemed to evoke a need among insecure politicians to externalise sensitive policy areas, such as compulsory education, over which the EU formally had no legal power, definitively putting an end to the Swedish tradition of silent borrowing and undeclared international import.

Figure 8.3 Phase two: Normalisation

While the first phase of DSCs was concerned with the initial shock of the educational discourse moving towards an extreme position, the second phase highlighted the subsequent processes and the gravity of time as the substantive ideas of the extreme position gradually began to permeate the various ideational levels. However, examining the Swedish national reform programmes reveals that this process of normalisation can hardly be described as a simple top-down process. Rather, the results suggest that it should be understood as a multidirectional process where in times of crisis all parties, transnational as well as national, contribute to the creation of new data-driven policy spaces to facilitate connectivity and governability through transparency. This connectivity is illusive, though, because it simultaneously inserts uncertainty and fear in a self-generating manner (Bauman, 2006; Lawn, 2013).

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Concluding remarks Elaborating on the notion of ‘a data-driven school crisis’ (DSC) shows that the visualisation of numerical data in league tables and ranking lists is not a neutral act. As the logic and ideational content characterising ‘policy ideas’ increasingly becomes hegemonic at all levels, the meaning context in which education is understood and acted out is transformed, thereby creating a discursive imbalance that makes politicians and policy actors insecure. The establishment of transnational policy spaces based on the production and use of numerical data thus offers moral relief in two directions. One is from the national to the transnational level, in that as insecure politicians turn to transnational actors for guidance they externalise power over political decisions. The other direction is that transnational actors are able to influence national reform agendas. The somewhat tentative conclusion is that these parallel processes are reinforced in times of crisis and that the educational discourse is pushed in an extreme position and increasingly fuels transnational policy spaces with statistics in a self-generating way, which leaves national politicians with no other option than to adapt to maintain public legitimacy. However, it is not so much the numbers themselves that cause policymakers and politicians to turn to each other for moral relief, but the fear they release when unexpectedly low performances are visualised in league tables and ranking lists. Therefore, increasing the production and use of numerical data to fill the gap of uncertainty between transnational and national policy arenas, and thereby to enhance transparency, predictability and a sense of connectedness, seems somewhat paradoxical, as it simultaneously releases new uncertainties, which in turn increase the level of fear. However, as numerical data seem to be the only legitimate language available to insecure politicians and policymakers in times of DSCs, they face an unavoidable paradox by building a robust foundation for future decisions based on numerical data while simultaneously creating new uncertainties and setting fear afloat. Investigating the different ways in which ILSAs contribute to the production of a national school crisis therefore seems to be an increasingly important area of research that is still in its infancy, given that DSCs radically transform educational discourses within and between different policy arenas. In this chapter I have elaborated on the notion of ‘a data-driven school crisis’ as a conceptual contribution to such an area of research. However, additional research needs to be conducted in order to provide a more nuanced understanding of this phenomenon, which is increasingly dictating the educational agenda of the late modern society.

References Addey, C., Sellar, S., Steiner-Khamsi, G., Lingard, B. & Verger, A. (2017). The rise of international large-scale assessments and rationales for participation. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 47(3), 434–452.

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Alasuutari, P. & Rasimus, A. (2009). Use of the OECD in justifying policy reforms: The case of Finland. Journal of Power, 2(1), 89–109. Alexiadou, N. (2014). Policy learning and Europeanisation in education: The governance of a field and the transfer of knowledge. A. Nordin & D. Sundberg (eds.) Transnational Policy Flows in European Education: The Making and Governing of Knowledge in the Education Policy Field (pp. 123–140). Oxford: Symposium Books Ltd. Baroutsis, A. & Lingard, B. (2017). Counting and comparing school performance: An analysis of media coverage of PISA in Australia, 2000–2014. Journal of Education Policy, 32(4), 432–449. DOI: 10.1080/02680939.2016.1252856 Bauman, Z. (2006). Liquid Fear. Cambridge: Polity Press. Carvalho, L. M. & Costa, E. (2015). Seeing education with one’s own eyes and through PISA lenses: Considerations of the reception of PISA in European countries. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 36(5), 638–646. DOI: 10.1080/01596306. 2013.871449 Chouliaraki, L. & Fairclough, N. (1999). Discourse in Late Modernity: Rethinking Critical Discourse Analysis. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Council of the European Union (2000). Lisbon European Council 23 and 24 March 2000, Presidency Conclusions. Retrieved August 10, 2017, from www.europarl.europa.eu/summits/ lis1_en.htm European Commission (2010). Communication from the Commission: Europe 2020: A Strategy for Smart, Sustainable and Inclusive Growth. COM (2010) 2020 Final. Brussels: European Commission. Retrieved August 12, 2017, from http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/ en/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A52010DC2020 Fenwick, T., Mangez, E. & Ozga, J. (2014). Governing knowledge: Comparison, knowledgebased technologies and expertise in the regulation of education. T. Fenwick, E. Mangez & J. Ozga (eds.) Governing Knowledge: Comparison, Knowledge-Based Technologies and Expertise in the Regulation of Education (pp. 3–10). New York: Routledge. Gorard, S. (2001). International comparisons of school effectiveness: The second component of the ‘crisis account’ in England? Comparative Education, 37(3), 279–296. DOI: 10.1080/03050060120067785 Gorur, R. (2014). Towards a sociology of measurement in education policy. European Educational Research Journal, 13(1), 58–72. Grek, S. (2009). Governing by numbers: The PISA ‘effect’ in Europe. Journal of Education Policy, 24(1), 23–37. Grek, S. (2013). Expert moves: International comparative testing and the rise of expertocracy. Journal of Education Policy, 28(5), 695–709. Grek, S. (2014). OECD as a site of co-production: European education governance and the new politics of ‘policy mobilization’. Critical Policy Studies, 8(3), 266–281. Haas, P. M. (1992). Introduction: Epistemic communities and international policy coordination. International Organization, 46(1), 1–35. Hegarty, S. (2014). From opinion to evidence in education: Torsten Husén’s contribution. A. Nordin & D. Sundberg (eds.) Transnational Policy Flows in European Education: The Making and Governing of Knowledge in the Education Policy Field (pp. 47–56). Oxford: Symposium Books. Kingdon, J. W. (1984). Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies. New York: Longman. Lawn, M. (2013). The internalization of education data: Exhibitions, tests, standards and associations. M. Lawn (ed.) The Rise of Data in Education Systems (pp. 11–25). Oxford: Symposium Books.

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Lawn, M. (2014). Nordic connexions: Comparative education, Zilliacus and Husén, 1930– 1960. A. Nordin & D. Sundberg (eds.) Transnational Policy-Flows in European Education: The Making and Governing of Knowledge in the Education Policy Field (pp. 21–32). Oxford: Symposium Books Ltd. Lawn, M. & Grek, S. (2012). Europeanizing Education: Governing a New Policy Space. Oxford: Symposium Books Ltd. Lewis, S. & Hogan, A. (2016). Reform first and ask questions later? The implications of (fast) schooling policy and ‘silver bullet’ solutions. Critical Studies in Education. DOI: 10.1080/17508487.2016.1219961 Lundahl, C. & Serder, M. (2017). Selective Truths: The Use of PISA and of Educational Research in Parliamentary Debates and in Media. Retrieved November 17, from www.paristopisa. com/wpcontent/uploads/2017/08/Selective-truths-the-use-of-PISA-and-of-Educationalresearch_final31.pdf Lundahl, C. & Waldow, F. (2009). Standardisation and ‘quick languages’: The shape-shifting of standardised measurement of pupil achievement in Sweden and Germany. Comparative Education, 43(3), 365–385. Martens, K. & Niemann, D. (2013). When do numbers count? The differential impact of the PISA rating and ranking on education policy in Germany and the US. German Politics, 22(3), 314–332. DOI: 10.1080/09644008.2013.794455 Nordin, A. (2012). The politics of knowledge: A study of knowledge discourses in Swedish and European education policy (Doctoral dissertation). Växjö: Linneaus University. Nordin, A. (2014a). Europeanisation in national educational reforms: Horizontal and vertical translations. A. Nordin & D. Sundberg (eds). Transnational Policy Flows in European Education: The Making and Governing of Knowledge in the Education Policy Field (pp. 141– 158). Oxford: Symposium Books Ltd. Nordin, A. (2014b). Crisis as a discursive legitimation strategy in educational reforms: A critical policy analysis. Education Inquiry, 5(1), 109–126. Nordin, A. (2017). Towards a European discourse on compulsory education: The case of Sweden. European Educational Research Journal, 16(4), 474–486. Nordin, A. & Sundberg, D. (2014). Introduction: The making and governing of knowledge in the education policy field. A. Nordin & D. Sundberg (eds). Transnational Policy-Flows in European Education: The Making and Governing of Knowledge in the Education Policy Field (pp. 9–20). Oxford: Symposium Books Ltd. Nordin, A. & Sundberg, D. (2016). Travelling concepts in national curriculum policymaking: The example of competencies. European Educational Research Journal, 15(3), 314–328. OECD (2015). Improving Schools in Sweden: An OECD Perspective. Paris: OECD Publishing. Pettersson, D., Prøitz, T. S. & Forsberg, E. (2017). From role models to nations in need of advice: Norway and Sweden under the OECD’s magnifying glass. Journal of Education Policy, 32(6), 721–744. Porter, T. M. (1995). Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ringarp, J. (2016). PISA lends legitimacy: A study of education policy changes in Germany and Sweden after 2000. European Educational Research Journal, 15(4), 447–461. Ringarp, J. & Waldow, F. (2016). From ‘silent borrowing’ to the international argument: Legitimating Swedish educational policy from 1945 to the present day. Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 1, 29583. DOI: 10.3402/nstep.v2.29583 Robertson, S. L. (2008). Embracing the global: Crisis and the creation of a new semiotic order to secure Europe’s knowledge-based economy. B. Jessop, N. Fairclough & R.

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Wodak (eds.) Education and the Knowledge-Based Economy in Europe (pp. 89–108). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Schleicher, A. (2016). International assessments of student learning outcomes. D. Wyse, L. Hayward & J. Pandaya (eds.) Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment (pp. 913–927). Los Angeles: Sage Publications. Schmidt, V. A. (2008). Discursive institutionalism: The explanatory power of ideas and discourse. The Annual Review of Political Science, 11, 303–326. Schmidt, V. A. (2010). Taking ideas and discourses seriously: Explaining change through discursive institutionalism as the fourth ‘new institutionalism’. European Political Science Review, 2(1), 1–25. Schmidt, V. A. (2011). Speaking of change: Why discourse is key to the dynamics of policy transformation. Critical Policy Studies, 5(2), 106–126. Sivesind, K. & Wahlström, N. (2017). Curriculum and leadership in transnational reform policy: A discursive-institutionalist approach. M. Uljens & R. M. Ylimaki (eds.) Bridging Educational Leadership, Curriculum Theory and Didaktik Non-Affirmative Theory of Education (pp. 439–464). Springer: OPEN. Slater, G. B. (2015). Education as recovery: Neoliberalism, school reform, and the politics of crisis. Journal of Education Policy, 30(1), 1–20. DOI: 10.1080/02680939.2014.904930 Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2003). The politics of league tables. Journal of Social Science Education, 1, 1–6. Retrieved August 10, 2017, from www.jsse.org/index.php/jsse/article/ view/470/386 Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2013). What is wrong with the ‘what-went-right’ approach in educational policy? European Educational Research Journal, 12(1), 20–33. Sweden’s National Reform Programme (2012). Europe 2020: EU’s Strategy for Smart, Sustainable and Inclusive Growth. Stockholm: Government Offices of Sweden. Sweden’s National Reform Programme (2014). Europe 2020: EU’s Strategy for Smart, Sustainable and Inclusive Growth. Stockholm: Government Offices of Sweden. Sweden’s National Reform Programme (2017). Europe 2020: EU’s Strategy for Smart, Sustainable and Inclusive Growth. Stockholm: Government Offices of Sweden. Swedish Government Official Report (2007:28). Tydliga mål och kunskapskrav i grundskolan [Clear Goals and Knowledge-Demands in Elementary School]. Stockholm: Fritzes. Takayama, K. (2007). A nation at risk crosses the Pacific: Transnational borrowing of the U.S. crisis discourse in the debate on education reform in Japan. Comparative Education Review, 51(4), 423–446. Takayama, K. (2008). The politics of international league tables: PISA in Japan’s achievement crisis debate. Comparative Education, 44(4), 387–407. Takayama, K. (2010). Politics of externalization in reflexive times: Reinventing Japanese education reform discourses through ‘Finnish PISA success’. Comparative Education Review, 54(1), 51–75. Telhaug, A. O., Mediås, O. A. & Aasen, P. (2006). The Nordic model in education: Education as part of the political system in the last 50 years. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 50(3), 245–283. Uljens, M. & Ylimaki, R. (2017). Non-affirmative theory of education as a foundation for curriculum studies, didaktik and educational leadership. M. Uljens & R. M. Ylimaki (eds.) Bridging Educational Leadership, Curriculum Theory and Didaktik Non-Affirmative Theory of Education (pp. 3–150). Springer: OPEN. Wahlström, N. (2016). A third wave of European education policy: Transnational and national conceptions of knowledge in Swedish curricula. European Educational Research Journal, 15(3), 298–313.

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Wahlström, N. & Sundberg, D. (2017). Discursive institutionalism: Towards a framework for analysing the relation between policy and curriculum. Journal of Education Policy, 33(1), 163–183. Waldow, F. (2009). Undeclared imports: Silent borrowing in educational policymaking and research in Sweden. Comparative Education, 45(4), 477–494. Waldow, F. (2012). Standardisation and legitimacy: Two central concepts in research on educational borrowing and lending. G. Steiner-Khamsi & F. Waldow (eds.) Policy Borrowing and Lending in Education (pp. 411–427). London: Routledge. Wu, M. (2010). Measurement, sampling and equating errors in large-scale assessments. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 29(4), 15–27.

Chapter 9

Co-production of knowledge on the educational Agora Media activities and ‘logics’ Gun-Britt Wärvik, Caroline Runesdotter and Daniel Pettersson

Introduction In a recent Swedish media debate about Swedish students’ knowledge results in international large-scale assessments, readers were told that the introduction of PISA made it possible to gain a full picture of the ‘situation’ in schools, discuss education more seriously and perform more in-depth analyses. This media statement is a good example of what Hacking (1990) describes as ‘the taming of chance’ and/or the transgression of uncertainty into certainty. The logic in the statement is simply that the chimera of quantifications and comparisons1 is necessary for ‘claiming’ anything at all about education. This chapter deals with this specific activity on the educational Agora – how the media co-produces (cf. Jasanoff, 2004) educational ‘facts’ in-between science, politics and society and how it constantly uses and depends on descriptions offered by the chimera of quantifications and comparisons. In this chapter, the trope of the chimera of quantifications and comparisons is given the material form of the PISA study. In dealing with the media in this way, as an arena for activities on the educational Agora, the chapter provides us with examples of how the specific co-production of the media also provides us with a specific ‘logic’ on how to present and discuss education, which in turn affects other actors and activities on the Agora. Interest in international large-scale assessments has increased considerably in recent decades and the results have been widely disseminated in the media. This also includes the PISA study that is carried out every third year by OECD. PISA can even be seen as a large-scale industry: in the 2015 test-round, a representative sample of some 540,000 students in 72 countries participated in the test to measure their performances in science, mathematics literacy and reading. The total sample was said to represent 29 million 15-year-olds (OECD, 2018). Several scholars have analysed the OECD policy connected to PISA and how it affects national education systems (e.g. Carvalho & Costa, 2015; Grek, 2009; Niemann & Martens, 2018; Sellar & Lingaard, 2014). In our chapter, we do not explicitly walk this common route, but instead turn our attention towards how the printed news media presents PISA and its results. In this we

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elaborate on the notion that these articles seem to be designed to fit a ‘media logic’ and thereby create a specific way of ‘seeing’ education (Debord, 2006; Kellner, 2009). By focusing on ‘media logic’, the discussion is directed towards Hacking’s notion of ‘styles of reasoning’. What we try to answer is to what extent the ‘media logic’ affects the ‘styles of reasoning’ that are evident on the educational Agora and how? In order to do this, we have mapped, sorted and analysed articles published in major Swedish newspapers relating to PISA studies conducted from 2000–2017.

Media logic For the purpose of this study ‘media logic’ is defined as certain rules and procedures that “guide behaviour and action” (Strömbäck & Esser, 2014 p. 14) and that have been incorporated as appropriate, or at least accepted, ways of acting. ‘Media logic’ is a somewhat vague and perhaps contested concept (Lundby, 2009), but we nevertheless use it here to emphasise the more general characteristics of the news media involved in the co-production of ‘news’. Our focus is on how the media and its ‘logic’ reports on what can be termed ‘failure’ or ‘success’ in the results reported by PISA. Our hypothesis is that the news media and the ‘logic’ in this specific field of activities co-produce how education can be thought, talked and written about. Thereby, the news media cannot merely be regarded as an isolated platform for reporting on events, but that it also coproduces specific ‘ways of seeing’ (Debord, 2006) education, which in turn affects other actors and activities on the educational Agora. An example of how this ‘media logic’ works is that some kind of ‘newsworthiness’ (Galtung & Ruge, 1965) has to be present, otherwise the ‘media logic’ will not regard the particular phenomenon as anything worth reporting. Fladmoe (2011) has pointed out some criteria for this, in which it is stated that ‘newsworthy’ events are those that: a) “are sensational, conflict-oriented, clear and easily understood, and that have the potentiality of having significant, often negative consequences” (Fladmoe, 2011 p. 101), and/or b) when the audience can identify with the actors. He also suggests that the actors’ high status and power can be significant for finding an event ‘newsworthy’. In line with this thinking, our focus on ‘failure’ or ‘success’ makes sense and becomes part of how the ‘media logic’ co-produces a specific view of education, for instance in relation to the results emanating from the PISA studies. The PISA studies have the potential to meet the first criterion pointed out by Fladmoe (2011). It is possible, if not easy, to create a ‘message’ that is dichotomous in terms of better or worse, declining or improving and so on. In that way, PISA studies provide the media with results that in one way or another can be reported as unexpected, sensational, or in a conflict-oriented manner (e.g. Baroutsis & Lingard, 2017). In this sense, the ‘messages’ are regularly ‘narrowed’ and/or simplified. It also needs to be said that the media normally reports on PISA in a less complex way than the process of producing PISA results.

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In media discussions, everyday life in schools and classrooms, test situations, analysts’ work and policy processes are normally omitted. It can therefore be said that there is more to know about education than what is seen as economically useful skills (Labaree, 2014), which is often the discourse in media reports on PISA. However, as Mangez and Hilgers (2012) have pointed out, “the fact that things are being simplified does not mean that their meaning is not disputed” (a.a. p. 199). Simplification or ‘narrowing’ is not naive, but as a ‘strategy’ can be used most forcefully to push forward a certain agenda. For instance, and not surprisingly, Grek (2009) noted that national PISA results that do not refer to the top scorers have received the most media attention. The observation here is that the ‘media logic’ is attracted by ‘failure’. Accordingly, the media in countries with fairly successful performances do not necessarily show any great enthusiasm in the PISA results. As stated by scholars, there may also be a cultural component involved concerning how the results are received in a national context, which can for instance downplay the value of a good result (Takayama, 2008; Tan, 2017). A consequence is that more ‘successful’ countries or regions, such as Finland or Shanghai, have been put forward by the media in less successful countries as outstanding role models and even in some nations have caused what is normally termed a ‘PISA shock’ (Sellar & Lingard, 2013). The role that these countries play as being uplifted as the ‘shiny cities on the hill’ by the media has been questioned by scholars as to whether they really affect less successful countries or not (Takayama, Waldow & Sung, 2013). Notwithstanding, it would seem that in terms of ‘failure’ or ‘success’, PISA appeals to a certain ‘media logic’ that makes certain sensational and conflictoriented assets visible and possible to value. Fladmoe’s (2011) second criterion – identification – may also be relevant as a prerequisite for the media’s use of PISA results. This is because those of us with several years of experience in various educational settings are containers of different knowledge of what education can be thought, talked or written about as. Moreover, the appeal to expertise based on research and statistics similarly offers status and trustworthiness (Pizmony-Levy & Börklund, 2018). To conclude, it would seem that the general public expresses greater confidence in the education system if it is situated in a high preforming country in relation to the results achieved in the PISA tests. Thus, we can expect a harsher reception of PISA results in a country like Sweden, where the results in general are regarded as disappointing.

‘Media spectacles’ The media researcher Douglas Kellner has used the concept of ‘media spectacle’, inspired by the French thinker Guy Debord (2006), to embrace media phenomena “that embody contemporary society’s basic values and serve to enculturate individuals into its way of life”, and that “may also embody key societal conflicts” (Kellner, 2009 p. 4). This way of arguing aligns well with the

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notion of a certain ‘media logic’. As such, the ‘media logic’ embedded in the presentations of PISA tests highlights that education is closely related to most individual’s lives and is therefore closely connected to the reproduction of society and is interlinked to key societal conflicts. Therefore, the concept of ‘media spectacle’ seems relevant for conducting analyses of articles presenting educational results. Importantly, the news media not only functions as a gatekeeper and agenda setter, but also seems to be engaged in the setting up of a ‘spectacle’ in which crises and sensations are produced by the actors involved. Evidentially, there must be a design that makes the reporting on events ‘newsworthy’. Following Kellner (2009), ‘media spectacle’ can thus be seen as designed spaces that makes some aspects visible and leaves out others. In Debord’s own words: “The spectacle as a tendency to make one see the world by means of various specialised mediations (it can no longer be grasped directly), naturally finds vision to be the privileged human sense which the sense of touch was for other epochs” (Debord, 2006 p. 120). Debord’s Society of the Spectacle (Debord, 1994/1968) is an abstract line of argument with an ambition to develop a coherent and all-embracing theory of the modern society and a critique of its alienation. Modern life, he argued, has been replaced by its representations. Our point of departure is instead a more modest notion of the ‘spectacle’ as a “contested terrain in which different forces use the spectacle to push their interests and agenda” (Kellner, 2009 p. 78). Our interest is directed to debates embracing the PISA test in the Swedish printed news media. We regard these debates as ‘media spectacles’; a stage on which actors produce mediating images, a way of ‘seeing’. Thus, the ‘spectacle’ is here regarded as a designed space that makes something visible, grabs attention and sines ‘the light’ on different kinds of interests and conflicts, thereby also leaving out what is not relevant for the actual ‘spectacle’. Thereby, ‘spectacles’ also carry a certain expertise. They can be instant in nature or more persistent; following the ‘media logic’ they appear on the newspaper pages as long as they are regarded as ‘newsworthy’.

PISA, the media and the reporting on PISA Let us go back to the media debate on PISA mentioned above: how is education thought, talked and written about in the news media when reporting on PISA? Who are the actors and what kind of activities are played out as educational ‘spectacles’ on the Agora? In trying to elaborate on these questions, it is important to denounce some of the multidimensional aspects of the PISA study. PISA as an international activity is not just a student test. It also manifests the chimera of quantifications and comparisons, a complex production apparatus embracing students and schools, but also, and perhaps mainly, administrators, politicians, policymakers, experts, think tanks, lobby groups, analytics and researchers from several different contexts, layers and nations. It is also important to note that the test is not only of concern for the educational

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sector, but that its scope is considerably broader. Embedded in the context of PISA tests are also notions about the future wealth and prosperity of nations. PISA has thus become an essential segment of OECD’s prioritised activities. Here it is important to remember that OECD is first and foremost an organisation that promotes policies for economic development and growth. Further, PISA studies are not explicitly connected to different national curricula, but in general the results are regarded by OECD as a valid test of students’ achievements at a national level, which also is reflected in the media. The fact that the results are presented in ranking lists that stress the competitive element of the test is important for understanding how the management and implementation of PISA directs its presentation in the media. The effect of this presentation ‘technique’ is that competition, rather than cooperation, is considered as the main incentive for improvement. This notion is further visualised by the fact that the PISA studies are connected to a specific reasoning, namely that knowledge and education are the principal productive factors in what is presently understood as a knowledge intensive economy. Student achievements and economic competitiveness are thus also seen as being interconnected, meaning that PISA results are not only of interest to the educational sector and its professionals, but also to several other actors and activities on the Agora, which is mirrored in the media’s interest in reporting the results of the different tests. Likewise, PISA is not only about knowledge assessments per se. OECD also provides participating countries with policy advice in accordance with the national test results.2 Thus, PISA differs from, for instance, assessments carried out by IEA. Consequently, the PISA results are assigned extraordinary significance in many countries (e.g. Baird et al. 2016). Also, the country reports, the analysis of results and the proposals made by OECD’s PISA staff, maintain the focus on the PISA study. Accordingly, as we will argue, reports in the news media contribute to the (co-)production of a specific way of ‘seeing’ education, which thereafter constructs specific ways of thinking and talking about education, e.g. in terms of educational ‘failure’ or ‘success’. This could explain why PISA receives greater attention in the news media than the PIRLS or TIMSS studies conducted by IEA, but also why PISA is not only an isolated concern of the educational sector but engages actors who are not particularly active in other educational debates. The chapter proceeds in the following way: First we outline our research method and sampling procedures. Thereafter, we briefly introduce the Swedish media reception of PISA in general from the study in 2000 and onwards. Here, the focus is on how a way of ‘seeing’ education is co-produced through the ‘media logic’. In the analysed articles, we use to demonstrate how the media can be seen as an important activity on the Agora, most of the articles seem to be conflict-oriented, but also report on issues that are easy to relate to and are based on personal experiences of education. The articles that we analysed: a) relate to the releases of the PISA results and b) relate to the results of the PISA tests.

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A brief note on method We have scrutinised the reporting on PISA in the Swedish media using the Media Archive (Retriever Research) database,3 which contains the most circulated national daily and regional newspapers. The focus has been on the recurrent releases of the PISA results from 2001 to 2016 (one week before and two weeks after the release). During the period December 2001 until December 2016 we only followed the reporting in the national daily newspapers using the search term PISA*. Our purpose here was to gain an overview of what was referred to in relation to PISA in order to follow how a common understanding of the results was formed in the printed news media. Of especial interest was following how the perception of PISA changed during the periods in-between the different PISA surveys. The other purpose was to identify the recurrent actors in the media debate on PISA, independent as well as those linked to the newspapers, and analyse how they used and referred to the PISA tests in their argumentation.

From unknown to all-embracing In this section, we point out how the media reporting of PISA has gradually contributed to the creation of a way of ‘seeing’ ‘the school’, which has thereby also transformed the notion of education, by focusing on the measurable results and performances of a nation in relation to others in the ranking lists and disregarding other important aspects of education. As such, in this section we demonstrate how PISA reporting as a ‘spectacle’ is co-produced on the Agora. When the first results of the PISA study in 2000 were released in Sweden the reaction was one of indifference: the media reporting was minimal in that the study was only mentioned in a few news items. The Swedish results were close to those of the top-performing countries, but the expectation had been to perform better than that. While the brief news items that appeared in some newspapers commented that Swedish students had ‘passed the test’, the director of the National Agency of Education excused the results by referring to the austerity policy of the 1990s. However, for the vast majority, PISA was not even known as more than the Italian city with the leaning tower and a football team. Three years later, when the results of the next PISA study were released, the same lack of interest prevailed. Instead, the Finnish results were commented on as ‘the Finnish miracle’. The Swedish media did not consider the Swedish results alarming. In fact, more concern was devoted to what PISA revealed about order and discipline in Swedish schools (cf. Pettersson, 2008). Some of the references to PISA were conspicuous in the way they twisted and exaggerated the results as ‘dramatic decrease’4 and “results had decreased particularly dramatically in mathematics and science”.5 During this period, the teachers’ unions became involved in the debate and pointed to the low status of teachers

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and the fact that their salaries were much lower than other comparable groups. PISA thus became an argument for the need to improve teachers’ working conditions. The PISA study that was released in December 2007 indicated that the results could be referred to as a downward trend. In the period after and up to the next PISA study there were debates about the performance in mathematics, comparing the results of boys and girls in relation to their grading and what was characterised as a knowledge hostile policy that favoured social competence and well-being in school. The way in which PISA is referred determines what will stay in the public’s conscience and form their understanding of the school and education. Every release of a PISA study produces a peak in the media reporting. When the PISA results are released the media reporting is often more comprehensive. In polemic articles on the state of the school, references to PISA are often limited to a few sentences. These few summarising sentences often establish a common understanding of a phenomenon. In this case, we could follow how the judgement of the Swedish school changed from “Swedish schools passed the test” (in 2001) in texts referring to the PISA test, to a more uniform judgement of a ‘school in crisis’ after 2010. In 2010 the release of the Swedish results in PISA were given particular attention by the media in terms of the number and extent of the reporting and the numerous comments in the various editorials. The PISA test was considered to show that the Swedish results had continued to drop and that for the first time this could be confirmed. Headlines like “Swedish students are falling behind”, or “Worse and worse for every year” topped the news pages. Earlier only a few countries were mentioned in the comparisons, but now a ranking list was published in a well disseminated article from a news agency. In the article, representatives for the private sector and higher education were interviewed about their concern of the lack of competitiveness and economic growth. The ambition to become a leading nation in knowledge acquisition was dashed when the results and the ranked position were compared with those of other participating nations. “Who would like to employ an underachieving Swedish student when you can find others who will work better and cheaper?”.6 Not only the decline in results in relation to other countries was a matter for concern, but also the achievement ‘gap’ between high performing and low performing schools. In traditional Swedish educational policy, an ambition had been formulated that schools should compensate for differences in background and prerequisites. Among the different explanations, the more frequent ones mentioned the increased segregation in and between schools, the increased number of private independent schools and an increase of what was discussed in terms of ‘segregated schools’ as reasons for the declining results. All these explanations reflected ‘things’ that were perceived to be going on in society as a whole and were reflected in schools and the educational sector. These societal problems were also seen as contributing to the declining performances in the PISA tests.

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Days before the next PISA release in 2013 leading national newspapers published reports about schools in South Korea, which had been one of the top-performing nations in the preceding PISA test. By then the PISA release was established as an event to be planned for (Dayan & Katz, 1994; Seeck & Rantanen, 2015). An example of this turning into more of a ‘spectacle’ is that the live broadcasting of the press conference presenting the results was announced as a “verdict of the Swedish schools”. Now the Swedish results were not only below average, they also represented an unprecedented decrease amongst OECD countries and that this time no one could have missed how Swedish students had performed in the test. In many newspapers, several pages were dedicated to comments on and reactions to the results with headlines like: “the Fiasco-test”, “Nightmare for the Minister of Education” and “a shock for the Swedish schools”. In combination with this, the leader of the opposition announced that the results were considered a national crisis. Up to the release of the results in PISA 2015, education was primarily in focus in polemic articles on homework support, the new curriculum in Finland and how to meet the intensified interest in the results that were going to be launched. When the results were finally released, the relative improvement was met with mixed headlines: “Breaking the trend”, “the gap gives concern” and “is the school really better?” However, the results did not have the same effect as in 2013, when they were characterised as a ‘shock’. Judging by the reporting, interest seemed to die away much more quickly when there was no ‘failure’ or ‘success’ sensation to report on. As such, the ‘media logic’ seems to be dependent on ‘failure’ or ‘success’ in terms of what is considered ‘newsworthy’.

Constructing ‘a way of seeing’ When scrutinising the media reporting about PISA, we identified authors who frequently penned articles about the school, most often as polemic articles but sometimes also as newspaper columns. Being a columnist for a Swedish newspaper signifies a closer connection to the newspaper’s political agenda, but also affords more possibilities to write personal reflections on different topics. In contrast, those who write polemic articles need to gain the editor’s approval, often in competition with other actors who are also trying to ‘spread the word’. The three actors we present here have been selected because they appear frequently and represent three different societal positions, which in turn represent the professions that are actively engaged in the educational debate on the Agora. What they all have in common is an outspoken opinion that Swedish schools are in many respects characterised as ‘failures’, and that this ‘failure’ is produced within the schools by the teachers and scholars in educational research. The three authors we have analysed are well known in the Swedish context as school commentators and are often referred to by others making claims and arguments on the educational Agora. In this way, the

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three authors are characterised as three ‘nodes’ from which arguments, claims and statements are ‘exported’ to other actors on the Agora for participating in the co-production of educational knowledge. Their articles are all signed with name, title and affiliation, which highlights their different positions and affiliations. The first author is a professor who for decades has warned about a school in decay in books, polemic articles and columns. PISA was mentioned in a few articles already in 2004, but with a clear peak in 2015. The position obtained as a kind of expert is not based on academic merit in the field of education, but for the engagement employed in discussing the state of schools. A main argument is that Swedish education is burdened with social goals, and that these goals must be replaced by a much clearer focus on what is termed ‘knowledge’. The central argument in most of the articles is that the idea of progressive education put forward by Alva Myrdal,7 instituted in 1962 as a comprehensive school for all children between the ages of 7 and 16, is to blame “when the Swedish PISA results now are falling dramatically”. In the articles, the results in PISA are highlighted as the ultimate evidence of what is called a general educational ‘failure’ that has been allowed to continue for far too long. The second author is a qualified secondary school teacher working in a private school, who began to be published in 2015 and has since then appeared frequently in the media. The polemic articles primarily criticise the content and organisation of teacher education, followed by educational research in general and what is conceived as the prevailing teaching methods. The articles position teachers as ‘victims’ of the current conditions and claims that their educational backgrounds (teacher education) have not prepared them well enough for their work as teachers. Thus, the position obtained as a kind of expert by the second author comes from within the school itself, i.e. that of a teacher. The author constantly refers to low PISA results to depict schoolchildren’s low or lack of ability. Even the improved results in the 2015 test are used to illustrate what is conceived as a ‘failure’: “Although the latest PISA survey showed that the knowledge decline seems to have stopped, the school crisis is far from over”. One proposed solution is to replace current teaching methods with a stricter teacher-centred instruction practice in the classrooms and to base teaching methods more on neuroscience, which is considered to be a ‘pure’ science instead of educational science, which is considered to be ideologically ‘burdened’ and without any real scientific ‘evidence’ to lean on. The third author is also active within the academy as a researcher, but not as an educationalist. This author started to write polemic articles with reference to PISA in 2014, although the greatest number of articles are published in connection with the PISA test of 2015 and onwards. The position obtained as a kind of educational expert is based on an engagement employed in discussing the state of schools, but also on calculations of PISA data in reports that are published and extensively cited. A main argument put forward is a critique of so-called progressive educational ideals that are regarded as having had a

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dominating influence on Swedish schools since the 1950s and onwards. Based on own analysis, PISA is among other things used to argue that independent for-profit schools perform better than non-profit municipal schools. In one polemic article a programme for increased educational standards is laid out, stating that: • • • •

Teacher education must be based on rigorous research and not on theoretical ‘nonsense’. Demands for student influence on school law and national curricula must be removed. Central examinations that increase incentives to study must be prioritised. Well-arranged competition must be stimulated.

In some of the articles the author also expresses mistrust in what is called ‘official’ calculations and conclusions. For instance, one argument is that the improved PISA results of 2015 were not reliable because the ‘official’ reports and comments showed far too good results for Sweden than was ‘actually’ the case. To summarise, there are many similarities between the three authors we have chosen to highlight to show how PISA results can be used to make educational claims on the Agora. Following a ‘media logic’, the educational standards are depicted as being in a kind of a crisis. Teachers, teacher educators and representatives of educational research are all included and to some extent made responsible for the crisis. Further, PISA results are used as ‘evidence’, albeit in very general terms, and instead the results are made synonymous with a crisis in education. Regardless of improved results, ‘failure’ is a fact that can hardly be contested. Consequently, a robust image of the schools is circulated and repeated in op-ed articles, polemic articles and columns. PISA results play a crucial role in this media ‘spectacle’ and become synonymous with the status of education. This becomes a ‘way of seeing’ that is further strengthened by the authors’ so-called expertise; the positions obtained in the media ‘spectacle’. However, there are also differences between the authors, mainly on ideological grounds. The first author regularly refers to a romantic past and a strong focus on knowledge transmission. The second author also does this to some extent. The third author argues more distinctly for market exposed and profit-making welfare state services as a solution for the declining results. The media ‘spectacle’ that is played out and orchestrated by the PISA results thus mediates the image of a school in crisis. It is a somewhat simplified and ‘narrowed’ narrative that is heavily dependent on what we choose here to call ‘designed numbers’ (in that the ‘numbers’ highlighted and presented in the articles only constitute a part of all the assessments and measurements that are conducted in education), but is nevertheless presented as a universal ‘truth’. The crisis that is demonstrated by ‘designed numbers’ does not necessarily exist in the way the crisis is presented – at least we cannot

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really determine that from what is presented in the newspaper articles. Even if ideological standpoints are emphasised in the articles, the dominant image is that of education as either a ‘failure’ or a ‘success’ (or at least one that could be ‘successful’) and that is an image we can make intelligible with the ‘seeing’ co-produced on the Agora.

Discussion As illustrated by the peaks in the media reporting that appear in connection with the PISA releases, there seems to be two different ways of approaching the PISA results in the media. One approach refers to pre-planned events, i.e. the releases of the PISA results and the expectations in the media of how education and thereby the nation has managed in the particular test-round. The other approach refers to more everyday references in relation to the PISA results, where PISA is not always the main topic but has instead mostly become a negative reference to promote other issues under discussion that are more or less connected to education. Our analyses of the periods around the two latest releases illustrate that the reporting started some days before the releases in order to build up interest. This was particularly noticeable before the release of the 2015 test (released in December 2016), when low results were anticipated. However, as it turned out, the Swedish results had slightly improved and the intensity of the reporting, which had been so prominent after the disappointing 2012 test (released in December 2013), soon faded out. It seemed as though the reception of and discussions about the 2012 test became the dominant media image of how education should be portrayed. In the main, it is a very one-sided image of the schools that is played out by media, which as far as we understand it is dependent on the ‘newsworthiness’ factor and the sensations of ‘failure’ or ‘success’. When we followed the media reporting from the first to the most recent PISA study, we could observe how the image of schools increasingly corresponded with the performance and results in PISA. The references to PISA were scarce until after 2010 and the understanding of the Swedish school as an education in crisis was first repeatedly maintained by some actors. However, after the fifth PISA study in 2012, it became an uncontested portrayal of the state of education. The different attempts to discuss, add more aspects, explain and problematise were not given the same attention. Neither were those that pointed to the changed structure of school, privatisation and homogenous schools where you can talk about segregation. Although the results in the following study were better, the previous portrayal of education by the media remained. As such, our investigation into media activities on the educational Agora can be used to claim that the media and the ‘voices’ within it function as co-producers of educational knowledge and, as such, can function as producers of educational ‘facts’. PISA results are also sometimes used to claim scientific evidence for ideological standpoints concerning how to carry out or govern

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education, even though these standpoints may have very little to do with the PISA study per se. The way the state of education appears in the media has other implications: if education is understood as synonymous to the results in PISA and other large-scale assessments, we risk losing sight of some important aspects of education, such as bringing up young individuals to become people who are ready for all kinds of activities that are part of today’s modern society. This becomes evident when studying the media discussions in which media reporting is focused on earlier grading, more homework and more lectures in subjects relating to the PISA study. The focus on ranking also became more pronounced after the last PISA studies, which further boosts this development of promoting a dichotomous thinking in either – ‘failure’ or ‘success’ and not permitting any shades in-between. As a result, the image of education as a ‘failure’ has almost become synonymous with PISA in the media discourse. All the complexities of education and teaching are emptied of meaning and potential capacities. All there is to know about education is what in the news media is reduced to the hierarchy of ‘failure’ and ‘success’ in relation to international comparative tests. From a variety of positions and angles of approaches actors appear in the role of educational experts to play out a media ‘spectacle’ that is based on the results in PISA. Following the ‘media logic’, this can be an expertise that is partly given to them by the media as a producer of ‘newsworthiness’. Publicity offers these experts a vehicle for agenda setting and a way of getting publicity for something that is sometimes only indirectly connected to PISA. Thus, PISA has evolved into a media ‘spectacle’ that offers a space for the public to get a simplified and sweeping view of the situation in Swedish schools.

Notes 1 The trope of the chimera of quantifications and comparisons is discussed in several other chapters in this book as well as in the introduction. Therefore, we do not present it more fully in this chapter. 2 See e.g. OECD Improving Schools country reports at www.oecd.org/education/school/ improvingschools.htm (accessed August 23rd 2018). 3 Online accessed from Gothenburg University Library. 4 Report on a speech held by the leader of the Liberal Party, Expressen 25th July 2005. 5 Expressen 28th September 2005. 6 Editorial Norrköpings tidningar, 8th December 2010. 7 Alva Myrdal (1902–1986) was a Swedish social democratic politician and member of the School Investigation of 1940 (SOU, 1945:61) that was appointed by the government and suggested the 9-year compulsory comprehensive school was engaged in social policy and family matters from 1930s and onwards. She participated in several social-political commissions, and was a minister in the Social Democratic government between the years 1966–1972. Before that she had leading positions in United Nations and UNESCO and was Swedish ambassador in India. In addition, she was politically in charge of disarmament and had an active voice during the post-war period against nuclear weapons, in Sweden as well as internationally. She reviewed the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982.

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References Baird, J.-A., Johnson, S., Hopfenbeck, T. S., Isaacs, T., Sprague, T., Stobart, G. & Yu, G. (2016). On the supranational spell of PISA in policy. Educational Research, 58(2), 121–138. Baroutsis, A. & Lingard, B. (2017). Counting and comparing school performance: An analysis of media coverage of PISA in Australia, 2000–2014. Journal of Education Policy, 32(4), 432–449. Carvalho, L. M. & Costa, E. (2015). Seeing education with one’s own eyes and through PISA lenses: Considerations of the reception of PISA in European countries. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 36(5), 638–646. Dayan, D. & Katz, E. (1994). Media Events. Harvard University Press: Cambridge. Debord, G. (1994). The Society of the Spectacle. (Original in French 1967, translation by D. Nicholson-Smith). New York: Zone Books. Debord, G. (2006). The commodity as spectacle. M. G. Durham & D. Keller (eds.) Media and Cultural Studies: Key Works. B. Malden. Oxford & Carlton: Blackwell Publishing. Fladmoe, A. (2011). Education in the news and in the mind: PISA, news media and public opinion in Norway, Sweden and Finland. Nordicom Review, 32(2), 99–116. Galtung, J. & Ruge, M. H. (1965). The structure of Foreign news: The presentation of the Congo, Cuba and Cyprus crises in 4 Norwegian newspapers. Journal of Peace Research, 2(1), 64–91. Grek, S. (2009). Governing by numbers: The PISA ‘effect’ in Europe. Journal of Education Policy, 24(1), 23–37. Hacking, I. (1990). The Taming of Chance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jasanoff, S. (ed.) (2004). States of Knowledge: The Co-Production of Science and Social Order. London: Routledge. Kellner, D. (2009). Media spectacle and media events: Some critical reflections. N. Couldry, A. Hepp & F. Krotz (eds.) Media Events in a Global Age. London: Routledge. Labaree, D. (2014, September). Let’s measure what no one teaches: PISA, NCLB, and the shrinking aims of education. Teachers College Record, 116, 090304. Lundby, K. (2009). Media logic: Looking for social interactions. K. Lundby (ed.) Mediation: Concept, Changes, Consequences (pp. 101–111). New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Mangez, E. & Hilgers, M. (2012). The field of knowledge and the policy field in education: PISA and the production of knowledge for policy. European Educational Research Journal, 11(2), 189–205. Niemann, D. & Martens, K. (2018). Soft governance by hard fact? OECD as a knowledge broker in education policy. Global Social Policy, 18 (3), 267–283. https://doi-org.ezproxy. ub.gu.se/10.1177/1468018118794076 OECD (2018). PISA 2015: Results in Focus. Paris: OECD Publishing. Pettersson, D. (2008). Internationell kunskapsbedömning som inslag i nationell styrning av skolan. Uppsala: Uppsala University. Pizmony-Levy, O. & Börklund, P. (2018). International assessments of student achievement and public confidence in education: Evidence from a cross-national study. Oxford Review of Education, 44(2), 239–257. Seeck, Hannele and Rantanen, Terhi (2015). Media events, spectacles and risky globalization: a critical review and possible avenues for future research. Media, Culture & Society, 37 (2). pp. 163–179. ISSN 0163-4437. Sellar, S. & Lingard, B. (2013). Looking East: Shanghai, PISA 2009 and the reconstitution of reference societies in the global education policy field. Comparative Education, 49(4), 464–485.

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Chapter 10

The reception of large-scale assessments in China and India Sarbani Chakraborty, Christina Elde Mølstad, Jingying Feng and Daniel Pettersson

Introduction In 1903 the German sociologist George Simmel described modern life as a world of unrelenting calculations. These calculations developed due to “a purely matter-of-fact attitude in the treatment of persons and things” (in Mitchell, 2002 p. 80, original in Simmel, 1936 p. 194). From another perspective, Ian Hacking (1990) stated that when determinism was eroded in the nineteenth century a ‘space’ was cleared for autonomous laws of chance. This made it possible to introduce a model of ‘normal’ people with laws of dispersion. The recognition and highlighting of chance made the world seem less unpredictable and able to create order out of chaos. According to Hacking (1990), these events were the beginning of what is called the ‘avalanche of printed numbers’, in which data about averages and dispersions engendered an idea of ‘normal’ people. The idea of ‘normal’ people led to new kinds of social engineering and new ways of modifying undesirable classes, which Hacking has called ‘making up people’ (Hacking, 2004). This development has led to what Ted Porter (1995) calls a ‘trust in numbers’ for saying something about society and people. In this chapter, we elaborate on this ‘trust in numbers’ from an ‘outsider perspective’ by using two countries that are sometimes discussed as not following traditional Western trajectories and developments – China and India. In order to do this, we investigate how international large-scale assessments have been introduced and discussed in the Chinese and Indian contexts and the kinds of activities that this had led to on the educational Agora (Nowotny et al., 2003). In the following, we focus on the PISA test and a test developed in India – ASER (Annual Status of Education Report) – which we interpret as a ‘resistance movement’ against international comparative assessments such as PISA. We consider China and India as untraditional ‘countries’, in that they are more like heterogeneous sub-continents than homogeneous countries and where comparisons and measurements ought to be appreciated for governance reasons. As James Scott (1998) has stated – large entities of people, large areas and heterogeneity are historically considered to be made governable in a more effective way by numbers. China has a long tradition of testing and measuring

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students’ performances. The most famous one is perhaps the historical Civil Service Exam (Keju, 科举) which originated in the seventh century. It has been stated that due to this exam system the Chinese Government and intellectuals began to promote education as an important social institution (e.g. Yu & Suen, 2005). Hence, education and testing have been closely linked and are regarded as important for the development of society and for governing the nation. In contrast, India does not have an internal tradition of measuring students’ performances or using different examinations for governing purposes. Rather, India is an example of a ‘test-bed’ for external governing by ‘numbers’ (Mitchell, 2002). It is not very well known that India as a ‘man-made governable entity’ played an important role in developing the modern science of economics. The oldest and largest of the British colonising corporations – the East India Company – had three leading nineteenth century political economists on their payroll – James Mill, Robert Malthus and John Stuart Mill, and when the company was renamed as the India Office, John Maynard Keynes was an employee (Mitchell, 2002). Conclusively, China and India are two contrasting examples of how international large-scale assessments can either function as ‘beautiful data’ (Halpern, 2014) in education, or as something ‘threatening’ or ‘challenging’, and how they developed different trajectories on how to ‘mangle’ (Pickering, 1995) ‘numbers’ on school performances on the educational Agora.

China: state-orchestrated and competitive exams The already mentioned Keju examination system is said to have started around 606 and did not officially end until 1905 – an examination system that lasted for almost 1300 years. The content of the exam included Confucianism, poetry, knowledge about official documents and national policies and consisted of three levels: a local district exam, a provincial exam and a palace exam. The result of this exam developed into an educational test-driven education. The aim of the test was to identify individuals to serve as scholars in the imperial secretariat known as the Hanlin Academy (Hanlinyuan 翰林院) and who were later promoted as district, provincial or national governors. As such, the exam was extremely high stakes for the candidates and provided prestige, legal privileges and advantages for the candidates and their extended families (Yu & Suen, 2005). Today the Keju is no longer in operation and has been replaced by the National College Entrance Exam (NCEE) known as Gaokao (高考). The purpose of this exam is to select students who are suitable for higher education. The NCEE is highly centralised. Although the NCEE differs slightly in form each year, it always takes place from June 6–7 and some provinces extend it to June 8. The majority of students1 are then admitted into different universities based on their NCEE test scores. Since the early 1980s the tests have consisted of three common areas: the Chinese language, mathematics and foreign languages. Additionally, in some provinces the students take a test on either art

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or science, while some provinces allow the students themselves to select three subjects from a choice of history, geography, civics/political science, biology, chemistry and physics. Several scholars have studied these exams and the common conclusion is that they are important for social mobility and are historically and contemporarily important for education in China (e.g. Guo, 1994; He, 1998; Chen, 1997). There are several important similarities between the two exam systems, but there are also several differences. The purpose of the Keju system was to select ‘talented’ people to rule the nation, whereas the purpose of the NCEE system is to select qualified students for higher education. The NCEE system also serves to evaluate schools, teachers and the general quality of education. One important difference is that in the Keju system competition between schools was unheard of, but today NCEE schools are free to compete against each other in attempts to attract more talented students to increase their pass rates (Yu & Suen, 2005). One of the original intentions of the Keju was to reduce the privileges of aristocrat families that threatened the imperial autocracy (Feng, 1994). The Keju was available for all citizens and thus provided a ladder of success for ordinary people in an otherwise rather stratified and closed system. Success on the exam and social mobility came to be closely linked in people’s minds. This close linkage between exams results and social mobility is also evident today in the NCEE, even though the exam is only intended for selecting students for higher education. This is because China is still highly stratified in society when it comes to educational opportunities leading to better careers. However, a high score on the test is not only important for higher education. Students from poor rural areas can be provided with a legal resident status called hukou (户口) if they have a high score on the NCEE, which helps them to live in the wealthier metropolitan areas and thereby have more career opportunities. Consequently, both the Keju and the NCEE function as a sorting technology that filters people into those who pass and can move upwards in society and those who cannot (Yu & Suen, 2005). Some conclusions can be drawn from this brief description of the historical reasoning on exams and student performances and the close linkage between exams and social mobility. First, what is evident is that which Porter (1995) calls a ‘trust in numbers’, which has existed in China much longer than in the western world. Second, by using Hacking’s (2004) notion of ‘making up people’ it becomes evident that this is a practice that is also relevant in an historical and contemporary Chinese context. Third, competitiveness and comparisons are not uncommon in the Chinese reasoning on education. Thus, everything seems to be set for the introduction of international large-scale assessments and the reasoning embedded in them. Mainland China imported the PISA programme for the first time in 2006 as a national pilot research project. The goal of the project was said to be to use the advanced evaluation concepts, systems, theories and techniques from PISA to

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establish a national evaluation system that would better meet the national situation.2 Also, participation in PISA was thought of as accelerating the reforms of examination contexts, especially to improve proposing questions and a higher focus on a quality-oriented education. The project was a pilot conducted by the Ministry of Education Examination Centre. One conclusion drawn by the participating Chinese stakeholders was that the results were relevant for making direct comparisons with other countries participating in PISA 2006.3 The participation in and the results of the PISA tests are not extensively reported in the news media in China, although the performances of Chinese students are often mentioned in a positive way if this is done. One example of this is the following quote, which comments on the results of the Shanghai students participating in PISA 2012: the outstanding performance of Shanghai students cannot be represented as the whole of Chinese education, because there is a diversity of regional education resources. However, Shanghai students’ good grades tell us there won’t be too many gaps in knowledge and abilities as long as there is a good educational system, scientific educational methods and hard work. The value of PISA is to learn about the experiences of education in each country.4 With the primarily positive experiences of the pilot project in 2006 and participation in PISA 2009 and PISA 2012, China decided to include a larger number of students in the PISA test in 2015. In this test, the municipalities of Shanghai and Beijing and the entire regions of Jiangsu and Guangdong took part. The results of the PISA test in 2015 were not considered to be the success that Chinese stakeholders had hoped for. This led to negative comments in the Chinese media when explaining the results. One of these comments was that PISA made regional differences visible: Compared with former results, the participation of Beijing, Jiangsu and Guangdong make regional differences emerge, which exposes the real situation of Chinese basic education. The rank declining in some way reflected that Shanghai students fully prepared the work before they took the test. However, it cannot be concluded that the whole performance of Chinese education falls behind.5 Another way of explaining the results of PISA 2015 is to connect the test to the NCEE in terms of its importance for individual students. This is expressed: The rank of China in the PISA 2015 was affected by basic education administration and examination-oriented education system. Besides that, different regionals treated PISA in different way. Some might be serious some might not. Actually, it cannot be a mirror that reflects the situation

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and problem of Chinese basic education. . . . To be honest, many schools which participated in the test did not care about it, because teachers at schools thought it could not help to improve the students’ performance on the NCEE.6 Even though the results from the PISA tests in which China has participated have not been widely discussed in the media, they have led to some reforms in domestic policy. One area affected by the participation in PISA is how the national Bureau of Education Inspection (教育督导局), also known as the National Education Inspection, operates on policies. The Bureau’s responsibility is not only to monitor and examine the implementation of state laws, regulations, principles and policies in educational institutions, but also to evaluate the quality of different types of educational institutions and provide useful feedback to lower-level governments and institutions.7 The inspection approaches worked out within the Bureau have referred on several occasions to international large-scale assessments such as PISA or TIMSS, or to national testing regimes like NAEP in the USA. This is because techniques like sampling and analysing data are basically the same as those used in PISA, TIMSS and NAEP. The long tradition in China of testing and measuring students’ performances has led to criticism in China on the fact that e.g. PISA is not accurate enough when it comes to measuring performance. This can be seen in the following quotes by officials representing the inspectorate: PISA is an assessment basically for 15-year-old students’ math, science, language and other social knowledge and skills, while our national assessment system covers two critical periods of students’ cognitive development and learning capacity development, which are 4th grade and 8th grade. And the test includes morality, PE, art and so on which are excluded in PISA. In all, we have the outstanding advantages on these testing contexts over the world.8 Our measuring and sampling methods are more precise, objective and scientific, compared with PISA. We did practice test [sic] again and again while PISA didn’t. PISA directly uses schools as sample [sic] which cannot reflect the regional education quality.9 Our assessment system is more applicable. . . . The assessment work is based on national curriculum standard and the Communist Party’s educational policy, focusing on implementation and problems of curriculum among students of specific grades.10 From the above comments, it is possible to see that the Chinese system of testing is considered more accurate and better suited for the internal needs of the country. This can be discussed from a position of the long historical track of performing different tests and measurements of performances, which

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has created a robust reasoning on how measurements and testing ought to be implemented. As such, it can be said that in the Chinese context there is a strong ‘trust in numbers’, but that this ‘trust’ is different from the ‘trust’ that tests such as PISA can contribute. Hence, the Chinese ‘trust in numbers’ results in a critique of PISA. At the end of the day, the ‘trust’ refers more to historical developments on ‘numbers’ for social mobility and ‘life chances’ than to comparing performances with different nations. We now turn to the Indian case and the reception of PISA there, as well as how this led to a ‘resistance movement’ in developing ASER. After this we conclude by suggesting how ‘trust in numbers’ could be elaborated on.

India’s convergence towards a measurement culture This section on India briefly deals with the politics and rationalities of two large-scale assessment surveys or learning-outcome-based monitoring practices of the Indian education system – the global, OECD-driven Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey and the local-national Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) survey conducted by the research and assessment branch of the Indian NGO, Pratham. On the one hand, Indian educationists have long grappled with and challenged an entrenched, overly centralised, textbook-and examination-centric education ‘culture’.11 On the other hand, the Indian Government’s education policies and their modes of reasoning have visibly shifted towards a measurement-based assessment culture driven by the dual rationality of quality-as-measured-learning-outcome and cost-cutting imperatives. Pratham’s formulation-publication of the ASER survey from 2005–2006, with an explicit goal to bring about a ‘culture of measurement’ and India’s PISA participation, became possible in the global discursive-practice environment of the assessment-based-quality-drive. That is, both events need to be situated in the post-1990s global reconfiguring context of educational institutions. India plays a part in and is affected by an overwhelming global emphasis on outcomes-based education and contradictory global developmental prescriptions for local decentralisation, community participation and ‘bottom-up’ processes that have been forcefully proposed in the wake of public expenditure cuts and the installation of targeted cost-effective measures. These simultaneous global developments have led to a strong involvement of for-profit and non-profit NGO actors in educational services, assuming the role of ‘patrons of public interest’ (Kamat, 2004 p. 159; cf. Sadgopal, 2006; Steiner-Khamsi, 2004; Stromquist & Monkman, 2000). Especially since the 2000s, the central Government of India and regional state governments have started to actively partner transnational policy actors (mostly economic researchers with an interest in evidence-based policy research) in dispersed projects. In these endeavours, learning achievements are either seen as a relatively independent factor divorced from material inputs, societal contexts and institutional-provisioning approaches, or are used as a crucial outcome variable

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to determine cost-effective measures like ‘contract’ teachers or to introduce performance-based pay measures for teachers (APF, 2016; Jain et al., 2018; Nawani, 2015). Therefore, India’s PISA participation and the ASER surveys need to be interpreted within this wider context of India’s recent stance towards a relatively uncritical ‘trust in numbers’. India participated in the PISA 2009+ survey via two regional states (Himachal Pradesh, HP and Tamil Nadu, TN) with the participation of 400 schools and 16000 students. The tests were conducted in 2010. By the time India had finalised its decision to participate in the PISA survey, the main PISA 2009 cycle was already completed, with a total of 65 countries or economies participating in it12 (OECD, 2010). It appears that despite a delayed decisionmaking process, the Indian Government, along with a few others, showed a persistent interest in PISA’s development of a ‘new timeline’.13 Thus, a total of 10 countries or economies participated in a reduced and delayed timeline of what is called the PISA 2009+ survey (Walker, 2011 pp. xi–xii). A report on the results was prepared by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). The students of the two Indian states (enumerated as a single entity) appeared at the bottom of the international league table at 72 or 74 (depending on the subject area) when all the 74 participating countries or economies from both the PISA 2009 and PISA 2009+ surveys were combined (Walker, 2011). In 2008, Arjun Singh, the then Minister of Human Resource Development,14 was explicitly asked in the Upper House of the Parliament about the reasons for India’s non-participation in PISA even when other countries, including those of the developing world, did. The question, asked by two influential Indian billionaire-industrialists, who were also Upper House members at that time, thus pressed on India’s non-conformation to the global measurement regime.15 However, Singh did not respond directly but provided a cryptic response. He told Parliament what PISA was and then went on to say: “[t]he Government of India conducts its own pupil learning achievement surveys” and briefly described the Indian survey instead (Singh, Bajaj & Dhoot, 2008). Despite the minister’s non-committal response, it would be fair to assume that what Singh said was that at least for now, India would not be participating in a global learning measurement apparatus like PISA, because it had its own, localnational achievement survey in place. Despite this, India did participate in the PISA 2009+ cycle. The PISA 2009+ results were declared in 2011. The Indian Government remained silent after the declaration of results and the Indian media slowly started to report the results. The latter represented the PISA test as an authoritative confirmatory test of India’s poor-quality education that also provided the public with some clarity about the state of education. The CEO of the Teach for India programme said in a newspaper interview that she was glad that the PISA data “lets people know how far we still have to go”. In the same report, the journalist suggested that while the world knows India as an ‘education

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power house’ the picture was ‘seriously bleak’, as countries with similar or lower levels of national income and prosperity had produced more superior results than India (Chhapial, 2012). Another loud message of India’s failing education system was delivered by the economist and transnational policy actor, Lant Pritchett (Pritchett, 2012a), on a blog16 entitled: “The first PISA results for India: The end of the beginning”. Two days later he published a shorter version in an Indian newspaper under the heading: “Mr Obama, rest easy. Indian students have hit rock bottom” (Pritchett, 2012b). Pritchett suggested that India had failed in the PISA ‘litmus test’ and this confirmed India’s poor learning levels in schools, which indeed was a ‘national scandal’. Additionally, both HP and TN rank above the all-India average on Human Development Indicators, but also on several educational indicators, including learning achievements (Drèze & Sen, 2013). The government went on to say that India’s future participation in PISA would depend on the negotiations with OECD on India’s ‘socio-cultural milieu’, as there was a socio-cultural disconnect between the questions and the Indian students’ experiences. In a seeming challenge to the Indian Government’s claim of India’s exceptional socio-cultural difference, the journalist in the same report noted the score differences between India and China, both first-time participants in PISA, although China (through Shanghai) joined PISA’s main cycle: “Against first-timer China that stormed into the 2009 ratings with Shanghai schools topping math and science with a mean score of 556, the two Indian states stood near the bottom with 337 and 325, respectively – a performance that led to much discussion in India” (Vishnoi, 2012). Drèze and Sen (2013) have also argued against the idea of a cultural disconnect by noting: It is hard to understand why reading, writing and elementary mathematics should be seen as uniquely western abilities, but perhaps it is worth noting that the world-beaters in these tests tend to be Asians. (a.a. p. 124) Socio-cultural disconnect or not, PISA’s inducement of a competitive international milieu is hard to dismiss, especially as PISA appears to be a high-stakes examination in terms of India’s international image. That it was not merely an educational exercise, but a geopolitical one, can be determined by the fact that the Ministry of External Affairs was not enthusiastic about a pan-India participation in PISA as it was expected to reveal discouraging results. PISA results indeed seemed to have appeared as a national scandal to officials. The test results were further suggested to reflect the internal ASER survey that had repeatedly shown poor learning levels of Indian students. Thus, the journalist remarked: “[i]ncidentally, PISA results were reaffirmed by NGO Pratham’s annual ASER report on learning levels of schoolchildren” (Vishnoi, 2012). Two different types of global and local assessments were thus relationally intertwined with each other in a confirmation-vindication web of demonstration of the poor

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learning levels of Indian children and India’s poor-quality schooling. Then, in June 2013, a newspaper headline proclaimed: “India chickens out of international student assessment again” (Chhapial, 2013). After its non-participation in the 2012 cycle, India also withdrew from the 2015 PISA cycle. According to the report, while the other countries that had participated along with India in the 2009+ cycle went on to join the 2015 assessment, the Government of India declared that “India was not prepared for such a test”, yet. If we then fast forward a bit, a similar story to that of 2018 also unfolds in 2016. Two vastly different political parties in power reacted in similar fashion with respect to PISA. In 2016, instead of the Centrist coalition party of 2008, a right-conservative coalition government was now in power. Again, a question was asked in the Upper House of the Indian Parliament about India’s future PISA participation.17 In response, the Minister of Human Resource Development (Smriti Irani) said: “There is no such proposal currently under consideration”. She then went on to describe what PISA was by focusing on the ‘content free’ and ‘application-based’ aspects of the questions. Due to the 2009+ survey experience, this time the minister emphasised that PISA required “information on international names, brands, trademarks, products, etc. with which Indian students, especially students from rural areas, may not be familiar”. Irani then reiterated what Singh had said in 2008: “India has not participated in the PISA Test after 2009 as India has developed its own student assessment system called the National Achievement Survey (NAS), which is conducted by National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT)” (Irani & Rao, 2016). Eight months after this response in the Indian Parliament a newspaper declared India’s intention to participate in PISA 2021 by stating: “[t]he year 2021 will mark the end of India’s decade-long boycott of . . . PISA” (Chopra, 2017). Like PISA, the ASER (Annual Status of Education Report) is a large-scale assessment survey. Its tools and methodology were developed by the Indian NGO, Pratham – an organisation established in 1995 that has built up credibility over the years through its work in non-formal education. Pratham introduces itself as an innovative learning organisation that is dedicated to similarly bringing about innovative, outcomes-driven, large-scale changes in educational quality to improve children’s and youths’ future. It produces an adaptable demonstration model as well as low-cost replicable models with a focus on accountability and “programmes results (sic)” (Pratham, n.d.). There are two main distinguishing aspects of the ASER survey. The ASER Centre, the research and assessment wing of Pratham, positions them as part of a necessary recognition of difference emanating from the developing world context of India (ASER Centre, 2016 pp. 38–40). The ASER survey moves beyond the school walls to test children in their homes. Instead of conducting a strictly pen and paper test, the tests of individual students in basic reading and numeracy skills, pegged at either 3rd or the 4th grade of the regional syllabi, are oral and are conducted with the assistance of two volunteers. The national

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and cross-national international surveys are conducted in the schools, with the involvement of regional or central state machinery at some level. They are also administered by specific educational institutions (national or transnational). In contrast, the ASER survey is framed as a citizen-led (i.e. citizen-administered), sample-based, all-India (rural) survey that is conducted in the home and not at school. The survey is published, publicised and disseminated in a transparent manner through the various media every year. The test tools are strictly standardised and ‘simple’ in order to maintain their reliability and replicability. They are in fact so simple that anybody and everybody can test a child, a group of children, a neighbourhood or a classroom by simply downloading the tests from the ASER website and then submitting them to any of the ASER centres. In contrast to the existing educational surveys of India that were often considered unreliable by education experts, were published some 6–7 years after the event and which privileged access and input measures, Pratham decided to conduct the survey on a regular annual basis with a focus on the learning levels of children aged 5–16 years. This involves a huge number of volunteers from a wide range of partner organisations ranging from small self-help groups, women’s and youth organisations to government teacher training institutes. In 2016, for instance, around 25000 volunteers from 499 organisations were involved in the ASER survey that reached 350 232 households and tested 562 305 children (ASER Centre, 2017). The issue of a learning crisis and the ASER survey tool design seem to have resonated with the NGOs in other developing countries as well. Since 2008, the survey has been steadily replicated and contextualised in 14 other ‘communities’ in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and Central America. A ‘family’ of assessment in the form of the People’s Action for Learning (PAL) Network has emerged out of the South-South global cooperation that assesses 1 million children every year.18 The language of kith and kin – of family and community – to position the assessments in opposition to the anonymity of the state measurement apparatus is hard to ignore. Moving beyond the 5–16-year age group, and perhaps in anticipation of the impending PISA survey in 2017, the ASER survey conducted the household-based survey known as ‘Beyond Basics’ and focused it for the first time on the 14–18 ‘youth’ age group. It examined a wider set of domains beyond basic reading and arithmetic tests. It explored whether adolescents were adequately prepared for adulthood, could master literacy and numeracy tasks in everyday situations, how aware they were about common digital and financial processes and what their educational goals and career aspirations were. Pratham and its various activities, including the ASER survey, has experienced an unusually impressive and meteoric rise in the space of only few years. While surveys like PISA and other tests have been severely criticised, Pratham’s activities in India and elsewhere have be mostly unchallenged. The critique from a couple of educationalists within India has not been acknowledged or made visible.

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A context sensitive way of understanding ‘trust in numbers’ This book is about the activities that are embedded and promoted by ‘numbers’ in education. By using two national contexts we are able to point to circumstances that frame how activities and ‘numbers’ are understood and elaborated on historically and contemporarily in these countries. However, it is clear that China and India are two very different countries and because of that are difficult to compare when it comes to phenomena like attitudes towards education, meritocracy, social mobility and the historical relationships between society and education. In fact, the differences seem to be greater than the similarities. One difference is that China has never been colonised, even though it has been the focus of European and Japanese aggression. India, on the other hand, was ‘constructed’ out of heterogeneous entities by an external governance that was heavily based on ‘numbers’ (cf. Mitchell, 2002). China has been at the centre of a ‘self-portrayed’ internal universe, while India was ‘side-stepped’ within the British Empire, even though it was an important part of the Empire. Hence, China has a long historical tradition of being centrally governed, where examinations and assessments have been a central part of society. As such, China’s ‘trust in numbers’ has existed for a long time and is essential for a reasoning on e.g. meritocracy and social mobility, which in turn is embedded in the historical reasoning on educational differentiation and governance. This is contrary to how ‘trust in numbers’ is conceived in India. In India, ‘numbers’ first appear for governing reasons and for ‘making kinds of people’ through an external intervention – in this particular case making the heterogeneous population of the Indian peninsula into subjects of the British Crown. We can historicise this because in China educational ‘numbers’ are related to opportunities, ‘lifechances’, personal benefits and so on rather than differentiation and therefore always appear to be, so to speak, ‘travelling to the centre’. In contrast, in India educational ‘numbers’ are introduced as a way of ‘differentiating’ and even though they can lead to ‘travelling’, this ‘travelling’ is not open for all or based on merit alone. In the foreground, there are always ‘numbers’ for ‘selecting’ the already ‘selected’. The purpose of our case is not to demonstrate different educational reasoning within China and India at large, but to demonstrate why different paths were taken when PISA was introduced in the two nations. The most obvious reason for the different paths was how the PISA results were perceived. China has always been amongst the top scorers in PISA, whereas India has not. This might explain some of the differences in the reception and the ‘mangling’ (Pickering, 1995) of the ‘numbers’ produced by PISA on the Agora, but does not explain everything. Instead, we believe that many of the differences can be explained by how ‘numbers’ have been historically and contextually used. It could be argued that China sees itself as a well-educated nation. As such, China ‘knows’ its place in the world and has built its own governing sets.

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After a period of ‘isolation’, the country is now ready to take its rightful place within the community of nations. One way of doing this is to demonstrate its educational prowess. Participation in PISA is important for two main reasons: to show the world that China is well-educated and ready for investments and commerce and to use the technology that is embedded in PISA, thereby learning about and developing its own internal measurements of students’ performances. This might also explain why the educational Agora in China, when success in PISA was not as evident as the ‘self-image’ suggested, to some extent ‘shifted’ its arguments about the ‘usefulness’ of the knowledge gained from PISA. In contrast, India still seems to ‘see’ itself being the international educational periphery, where ‘numbers’ have predominantly come from external actors. This could explain some of the reluctance to participate or discuss PISA on the Agora. PISA thus becomes another way of using ‘numbers’ to show that India is not part of the developed world, which does not really correspond with the ‘strivings’ and ‘hopes’ that are connected with India’s internal development. As a result, a different reasoning on large-scale assessments for testing students’ performances and knowledge has developed and spread to other countries – the ASER tests. This is something totally different from what we can observe on China’s educational Agora, where PISA is at least useful for managing and developing national testing. Instead of unconditionally assigning the ‘trust in numbers’ to PISA, India has developed its own testing machineries, namely those launched by the NGO Pratham as an alternative to PISA and the existing national tests. The ‘trust’ is still there, but instead of comparing with ‘developed’ countries, comparisons are now to be made with what are regarded as similar countries. What we can see here is a somewhat dividing orientation, with China looking towards and striving to be like the West and where participating in PISA is a way of moving into the future. India, on the other hand, (at least through the NGO Pratham) appears to be more interested in aligning South to South in order to learn from and cooperate in the development of a joint ‘imagined future’ (Beckert, 2016). To summarise: China and India exhibit different historical and contextual relations to ‘numbers’, the ‘hopes’ inherent in education and assessments. Hence, the reasoning on international assessments differs, as does the intelligibility behind them. As such, when an international large-scale assessment like PISA enters and frames the discussions on the different educational Agoras, different trajectories of the phenomenon appear. One trajectory in which a test like PISA makes sense is made intelligible in relation to a long-standing national reasoning on assessments and comparability. A trajectory in which PISA makes less sense is because it seems to be ‘far removed’ from the national reasoning on the country’s educational needs and development. Conclusively, when international large-scale assessments enter national contexts, historical and national reasoning on education has to be considered when talking about the kinds of activities that take place based on international ‘numbers’ in education. Our elaboration on PISA and activities on national educational Agoras shows that saying that

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PISA affects educational policy in all the participating and non-participating countries around the globe must be further elaborated on in order to present a more accurate picture of what is actually happening. We cannot really talk about one international ‘PISA-effect’ on education, but should instead be talking about national ‘PISA-effects’ on education in the plural.

Notes 1 Some universities now have the autonomy to admit a small number of students based on students’ school performances or rewards in some competitions, such as the International Mathematical Olympiad. 2 The information is retrieved from Shanghai Education Evaluation Institution. (www. seei.edu.sh.cn/Default.aspx?tabid=153&ctl=Details&mid=609&ItemID=871&SkinSrc= %5BL%5DSkins/jypgy_1fen/jypgy_1fen) 3 The information is retrieved from Shanghai Education Evaluation Institution (www. seei.edu.sh.cn/) 4 Retrieved from People Daily News, Dec, 11th 2013. The quote is translated from Chinese. (http://opinion.people.com.cn/n/2013/1211/c1003-23806354.html) 5 Retrieved from Chinatimes, Souhu (www.chinatimes.com/cn/realtimenews/201612100 04423-260409). The quote is from Zhaohui, Chu, researcher at the National Institute of Education Sciences. 6 Retrieved from Chinatimes, Souhu (www.chinatimes.com/cn/realtimenews/201612100 04423-260409). The quote is from Bing qi, Xiong, associate chairman at the China Association of College Newspapers and principal at the University Journal Research Association of Shanghai. 7 The information is retrieved from the Ministry of the Education of the People’s Republic of China (www.moe.gov.cn/s78/A11/moe_888/201606/t20160602_248083.html). 8 Retrieved from (http://edu.people.com.cn/n/2015/0416/c1053-26854225.html). The quote comes from Tao, Xin, vice director of National Assessment Centre for Education Quality, MOE, China. 9 Retrieved from (http://edu.people.com.cn/n/2015/0416/c1053-26854225.html). The quote comes from Shilang, Lin, vice director of the Bureau of Education Inspections. 10 Retrieved from (http://edu.people.com.cn/n/2015/0416/c1053-26854225.html). The quote is from Qi, Dong, director of National Assessment Centre for Education Quality and principle of Perking National University. 11 The Indian education system has an entrenched examination-centric culture, which it has inherited from British colonial times. Over the years, Indian educationists have criticised such a culture in order to reform the system by revealing several of its problems. Exam-centrism deselects poorer students early on from the system. It induces severe individual-level competitiveness due to what is now called the ‘high stakes’ that are attached to it, where results rigidly determine a student’s life trajectory. Pedagogy, learning and assessments based on poor-quality textbooks, prescribed by the state or central level government bureaucracies lead to routinised classroom processes, rote memorisation and the testing of regurgitated information, instead of understanding, knowledge and creativity outside of the boundedness of textbooks-syllabi (e.g., Kumar, 1988, 2005). Urgent calls have been repeatedly made by educationalists to widen the perspective on the purpose of education, where testing and evaluation themselves should be an educative process and not be restrictive. Instead, they note that the Indian education system is beholden to a rigidly bureaucratic structure, where children do not learn to think and explore and the textbooks create a distance between their content and the child’s everyday life.

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12 Out of 65 countries, 34 were OECD member-countries and 31 were “partner countries or economies” (OECD, 2010). 13 OECD (2010). The other ‘economies’ or countries were Costa Rica, Georgia, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Miranda (Venezuela), Moldova, and UAE (except Dubai). 14 Arjun Singh was the Minister of HRD during the rule of the Centrist coalition government, United Progressive Alliance. 15 The question was posed by Rahul Bajaj and Rajkumar Dhoot. 16 The write-up was initially under the following link, a blog hosted by a well-known financial economist-entrepreneur of India: The entry under this link is now directed to another new blog called, LEAP (Law, Economics, Policy): 17 This time, a politician Dr. K. Keshava Rao from the regional state of Telangana asked the following questions: “Will the Minister of Human Resource Development be pleased to state: (a) whether Government would partake in the next round of . . . (PISA), if so, in which cycle; (b) to what extent Government considers linguistic difficulties to be an issue in India’s poor performance; (c) any other reasons for not participating in PISA; and (d) whether Government would reorient the syllabus in schools to better perform in international metrics and tests in light of the fact that in a globalised world students from India compete with students from other countries directly if so, the details thereof, if not, the reasons therefor?” (Irani & Rao, 2016). 18 The community and family of assessments comprise: India (ASER, since 2005), Pakistan (ASER-Pakistan, since 2008), Nepal (ASER-Nepal, since 2016), Bangladesh (BRACIID, since 2015), Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania (Uwezo, since 2009, 2010, and 2010), Mali (Beekunko, since 2011), Senegal (Jàngandoo, since 2012), Nigeria (LEARNigeria, since 2015), Ghana (SCALE Ghana, since 2016), Mozambique (TPC Mozambique, since 2016), Cameroon (Djangirde, since 2016) and Mexico (MIA, since 2014).

References APF (2016). New Education Policy 2016 Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) Draft for Inputs: Comments & Suggestions. Karnataka: Azim Premji Foundation. ASER Centre (2016). Annual Status of Education Report (Rural) 2016. New Delhi: ASER Centre. ASER Centre (2017). Annual Status of Education Report (Rural) 2017: Beyond Basics. New Delhi: ASER Centre. Retrieved from http://palnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/ 01/ASER-2017-Beyond-Basics-Report.pdf Beckert, J. (2016). Imagined Futures: Fictional Expectations and Capitalist Dynamics. Cambridge & London: Harvard University Press. Chen, X. Y. (1997). Exploration on NCEE System Reform-“3+1” Format. China Exam, 1 (in Chinese). Chhapial, H. (2012, January 15). Indian students rank 2nd last in global test. Times of India. Retrieved from https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/education/news/Indian-studentsrank-2nd-last-in-global-test/articleshow/11492508.cms Chhapial, H. (2013, June 1). India chickens out of international students assessment programme again. Times of India. Retrieved from https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/ education/news/India-chickens-out-of-international-students-assessment-programmeagain/articleshow/20375670.cms Chopra, R. (2017, February 22). PISA Tests: India to take part in global teen learning test in 2021. Indian Express. Retrieved from https://indianexpress.com/article/education/ pisa-tests-india-to-take-part-in-global-teen-learning-test-in-2021-4537231/

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Drèze, J. & Sen, A. (2013). An Uncertain Glory: India and Its Contradictions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Feng, Y. (1994, November). From the imperial examination to the national college entrance examination: The dynamics of political centralism in China’s educational enterprise. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, Tucson, AZ. Guo, Q. (1994). Ancient Examination Systems of China. Taipei: Taiwan Commercial Publishers. (in Chinese). Hacking, I. (1990). The Taming of Chance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hacking, I. (2004). Historical Ontology. Cambridge & London: Harvard University Press. Halpern, O. (2014). Beautiful Data: A History of Vision and Reason since 1945. Durham and London: Duke University Press. He, X. C. (1998). Reform on Tested Subjects in NCEE. China Exam, 5, 25–27 (in Chinese). Irani, S. & Rao, K. K. (2016). Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), Pub. L. No. PQ_239_05052016_U1327_p165_p166.pdf. New Delhi: Parliament of India. Retrieved from http://rsdebate.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/660049/2/PQ_239_05052016_U1327_ p165_p166.pdf#search=PISA Jain, M., Mehendale, A., Mukhopadhyay, R., Sarangapani, P. M. & Winch, C. (eds.) (2018). School Education in India: Market, State and Quality. New York, NY: Routledge. Kamat, S. (2004). The privatization of public interest: Theorizing NGO discourse in a neoliberal era. Review of International Political Economy, 11(1), 155–176. Kumar, K. (1988). Origins of India’s ‘textbook culture’. Comparative Education Review, 32(4), 452–464. Kumar, K. (2005). Burden of exams. Economic and Political Weekly, 40(19), 1937–1939. Mitchell, T. (2002). Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity. Berkeley, Los Angeles & London: University of California Press. Nawani, D. (2015). Rethinking assessments in schools. Economic and Political Weekly, 50(3), 37–41. Nowotny, H., Scott, P. & Gibbons, M. (2003). ‘Mode 2’ revisited: The new production of knowledge. Minerva, 41, 179–194. OECD (2010). PISA 2009 Results: What Students Know and Can Do-Student Performance in Reading, Mathematics and Science (Vol. 1). Paris: The Organisation for Economic CoOperation and Development. Pickering, A. (1995). The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency, and Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Porter, T. (1995). Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Pratham (n.d.). Pratham: Who, What and How. Retrieved from www.pratham.org/about-us/ about-pratham Pritchett, L. (2012a, January 5). The First PISA Results for India: The End of the Beginning. Retrieved from https://blog.theleapjournal.org/2012/01/first-pisa-results-for-india-endof.html Pritchett, L. (2012b, January 7). Mr Obama, rest easy: Indian students have hit rock bottom. Firstpost. Retrieved from www.firstpost.com/india/mr-obama-rest-easy-indian-studentshave-hit-rock-bottom-174684.html Sadgopal, A. (2006). Dilution, distortion and diversion: A post-jomtien reflection on the education policy. In R. Kumar (ed.) The Crisis of Elementary Education in India (pp. 92–136). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

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Scott, J. C. (1998). Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. Simmel, G. (1936). The metropolis and mental life. H. D. Gideonese, et al. (eds.) Second-Year Course in the Study of Contemporary Society (Social Science II): Syllabus and Selected Readings. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Singh, A., Bajaj, R. & Dhoot, R. (2008). Participation in Programme of International Student Assessment, Pub. L. No. PQ_213_10032008_S159_p33_p33.pdf. New Delhi, India. Retrieved from http://rsdebate.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/105780/1/PQ_213_10032008_S159_ p33_p33.pdf#search=PISA Steiner-Khamsi, G. (ed.) (2004). The Global Politics of Educational Borrowing and Lending. New York: Teachers College Press. Stromquist, N. P. & Monkman, K. (eds.) (2000). Globalization and Education: Integration and Contestation across Cultures. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Vishnoi, A. (2012, September 3). Poor PISA score: Government blames ‘disconnect’ with India. Indian Express. Retrieved from http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/poor-pisascore-govt-blames-disconnect-with-india/996890/ Walker, M. (2011). PISA 2009 Plus Results: Performance of 15-Year-Olds in Reading, Mathematics and Science for 10 Additional Participants. Melbourne, Australia: ACER Press. Yu, L. & Suen, H. K. (2005). Historical and contemporary exam-driven education fever in China. KEDI Journal of Educational Policy, 2(1), 17–33.

Chapter 11

Education export and import New activities on the educational Agora Kampei Hayashi

Introduction Yeap Ban Har, the world-famous expert on Singapore maths, started his workshop at a Swedish school with the phrase “there’s no such thing as Singapore maths!” That was a very catchy introduction and brilliantly swept the reluctant teachers off their feet. He said that no child was born excellent or poor, but that society, culture or systems contributed to this. He continued by explaining the characteristics of the Singaporean success in TIMSS mathematics, how they have strengthened competent pupils at advanced levels and that this has been accomplished by a combination of Asian style maths lessons and practice. He referred to statistics from international assessments and researchers’ work to support his argument and at the end demonstrated the evidence-proven model lesson to the teachers. The school principal who had invited Yeap then presented the school’s ambitions for globalisation, namely that teachers as researchers should exchange teaching expertise with their colleagues around the world.1 The scene itself was literally international – here was a Japanese researcher listening to a presentation on Singapore maths at a Swedish school. The teachers at the school themselves used a translated version of Singapore maths textbooks in their classrooms. This scene also demonstrates that education has become a business field, not only at the domestic market level but also in an international trade arena. In addition to the ‘traditional’ edu-business sectors, such as textbook publishers, school chain providers and education consultancies, giant IT companies have joined the field by investing in philanthropic organisations (e.g. Au & Ferrare, 2014). Governments are also now entering this market as actors (Hayashi, 2016). Marketisation used to be regarded as a product of right-wing, neoliberalistic ideas. However, teachers’ unions, which are generally regarded as left-wing bodies and against neo-liberalism (e.g. Verger, Fontdevila & Zancajo, 2016), are now major providers of profit-making education services in e.g. Singapore. Anyone can do edu-business and edu-business easily crosses borders. International organisations, such as the OECD and the World Bank, are also helping to expand this specific edu-business market by providing statistics and loan schemes.

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The focus of this chapter is on ‘educational export’, a phenomenon where governments promote edu-businesses to go abroad to make ‘business’ and as such expand what could be considered as an educational Agora – not only domestically, but also internationally. The appearance of ‘educational export’ has become evident in that several countries have set national strategies for selling their educational goods and services to other countries. In the following, exporter countries such as Finland, Japan and Singapore, and importer countries like Ghana and Liberia are examined to determine whether ‘education export’ can be discussed as a new activity, or has at least taken new forms on the educational Agora.

Education export in the four GATS modes Education export is a rather common phenomenon in the field of tertiary education, including both higher and further education, and is mostly referred to as an example of ‘internationalisation’ (see for instance Spring, 2015; Verger, Fontdevila & Zancajo, 2016). One of the earliest signs of this can be found in the 1995 General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). GATS was created to extend the multilateral trading system to also include the service sector in the same way as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) provided for merchandise trade. As such, the GATS agreement also promoted the free trade of educational services. Within GATS, four modes of cross-border liberalisation of services have been identified (World Trade Organization, 2013). In relation to this thinking, Martens and Starke (2008) have identified possible examples of the same modes in the educational sector, as presented below: Mode 1: concerns the supply of services abroad, corresponding with ‘normal’ cross-border trade in goods. It is a straightforward form of trade in services, because it resembles the familiar exchange between a seller and a buyer in which only the service itself crosses national frontiers. In the field of education, this refers to e.g. distance learning programmes. Mode 2: concerns the consumption of services abroad, referring to situations where a consumer moves into another territory to obtain a service, for example, for tourism or to visit a doctor while abroad. In the field of education, this may include attending an educational establishment, like a language school or degree programme at a foreign university. Consumption abroad presents the largest component of international trade in education. Mode 3: refers to the supply of a service through the commercial presence of the foreign supplier in another country. This mode of delivery is often called ‘offshore provision’. It implies that a supplier from one state establishes a territorial presence (including ownership or lease of premise) in another member’s territory to provide a service. Branch offices or agencies to deliver banking, legal advice or communication services

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fall under this Mode. In the field of education, this refers to universities operating abroad to meet the demand of students who do not want to or are unable to study overseas. Such services are attractive to students because of lower costs. This Mode is growing in importance. Mode 4: involves natural persons providing services abroad. In other words, it concerns the admission of foreigners to another country to provide services there. This Mode is often found in combination with Mode 3 because a visiting person may be an employee of a foreign service supplier, but someone can also provide service as an independent person. In the field of education, this involves, for example, teachers who teach at a foreign university or other Mode 3 institutions. (Martens & Starke, 2008 pp. 7–8) New Zealand is a clear example of how the most common cross-border education can be portrayed. In 2016, New Zealand had 125,011 international students, which had the economic value of more than 3 billion NZD. Today, these international students constitute the fourth largest export sector in the country. Due this development, the New Zealand Government has now released an International Education Strategy, which emphasises the role of government in promoting and encouraging the further development of New Zealand’s international education sector. The strategy aims to boost the sector’s economic value to 6 billion NZD by 2025 (New Zealand Government, 2018). Other examples of cross-border education can be seen in the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US), both of which have traditionally been successful in attracting international students. Universities in these countries have also established international branch campuses throughout Asia and the Middle East. On the importer’s side are the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Malaysia, all of which invite offshore campuses as part of a strategy to create international educational ‘hubs’, thus benefitting from the investments made by these ‘transnational’ universities.

The exporter side Even though some time has passed since New Zealand first published the Export Education Strategy in 2001, education export at the primary and secondary education levels of GATS Mode 3 and Mode 4 are still rare. However, Singapore, Finland and Japan are still working to establish these sectors by incorporating them into their national export strategies. Examples of education export in these countries are presented below. The Economic Development Board (EDB) of Singapore regards education as one of its most competitive trade goods. A well-known coordinator of education export in Singapore is the National Institute of Education (NIE) and its for-profit subsidy, NIE International Pte Ltd. (NIEI). NIE is an independent institute under Nanyang Technical University, which oversees pre-service, inservice and continuous teacher training for all Singaporean teachers. Although

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the institute claims to be independent, members of the committee are senior executives from the Ministry of Education. NIEI was established in 2009 to monitor the fruits of studies conducted at NIE. At that time, the person who established NIEI was also the director of NIE. The company started with educational consulting services at NIE under the name External Programme Office (EPO) in 2003, which then branched out to form NIEI, and was the only provider in the education export field in Singapore at the time. When EDB, NIE or NIEI receive a request from abroad for a consultation, they always try to make sure that an expert from the Singaporean business sector accompanies them. NIEI executives portray themselves as ‘salesmen’ and express that NIEI was “actually established for exporting education knowledge to the world”. The main services that NIEI exports are teacher training courses, assessments and consultations on school reforms. NIEI’s president also recognises that good results in PISA and TIMSS strongly attract other countries and, as such, good results in international large-scale assessments can be considered as valuable and profitable assets.2 The other major provider of education export in Singapore is Educare Co-operative Limited (Educare), which is the subsidiary company of the Singaporean Teachers’ Union (STU). STU is the largest teachers’ organisation in Singapore. It began doing business internationally in 2004 and since then has provided learning technology, professional development courses and education consultancy services to neighbouring South East Asian and Middle Eastern countries.3 What is interesting in this case is that teachers’ organisations have become involved in the new activities that are taking place on the educational Agora due to the potential of achieving good results in international large-scale assessments. Another example of a country exporting education is Finland. Singapore and Finland have both been successful in their results in international large-scale assessments. As such, these two examples highlight the ‘business potential’ that is embedded in successful results in different international comparative assessments. Finland developed its national strategy for the promotion of education export in 2010 and 2015 and during that time some 80 companies and universities joined as providers. Education Export Finland (EEF) is the organiser, and the project was initiated by the Ministry of Employment and the Economy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Education and Culture (see Schatz, 2016). EEF’s two main goals in the 2010 strategy were: a) to become one of the world’s leading education-based economies that relies on the high quality of its education system, and b) to increase the proportion of education and knowledge exports significantly in relation to overall export by 2015. During the target period of 2010–2015, EEF encouraged domestic companies to export digital learning solutions, teaching materials, consultancies, teacher training services, educational environments and infrastructure and Finnish school models abroad. Their target areas were Iran, Spain, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Brazil and Russia. The motivation behind this project was said to be finding alternatives to

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the economic success of the company Nokia, which was clearly affected by the global financial crisis of 2008.4 One of the major providers to EEF is EduCluster Finland, a for-profit arm of the University of Jyväskylä, JAMK University of Applied Science and Jyväskylä Educational Consortium Gradia, as such constituting a sort of a ‘triple helix’ between science, politics and private enterprise. One of the tasks of this cluster is to send Finnish teachers to the Qatar-Finland International School in Doha, which provides a localised Finnish curriculum for 750 students in years 0–8 and offers teacher training.5 This educational export can be discussed in relation to the potential embedded in achieving high scores in international large-scale assessments; scores that also seem to have ‘business-potential’. The third example of a country exporting education is Japan, which also performs well in international large-scale assessments. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) recently initiated a national investment called Edu-port Japan in collaboration with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Cool Japan Fund. The project’s aims are: a) to build strong trust and collaborative relationships with other countries through education, b) to promote the internationalisation of Japanese educational institutions and c) to promote the overseas expansion of Japanese education institutions. The goods and services intended for export are textbooks, teaching materials and instruments, know-how on traditional Japanese customs at school, such as moral education, manners education during school lunches, sports day event operation, cleaning, disaster prevention practices and lesson studies. Its trade partners are predominantly India, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Vietnam, Thailand, Brazil and Malaysia. The motivation for this project is to enlarge the MEXT budget, which has steadily decreased due to the drop in the birth rate (number of pupils) and the government’s fiscal deficit. As such, education export in Japan has become a way of preserving the status quo of teachers’ skills and training due to the fact that the sector is in decline. In order to preserve knowledge within the educational sector, ‘material’ (students) is needed to keep up with other nations’ assets in young people and thereby calibrate a high standard of education. In this, export is a highly valuable strategy, especially as Japanese students perform well in international large-scale assessments. This is then seen as a marker of the education system having high quality and selling power. The common idea behind these three cases is similar to the trend through which a shift occurred from the mode of ‘aid’ to that of ‘trade’ (e.g. Alvey, Duhs & Duhs, 1999; Duhs & Duhs, 1997) in international development and aid activities. Mostly, economic interests form the background of the abovementioned countries’ motivation: the 2008 global financial crisis and Nokia’s fall in Finland, continuous geopolitical and economic unrest in Singapore, a reduction in the birth rate (super-ageing society) and the fiscal deficit of the

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Japanese Government. Moreover, when universities invite foreign students to their countries, or expand abroad to set up offshore campuses, the exporting country not only gains tuition fees, but also other sources of revenue, such as the living costs paid by foreign students or their families. Like New Zealand (but also to a large extent Australia), the education revenue is high, which motivates the government to liberalise and deregulate the market through the unilateral lowering of entry barriers (e.g. by relaxing VISA regulations) and reduced restrictions on students who are already in the country (Martens & Starke, 2008). Typical examples of this can be found in New Zealand, which now offers international students a simple way of transferring money to New Zealand.6 At the primary and secondary levels, the income structure is more complicated than that for higher education. Unlike at the university level, at the primary and secondary levels schools or firms cannot collect large tuition fees. As mobility is limited, the revenue that is generated from living costs does not have a significant impact on the domestic economy. Thus, exporters tend to negotiate with the central or regional government and local school authorities for financial support. Conversely, once the exporter obtains such a contract, due to limited mobility the business aspects of the primary and secondary levels become much more stable than those of the tertiary level. Offshore campuses of foreign universities tend to concentrate their business in a small area, because that is more cost-effective. However, at the primary and secondary levels, the group or franchise chain tends to establish numerous schools in a certain area.

The importer side This section mainly highlights aspects of the educational Agora of Liberia and Ghana, with a special focus on these countries as importers, and with the UK and US as exporters of education. The first example is somewhat extreme and features George Werner, Liberia’s Minister of Education, who in 2016 announced that he wanted to outsource the country’s entire schooling system to a single company – Bridge International Academies (BIA). The Republic of Liberia was established in 1847, Africa’s second longest history of independence followed by Ethiopia. Having a complex relation with the US, the country struggled with coups and civil war for many decades and an Ebola virus epidemic in the 2010s. The net enrolment rate in primary education was 36.75 per cent in 2016. For the past ten years the enrolment rate has continuously declined and is now regarded as one of the lowest in the world.7 Thus, providing primary education in the country could be viewed as better than nothing. However, this scheme raises several problematic features and questions. BIA is the US-based for-profit organisation funded by Bill Gates (Microsoft), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and Pierre Omidyar (eBay), among others. After Werner’s announcement, the news media covered the idea as an extreme

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experiment of privatisation, which drew considerable criticism and attention from all over the world. Werner had to change the initial outsourcing plan to a single company due to the amount of criticism, which, interestingly, was not so much directed towards the outsourcing of an entire school system, but towards what was called ‘bad’ management in economic terms. What seemed to have been forgotten was the economic common sense that competition promotes quality and that it would therefore be important to invite several organisations rather than one. As a result, multiple school operators were invited, which was similar to the ‘business-model’ of the charter schools operating in the US. Due to these initial plans, the Ministry of Education launched the Partnership Schools for Liberia (PSL) programme in 2016 and suggested a budget of 50 USD per student per year. An international charity organisation called Ark, based in the UK, became PSL’s funding manager. Eight non- and for-profit organisations from all over the world won the bid to operate schools in Liberia (Ball & Junemann, 2012). In this chapter, the example of Liberia is used as an extreme case of outsourcing an entire school system, but also used as an introduction to one of the operators who won parts of the bid in Liberia – the Omega Schools. Omega is a Ghanaian private school enterprise that was registered in the UK through the investment of Pearson’s Affordable Fund and James Tooley, professor of education policy at Newcastle University. The history of Omega Schools is that in 2007, Ken Donkoh, the founder of Omega Schools, encountered what he called a ground-breaking research conducted by Tooley on lowcost private schools in the developing world. Based on this research, Donkoh developed his business model as part of his MBA dissertation. Before launching Omega Schools, Ken Donkoh was an experienced social entrepreneur who had previously worked for Oxfam and USAID (Riep, 2014). In September 2009, Ken and his now business partner Tooley opened the first two schools under their franchise in Ghana. As of 2018, their enterprise had grown to include 38 schools and more than 20,000 students in Ghana. Omega Schools is based on what is called a ‘Pay-As-You-Learn model’, which consists of daily fees, an original curriculum with digital content, assessment and a specific school management system. The very idea is said to be to help poor families manage the annual tuition fees, and as an alternative Omega Schools instead offers the ‘Daily Voucher’ system as an all-inclusive daily fee (of about 0.65 USD). This includes tuition, a cooked lunch, textbooks and workbooks, uniforms, routine assessments and a rudimentary health insurance. The schools still offer the daily voucher in the form of a physical card, although most of the students purchase it in digital form. Parents pay for the voucher in advance, weekly, every 10 days, monthly or once a term. The schools are mostly financed through these tuition fees. Omega Schools uses teaching materials that are partly from Pearson and partly from a local publishing house in Ghana called SEDCO. Even though SEDCO is a local publisher, the textbooks are developed in conjunction with Pearson. For managing the schools and for developing the content within these

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schools, Omega Schools employs several subject specialists at its head office who prepare teaching plans and materials centrally. Additionally, it also offers what it calls a ‘World Class Assessment’ system to all students every term. A director of assessment is employed in the central management, whose team develops original assessments for most of the subjects. Furthermore, Pearson’s company is permitted to use Omega Schools’ assessment materials once a year as an external reference. As is common for other entrepreneurs in the educational field, Omega Schools promotes the use of tablet devices in classrooms. Teachers use the tablets for planning lessons according to the head office handouts, and students take their tests on the tablet, which are corrected and graded by the staff at head office.8 Omega Schools is today a rapidly growing enterprise within edu-business in the developing world and opened 19 schools in Liberia in 2017 under the PSL scheme. According to a report by Romero, Sandefur and Sandholtz (2017), it provides schooling for only 39 USD per student, compared to the Liberian Ministry of Education’s grant of 50 USD per student. As such, it makes sense for Omega Schools to invest in Liberia and it is also understandable why Liberia found it attractive to subcontract Omega Schools. ‘Successful’ education appears as something slightly different if it is translated into economic terms (cf. the chapter by Wärvik, Runesdotter and Pettersson in this book). But what is really at stake here when we focus on education export? One way of dealing with this question is to highlight some of the problematics investigated within the field of comparative education. Researchers in this field have traditionally used concepts like ‘policy transfer’ or ‘educational lending and borrowing’ (e.g. Manzon, 2018a, 2018b; Phillips & Orchs, 2004). Cowen (2006, 2009) has re-evaluated the concept of ‘policy transfer’ and developed it further into three individual phases – transfer, translation and transformation. These are explained as follows: a)

transfer is the movement of an educational idea or practices in supranational or transnational or international space: the ‘space-gate’ moment, with its politics of attraction and so on; b) translation is the shape-shifting of educational institutions or the re-interpretation of educational ideas which routinely occurs with the transfer in space: ‘the chameleon process’; and c) transformations are the metamorphoses which the compression of social and economic power into education in the new context imposes on the initial translation: that is, a range of transformations in the new context imposes on the initial translation: that is, a range of transformations which cover both the indigenisation and the extinction of the translated form. (Cowen, 2006 p. 566) Based on Cowen’s phases, the in many ways extreme Liberian case could be explained in the following way: The Liberian minister of education first tried

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to transfer the American model of charter schools into the Liberian context as an item that was possible to import. On encountering significant criticism and attention, he changed his mind and instead used the charter school model and structured and adapted it to Liberia’s ‘style’. In this, the organisation Ark, PSL’s funding manager and the advisory board of the ministry acted as translators between the American and the Liberian contexts. However, it should be noted that transformation is impeded in the prevailing structures. For Omega Schools, as well as for other contractors of the PSL, it is important for the edu-business model to differentiate its brand from that of local schools in order to maintain what is regarded as its competitive advantage. One example of this is that exportable services are regularly made up of more advanced technology than is usual in the import countries, but are similar regarding the aspect of impediment. Additionally, teachers and the schools in the Omega Schools enterprise have the option of developing their own teaching plans or assessments, whereas the head office exercises strict control over the schools under the Director of School Operations and Director of Assessment. In that way, localisation, or ‘indigenisation’, is structurally impeded by the way these schools are organised. In using the charter school model for PSL a huge discussion was prompted, which included both positive and negative feedback. The National Teachers’ Association of Liberia (NTAL) criticised the programme’s neo-liberalistic approach and refused to bid for the contract.9 The business and international development sectors regarded the methods as a good way of attracting foreign investment, even though some papers cynically illustrated the situation as ‘selling the schools’. Contractors, such as Omega Schools, are motivated to sustain the business for their own interests. Thus, the provider at least gains sufficient revenue and, if the impediment tricks work, can maintain its approach to education. In this way, the importing government recognises the benefit of inviting foreign edu-businesses into its primary and secondary education market.

Educational colonialism: conclusions and beyond What does the expansion of the education export to primary and secondary education imply? Primary and secondary education are often regarded as human rights and are based on egalitarian ideology (e.g. Education for All movement), compared to tertiary education which is more directly oriented towards human resource and economic development. Recent movements of Education Export can be viewed as bringing the perspectives of human resource development in tertiary education into primary-and secondary education. This development can be discussed in relation to vocational education, which traditionally has been categorised as part of industrial development, or human resource improvement. A typical example can be found on JICA’s (Japan International Cooperation Agency) website (translated from Japanese and highlighted in italics by the author) where the different projects it

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is involved in are presented. JICA is one of the stakeholders mentioned earlier as involved in education export: Uganda: TVET-Leading Institution’s Expansion of Human Resource and Skilled Workforce Development for Industrial Sector in Uganda (TEVET-Lead Project) Through this project, the NVTI [the Nakawa Vocational Training Institute] aims to enhance its collaboration with the private sector to design training courses that are more practical, improve its privatesector-initiated development and promote the improvement of the business environment as the foundation of Japanese companies’ advancement in Uganda.10 Senegal: Project for improving Organisational Capacity of Technical and Vocational Training Centre Senegal-Japan By adopting Japanese ideologies like ‘5S’, [sort, set, shine, standardise and sustain] CFPT [the Senegal-Japan Vocational Training Centre] hopes to enhance the employability of Senegal’s population by fostering more professionals who are equipped with the skills necessary to be hired by foreign companies, including Japanese businesses (the unemployment rate in Senegal is currently over 10 per cent).11 These examples show, explicitly or implicitly, that the graduates of the education provided by exporter countries are potential employees for the exporter’s industry and will probably be hired as a much cheaper labour force. When primary education is similarly operated by the exporter’s economic interest, the consequence could be the same: those who grow up in e.g. the PSL may become future employees and be used as cheap labour for the exporting countries. The low-cost private education of the sub-Saharan African area is often referred to in international cooperation and development studies.12 These studies often focus on the effect, effectiveness or impact of the aid on local communities or individuals. This chapter, in contrast, suggests an alternative view of the phenomenon, namely the relationship and structure of the actors, for instance, ‘educational colonialism’ (cf. Carnoy, 1974), by applying the perspectives of comparative education. Colonialism has two ways of exploitation: a) using the colonies’ population as labour and b) using their natural resources as raw material (Gilmartin, 2009; Kay & Nystrom, 1971). It is important to acknowledge that education export not only includes the product, but also the services, and that the provider is not necessarily the nation, but could be anyone, such as multinational companies and international organisations, as stated by e.g. neocolonialism theory (Gyamera & Burke, 2018; Kwame, 1965; Young, 2001). As

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such, the characteristics of ‘educational colonialism’ in edu-business not only maintain its dominant structure of colonialism, but adds the following ways of exploitation: a) exporting actors siphon the importers’ properties and b) exporting actors use the educated youth as low-cost labour. The asymmetric exporter-importer relationship is sustainable from the economic perspective, but not the educative. Education has been regarded as a public good, and a strong egalitarianism ideology has been experienced for a long time in the field, especially at the primary level. School education was regarded as being for everyone, built by everyone and created public communities. However, in a marketisation movement (Ball, 2012) led by international organisations, the government no longer regards education as an investment for a welfare state, but as a drain on the nation’s resources (Codd, 2004). Ironically, the market-driven system has embedded a sustainable mechanism for continuous engagement in school development (Tooley, 2016), which has been a major challenge for international ‘aid’ activities. It should also be noted that this approach is often driven by the importer’s demands and requests. It is traditionally assumed that comparative education will deal with countries as a principal actor. Postcolonial theory often questions the spontaneity and autonomy of the supported countries (which are often developing countries). However, in education import, customers’ (students, parents, communities) voices are set aside and the business still works. One conclusion that can be drawn from this discussion about education export and import is that activities that take place on the educational Agora are shaped by this new mode. Education is no longer a national priority, but is regarded as a commercial product that can be bought and sold across national borders. This expands the activities that can be performed on the educational Agora.

Notes 1 Singapore Mathematics Workshop at Saltjöbadens Samskola, Nacka Municipality, Sweden, on 21st September 2018. 2 Interview with the then president and vice president of NIEI, 8 July 2014. 3 Interview with Yeo Tiong Hui (Assistant Director, Strategic Development), Mr. Prakasham S/O Thangaveloo (Head of Education Consultancy Division), Educare Co-operative Limited and Alex Shieh (Assistant General Secretary) of Singapore Teachers’ Union, on 4 December 2017. 4 Interview with Vänskä Riitta (Programme Manager), Future Learning Finland and Export Finland, on 6 May 2016. 5 Interview with Jan-Markus Holm (CEO), EduCluster Finland, on 11 March 2016. 6 Education New Zealand, Changes to the Funds Transfer Scheme, News, 28 September 2018. https://enz.govt.nz/news-and-research/ed-news/changes-to-the-funds-transferscheme/ (retrieved 1 October 2018). 7 UNESCO, Data for the Sustainable Development Goals, Liberia, http://uis.unesco. org/en/country/lr (retrieved 1 October 2018). 8 Interview with Erica Akoeley Lawson (Director of Compliance and Inspection), Harriet Idan (Direcotr of School Operations), John Kokro Frimpong (Marketing and Brands

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Manager), Dlvis M. Agbenyadzi (Director of Assessment), Omega Schools Franchises Ltd., on 18 July 18 2018. Daily Observer, NTAL, Partners Reject Partnership Schools for Liberia, 2017–08–02. (www.liberianobserver.com/news/ntal-partners-reject-partnership-schools-for-liberia/). JICA’s website, www.jica.go.jp/activities/issues/education/case.html. JICA’s website, www.jica.go.jp/english/our_work/thematic_issues/education/study.html. See for instance Macpherson, Robertson and Walford (2014); Miller, Craven and Tooley (2014); Onuora-Oguno, Egbewole and Kleven (2018); Phillipson (2008); Srivastava (2013); Tooley and Dixon (2006); Tooley, Dixon and Amuah (2007); Tooley (2009, 2012, 2013, 2016); and Tooley and Longfield (2016).

References Alvey, J. E., Duhs, E. J. & Duhs, L. A. (1999). New Zealand exports of tertiary education services. J. E. Alvey (ed.) Perspectives on the International Sale of Tertiary Education Services (pp. 3–28). Issues Paper No.5. Centre for Public Policy Evaluation, Massey University, Palmerston North. Au, W. & Ferrare, J. J. (2014). Sponsors of policy: A network analysis of wealthy elites, their affiliated philanthropies, and charter school reform in Washington state. Teachers College Record, 116(8), 1–24. Ball, S. J. (2012). Global Education Inc.: New Policy Networks and the Neo-Liberal Imaginary. London: Routledge. Ball, S. J. & Junemann, C. (2012). Networks, New Governance and Education. Bristol: The Policy Press. Carnoy, M. (1974). Education as Cultural Imperialism. Boston: Addison-Wesley Longman Ltd. Codd, J. (2004). Export education and the commercialisation of public education in New Zealand. New Zealand Annual Review of Education, 13, 21–41. Cowen, R. (2006). Acting comparatively upon the educational world: Puzzles and possibilities. Oxford Review of Education, 32(5), 561–573. Cowen, R. (2009). The transfer, translation and transformation of educational processes: And their shape-shifting? Comparative Education, 45(3), 315–327. Duhs, T. & Duhs, A. (1997). Export of tertiary education services and the Queensland economy. Economic Analysis and Policy, 27(2), 159–174. Gilmartin, M. (2009). Colonialism/imperialism. C. Gallaher, C. T. Dahlman, M. Gilmartin, A. Mountz & P. Shirlow (eds.) Key Concepts in Political Geography (pp. 115–123). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Gyamera, G. O. & Burke, P. J. (2018). Neoliberalism and curriculum in higher education: A post-colonial analyses. Teaching in Higher Education, 23(4), 450–467. Hayashi, K. (2016). Formation of ‘educational hegemony’ on global education policy market: An analysis of four national education research institutes’ outward strategy. Bulletin of the Japan Educational Administration Society, 42, 147–163. Kay, S. & Nystrom, B. (1971). Education and colonialism in Africa: An annotated bibliography. Comparative Education Review, 15(2), 240–259. Kwame, N. (1965). Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism. Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson & Sons, Ltd. Macpherson, I., Robertson, S. & Walford, G. (eds.) (2014). Education, Privatisation and Social Justice, Case Studies from Africa, South Asia and South East Asia. Providence: Symposium Books.

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Manzon, M. (2018a). Origins and traditions in comparative education: Challenging some assumption. Comparative Education, 54(1), 1–9. Manzon, M. (2018b). Comparative education histories: A postscript. Comparative Education, 54(1), 94–107. Martens, K. & Starke, P. (2008). Small country, big business? New Zealand as education exporter. Comparative Education, 44(1), 3–19. Miller, P., Craven, B. & Tooley, J. (2014). Setting up a free school: Successful proposers’ experiences. Research Papers in Education, 29(3), 351–371. New Zealand Government (2018). International Education Strategy 2018–2030. https://enz. govt.nz/assets/Uploads/International-Education-Strategy-2018-2030.pdf Onuora-Oguno, A. C., Egbewole, W. O. & Kleven, T. E. (eds.) (2018). Education Law, Strategic Policy and Sustainable Development in Africa, Agenda 2063. London: Palgrave MacMillan. Phillips, D. & Ochs, K. (2003). Processes of policy borrowing in education: Some explanatory and analytical devices. Comparative Education, 39(1), 451–461. Phillips, D. & Ochs, K. (2004). Researching policy borrowing: Some methodological challenges in comparative education. British Educational Research Journal, 30(6), 773–784. Phillipson, B. (2008). Low-Cost Private Education, Impacts on Achieving Universal Primary Education. London: Commonwealth Secretariat. Schatz, M. (2016). Education as Finland’s Hottest Export? A Multi-Faceted Case Study on Finnish National Education Export Policies. Helsinki: University of Helsinki Faculty of Behavioural Sciences Research Report of the Department of Teacher Education, 289. Spring, J. (2015). Globalization of Education: An Introduction (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. Srivastava, P. (ed.) (2013). Low-Fee Private Schooling, Aggravating Equity or Mitigating Disadvantage? Providence: Symposium Books. Riep, C. B. (2014). Omega schools Franchise in Ghana: ‘Affordable’ Private Education for the Poor or for-Profiteering? I. MacPherson, S. L. Robertson & G. Walford (eds.) Education, Privatisation and Social Justice: Case Studies from Africa, South Asia and South East Asia (pp. 259–278). Providence: Symposium Books. Romero, M., Sandefur, J. & Sandholtz, W. A. (2017). Outsourcing Service Delivery in a Fragile State: Experimental Evidence from Liberia. https://sites.tufts.edu/neudc2017/files/2017/10/ paper_484.pdf Tooley, J. (2009). The Beautiful Tree: A Personal Journey into How the World’s Poorest People Are Educating Themselves. Washington: Cato Institute. Tooley, J. (2012). From Village School to Global Brand, Changing the World through Education. London: Profile Books. Tooley, J. (2013). Challenging educational injustice: ‘Grassroots’ privatisation in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Oxford Review of Education, 39(4), 446–463. Tooley, J. (2016). Extending access to low-cost private schools through vouchers: An alternative interpretation of a two-stage ‘School Choice’ experiment in India. Oxford Review of Education, 42(5), 579–593. Tooley, J. & Dixon, P. (2006). ‘De facto’ privatisation of education and the poor: Implications of a study from sub-Saharan Africa and India. Compare, 36(4), 443–462. Tooley, J., Dixon, P. & Amuah, I. (2007). Private and public schooling in Ghana: A census and comparative survey. Review of Education, 53, 389–415. Tooley, J. & Longfield, D. (2016). Affordability of private schools: Exploration of a conundrum and toward a definition of ‘low-cost’. Oxford Review of Education, 42(2), 444–459.

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Verger, A., Fontdevila, C. & Zancajo, A. (2016). The Privatization of Education: A Political Economy of Global Education Reform. New York: Teachers College Press. World Trade Organization (2013). General Agreement on Trade in Services. https:// wto.org/ english/tratop_e/serv_e/gsintr_e.pdf Young, R. J. C. (2001). Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell.

Chapter 12

Measuring what we value, or valuing what we can measure? Performance indicators, school choice and the curriculum 1 Ulf Lundström

Introduction In recent decades, statistics, databases and websites have emerged as measures of school achievement and as a basis for school choice. In Sweden, this development has become increasingly normalised. A government report states that independent schools and school choice policy are ‘here to stay’ and suggests that “compulsory school choice combined with relevant and compulsory information to students and guardians should be considered” (SOU, 2016:38 p. 127, author’s translation). However, “relevant and compulsory information” is not defined, and what is being measured or not measured, and how this is linked to the national curriculum, is not elaborated on. Research on these issues is scarce. In this article, the Swedish case is analysed as an example of an international trend that merits further examination: “This coupling of markets and mechanisms for the generation of evidence of performance is exactly what has occurred. Whether it works is open to question” (Apple, 2004 p. 18). By describing and analysing the common performance indicators that are used in the Swedish school system, this study contributes knowledge about how such indicators can influence teaching and school choice, and how they interact with the national curriculum. Performance indicators from five important evaluation systems2 are analysed. The study is limited to Sweden’s nineyear compulsory school, but the findings could also apply to upper secondary school, given that the performance indicators are similar. Green (2011) claims that the growth of New Public Management (NPM) since the 1980s has been followed by an obsession with goals and indicators and refers to the contexts of ‘accountability’ and ‘performativity’, emphasising that these have led to demands for ‘explicitness’, i.e. school achievement must be made obvious in the criteria (Green, 2011 p. 10). Shore and Wright (2015 p. 22) characterise this trend as ‘governing by numbers’ or ‘audit culture’, which they describe as a new world order. A basic assumption in the school choice discourse is that the ‘customers’ (i.e. students and parents) make rational, well-informed choices based on information that is available (Musset, 2012). This is expected to lead to service

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providers offering the best quality education in line with market logics (Freidson, 2001). Based on a review of definitions of performance indicators, the concept is used here to denote the special criteria that are used to assess student achievement/results (Karatzias, Power & Swanson, 2001). Other aspects are touched on briefly to indicate wider perspectives, such as indicator contexts, background data and student attitude surveys. In parallel with the establishment of a school market and the emergence of an audit culture, critical research on this seemingly inevitable development is increasing. For example, Ravitch (2010 p. 229) states that “there are no grounds for the claim made in the past decade that accountability all by itself is a silver bullet, nor for the oft-asserted argument that choice itself is a panacea”. One theme in this critical stream of research is that the audit culture’s focus on easily measurable results entails reductively simplifying the intentions of education (Dahler-Larsen, 2012; Keddie, 2013). Another theme is that performance indicators, grades, test results and other representations of results displace the actual results and thereby affect the entire school system (Green, 2011; Lundahl, Hultén, Klapp & Mickwitz, 2015). Biesta (2009 p. 35) considers this trend a result of a ‘culture of performativity’. Alluding to the saying attributed to management guru Peter Drucker,3 that “what gets measured gets managed”, Ainscow (2005 p. 120) he expresses the hope for another direction: “We must ‘measure what we value’ rather than is often the case, ‘valuing what we can measure’”. The indicators and criteria that have become established representations of the concepts of school achievement, school results and school quality have the potential to influence what teachers and students actually focus on, thus implying that those who create evaluation systems become de facto policymakers (Dahler-Larsen, 2012, 2014). The indicators affect teachers’ policy enactment, i.e. their interpretation and translation of policy into educational practice. Performance indicators will therefore have an impact on the realisation of educational policy. Lingard, Martino and Rezai-Rashti (2013) observe that ‘policy by numbers’ has become a global educational policy field with a substantial influence on teachers, students and curricula. They argue that this test-based accountability has crowded out more educative forms of accountability. Furthermore, previous research demonstrates that it cannot be assumed that education ‘customers’ are sufficiently well-informed about their choice of school (Böhlmark, Holmlund & Lindahl, 2015; Waslander, Pater & van der Weide, 2010). Families’ social capital varies considerably, thus implying differences in access to information and the resources needed to interpret it. Another point made in the critical research literature is that representations of school achievement are linked to power: Who controls the field of judgement? What kind of preferences does the actor have and whose interests do these preferences serve? Ball (2003 p. 216) describes this and asks: “Who is it that determines what is to count as a valuable, effective or satisfactory

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performance and what measures or indicators are considered valid?” This article intends to advance the discussion about the power to define legitimate knowledge in the school system. This is especially urgent in the light of the strong authoritarian and anti-democratic trends that are evident in today’s world, including e.g. the denial of climate change and the emergence of ‘alternative facts’. The next three sections describe the Swedish context, the theoretical framework and the methodology. In the following sections, the Swedish national curriculum is briefly analysed and common performance indicators are described and analysed regarding the discourses they represent and how they represent the national curriculum. The findings are summarised and discussed in a concluding discussion.

The Swedish case: marketisation and audit culture School choice is one of the most intensely discussed issues in today’s education policy debate and opportunities for school choice have increased in many OECD countries since the 1980s (Musset, 2012). This is also the case in Sweden, where after a long tradition of social democratic, state-centred educational provision, a school system that is more market-oriented has developed (Lundahl et al., 2013; OECD, 2015). Opportunities for schools to make a profit and the generous freedom of independent schools are two salient features of the Swedish school system. The system is publicly funded and regulated, thus making it a quasi-market (Lubienski, 2009), although here I prefer to call it a ‘school market’ in order to underline the far-reaching realisation of neo-liberal ideals that the state actively promotes by means of this educational marketisation (Olssen & Peters, 2005). The market-oriented school reforms that have been carried out in Sweden are in line with Milton Friedman’s ideas about vouchers, privatisation, parental influence and the assumption that school choice will result in improved school achievement and diversity. One example is a recent government report on how school quality could be presented in an easily accessible way. The report claims that there is a positive correlation between competition and quality and assumes that school choice requires well-informed parents and students (SOU, 2013:56). Sweden’s long tradition of centralised state governance was replaced by farreaching decentralisation and management by objectives and results (MBOR) around 1990. Evaluation was described as a fundamental prerequisite for this new governance (Government Bill, 1989/90:41). The reforms were introduced during a period of deep financial crisis accompanied by cutbacks in the public budget. As in several other countries, NPM offered arguments for the upholding of quality, efficiency and accountability in such a situation. Measuring performance is part of the NPM trend that has spread since the 1980s (Björnholt & Larsen, 2014).

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Since the 1980s, statistics, databases and websites have emerged in Sweden both for measuring goal achievement and to provide information to assist school choice. These evaluation systems include a number of indicators for measuring students’ school performance; measures that are often taken for granted in the public debate and the research literature (see e.g. Holmlund et al., 2014; Jordahl, 2016; Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions, 2016). The Swedish National Agency for Education (NAE) is the authority responsible for statistics in the school sector in Sweden. The SNAE has given Statistics Sweden the mandate to collect and publish these statistics, based on the school registry to which all school providers must report annually. Overcrowding in the education evaluation arena has had implications for educational work (Lindgren, Hanberger & Lundström, 2016). International knowledge comparisons and the European development of quality assurance and evaluation are part of this trend and have influenced national education policy (Grek, Lawn, Lingard & Varjo, 2009; OECD, 2015). Evaluations have largely been subsumed into a quality discourse and systematic quality work has become a highly prioritised state policy (Lundström, 2015). The standardsbased orientation of the latest national curriculum fits well with the international technical-instrumental quality trend (Englund, 2012; Sundberg & Wahlström, 2012).

Theoretical framework This analysis is based on curriculum theory and education policy. A crucial assumption in curriculum theory is that the curriculum defines what constitutes legitimate knowledge and that someone has the authority to determine the selection of contents and goals (Bernstein, 1971; Young, 1999). The state is often assumed to be a central actor, but there is an ongoing struggle at all levels for the control of this field of judgement (Englund & Quennerstedt, 2008). Using the concept of the “three message systems of schooling”, Bernstein (1971 p. 47) highlights the links between “curriculum, pedagogy and assessment” and claims that these message systems interact symbiotically. In the present article, the examined performance indicators (i.e. assessment) have been analysed and discussed in relation to four discourses4 of learning: personal fulfilment, citizenship, social inclusion or social justice and subject knowledge. These are based on Gewirtz’s (2008) discussion of lifelong learning, which is applicable to the Swedish national curriculum. However, I have replaced the fourth discourse – work-related learning – with subject knowledge as the focus for the compulsory school. These discourses thus facilitate an analysis of the interaction between ‘curriculum’ and ‘assessment’ (Bernstein, 1971) and a discussion about the goals of education. They are also used to analyse the compulsory school curriculum (NAE, 2011) and to illustrate the relationship between the official goals of education and how they are represented in evaluation systems. The discourses are used as tools in the analysis, although in reality they overlap and do not exist in pure forms.

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The concept of ‘constitutive effects’ (Dahler-Larsen, 2012) draws attention to other aspects of message systems, implying that tests, evaluations and indicators contribute to defining the social reality of which they are a part. For example, Dahler-Larsen (2014) illustrates how school rankings represent and strengthen certain definitions of school quality, how this steers staff and parental actions and how these actions reinforce the definition of school quality that the indicators represent. The indicators thus become de facto policy instruments that define discourses and steer actions. Although actions are not examined in any detail here, the analysis of the performance indicators shows what is desirable or undesirable, possible or impossible in the teachers’ interpretations and translations of policy (e.g. the curriculum) into practice. It also shows what is made desirable or undesirable, possible or impossible by the students’ and parents’ school choice. Freidson’s (2001) concepts of the logics of bureaucracy, the market and professionalism describe how work can be organised and controlled, which is relevant for the analysis of policy realisation. There has long been a balance between the logics of bureaucracy (e.g. political decisions and administrative steering) and of professionalism (e.g. professional knowledge, values and autonomy) in the Swedish school system. With the school choice reforms of the 1990s, market logics, such as competition, profit, choice and marketing, were introduced (see also Lundström & Parding, 2011).

Some notes on the methodology The evaluation systems that are examined here were selected for their important roles in the context of school choice (see Table 12.1). Their providers are well known and the data is publicly accessible and has the potential to reach a large audience. Data indicating which systems are most frequently used as a basis for school choice could not be identified. Some systems are not only intended to support school choice, but can be used for various other purposes, such as school marketing and newspaper rankings of schools. The indicators from the selected evaluation systems are described and analysed based on the four discourses of learning. The analysis focuses on indicators that represent students’ school achievement, not students’ attitudes or background factors. However, other material is occasionally mentioned to facilitate an understanding of the contexts of the indicators. Qualitative content analysis makes it possible to illustrate how the various discourses construct what is desirable/undesirable, possible/impossible and what the taken-for-granted conceptions arising from the discourses are (Bacchi, 1999). The two message systems of curriculum and assessment are related to the discourses that appear in the material. This leads to a discussion about what is promoted or not by the indicators relating to school choice and the teachers’ interpretations and translations of policy into practical teaching.

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Table 12.1 Selected evaluation systems Evaluation system

Provider

Characteristics

Swedish Association of Website where all the compulsory schools in Independent Schools, Sweden can be compared; Confederation of linked to the website of Swedish Enterprise the Swedish Association and the Swedish of Independent Schools Association of Local (Skolvalet.nu) for the Authorities and purposes of school choice Regions The Swedish National The Swedish National Skolverkets Agency for Education’s Internetbaserade Resultat- Agency for Education online information system och kvalitets Informations on results and quality System (SIRIS) The Swedish National Agency for Education’s internet-based result and quality information system (SIRIS) Skolval Stockholm Local authority for Website presenting data admission to upper about all the upper (School Choice Stockholm) secondary school in secondary schools in Stockholm Stockholm City and the municipalities of Gnesta and Håbo SvD Skolvalet Svenska Dagbladet Website presenting data about approximately 800 (SvD School Choice) (SvD), an influential daily compulsory schools in newspaper the Stockholm area VäljaSkola The Swedish National Website where pupils and Agency for Education parents can compare (Choose School) the results and quality of schools Grundskolekvalitet (Compulsory School Quality)5

The relationship between the national curriculum and the discourses of learning Before taking a closer look at the performance indicators, the national curriculum is analysed in order to examine its relationship with the performance indicators. The national curriculum (NAE, 2011) consists of three parts that together comprise some 960 goals:6 • • •

fundamental values and tasks of school (31 goals) overall goals and guidelines (29 goals) syllabuses, including knowledge requirements for the various grade levels (some 900 goals divided into 20 subjects)

It is impossible to present this vast number of goals in detail, although Table 12.2 provides an overview where keywords from the national curriculum are related to the four discourses of learning.7

Table 12.2 Examples of goals from the national curriculum in relation to the four discourses of learning Discourses of learning

Example goals

Personal fulfilment

All-round personal development of students A lifelong desire to learn Active, creative Discover their uniqueness Forming personal standpoints Development of a personal identity Self-development and personal growth Ability to communicate Creativity, curiosity and self-confidence Desire to explore their own ideas and solve problems Different forms of knowledge and experiences Harmonious development Respect for human rights and the fundamental democratic values on which Swedish society is based Tolerance Understanding of other people and the ability to empathise Sustainable development Knowledge of democratic principles Ability to work in democratic forms Exercise influence and take responsibility Living and working in society Ability to critically examine facts and relationships Take initiatives Express ethical standpoints Overall perspectives: historical, environmental, international and ethical Education . . . should be equivalent, regardless of where in the country it is provided Teaching should be adapted to each pupil’s circumstances and needs Understanding of cultural diversity Equal rights and opportunities for women and men Counteract traditional gender patterns Rejects the subjection of people to oppression and degrading treatment Syllabuses: aims of the subject, core content and knowledge requirements for different grades – approximately 900 goals

Citizenship

Social inclusion or social justice

Subject knowledge

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Performance indicators in some evaluation systems The following section describes the performance indicators in the selected evaluation systems in order to highlight what they represent and measure. Table 12.3 presents an overview of what is actually measured and indicates the potential for the indicators to influence teaching and school choice. Brief descriptions of the evaluation systems and analyses of how the performance indicators relate to the four discourses of learning follow Table 12.3. As SIRIS is a complex evaluation system, it is summarised separately below and is not covered in Table 12.3. The evaluation systems also involve indicators representing background information, such as costs and number of pupils and teachers. These are not regarded as result indicators in this study and are excluded from the analysis. Grundskolekvalitet.se

The Grundskolekvalitet (Compulsory School Quality) website is provided by the Swedish Association of Independent Schools, the Confederation of Swedish

Leaving certificate, school year 9, passed in all subjects (%) Merit grading, school year 98 Eligible for upper secondary school (%) Eligible for vocational programmes; school year 9 (%) Final grade, English; average, school year 9 Final grade, mathematics; average, school year 9 Final grade, Swedish; average, school year 9 Grade, English; average, school year 6 Grade, mathematics; average, school year 6 Grade, Swedish; average, school year 6 National test results, mathematics; school year 3 National test results, Swedish; school year 3 National test results, Swedish as a second language; school year 3 National test results, mathematics; school year 6 National test results, Swedish; school year 6 National test results, Swedish as a second language; school year 6 National test results, mathematics; school year 9 National test results, Swedish; school year 9 National test results, English; school year 9 Goal achievement in subjects

VäljaSkola

SvD Skolvalet

Skolval Stockholm

Grunskolekvalitet

Table 12.3 The performance indicators in various evaluation systems

X X X X

X X

X X X X

X X X X X X X

X X X X X X X X X X

X X X

Source: Stockholms stad, 2015; SvD, 2016; Svenskt Näringsliv, Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting & Friskolornas riksförbund, 2016;VäljaSkola, 2016

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Enterprise and the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions and enables all Swedish compulsory schools to be compared. The aim of the website is formulated in line with school choice rhetoric: to facilitate school choice for pupils and parents. School choice is a significant and important choice that presupposes easily accessible information about school quality. We want it to be possible for students and parents to make well-informed school choices to a greater extent. (Svenskt Näringsliv, Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting & Friskolornas riksförbund, 2016) The website’s authors assume that the indicators represent school quality and that school choice will lead to more equality, which in turn assumes that ‘the customer’ is well-informed about school quality. The three first indicators are background data. The others, the result indicators, are based on quantitative measures of grades and national tests (Table 12.3) and represent one of the four discourses of learning, i.e. subject knowledge with an emphasis on three subjects. SIRIS

SIRIS is a database of statistics and general information on the Swedish National Agency of Education website. It is intended to make information available to “contribute to a basis for various analyses and comparisons concerning results and quality in schools” (SIRIS, 2018). The focus on “quality and results in schools” is also emphasised in the SIRIS logo. The data is submitted by the school providers and compiled by Statistics Sweden, the agency responsible for official statistics in Sweden. The target groups are primarily school leaders, administrators and politicians “responsible for results and quality in child-care and schools” (SIRIS, 2018). Students, parents and journalists are also described as target groups. SIRIS is mainly intended to be used for evaluation and school development, but can also be used as a basis for school choice and school marketing. A notable finding of this study is that all the other examined evaluation systems (with the possible exception of Skolval Stockholm) use SIRIS data. The data relates to the national, county, municipal and school levels. Table 12.4 gives an overview of the indicators in SIRIS. As the number of indicators is substantial, they have been summarised to facilitate communication of their contents. All the indicators representing results consist of data on grades and nationwide test results and the relationship between them. All subjects are represented in several variables, although three subjects are emphasised: Swedish, English and mathematics. The result variables mainly focus on the subject knowledge discourse, while the other three discourses of learning, i.e. personal fulfilment, citizenship and social inclusion or social justice, are largely missing. However,

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Table 12.4 SIRIS indicators and graphs Variables

Indicators

Graphs

Grades

Nine indicators (e.g. leaving certificates from the ninth year of compulsory school) by gender and subject; other indicators are included, such as passed in all subjects

Four graphs: grades, school year 6; comparison over time; leaving certificate/subject, school year 9; merit grading, school year 9

Consistency of grades relative to nationwide test results Nationwide test results

Thirteen indicators of consistency of grades in Swedish, English and mathematics Thirteen indicators; results of nationwide tests in the third, sixth and ninth years in Swedish, English and mathematics

Source: Summarised from SIRIS, 2016

some student indicators are related to students’ social background factors and could contribute to a social inclusion/exclusion analysis. Other indicators describe prerequisites, such as costs and the number of students, but these are not described here. Furthermore, SIRIS includes other material relating to staff, parent and student questionnaires from school years 5 and 9 and upper secondary year 2. Skolval, Stockholm

Skolval Stockholm (School Choice Stockholm) is a search service that enables 270 compulsory schools to be compared. The purpose of the website is not explicitly expressed, although the intention is to provide data that can inform school choice. The indicators are of two types: general data and user satisfaction indicators. User satisfaction is measured via Stockholm City’s own user survey and is not analysed here. The two result indicators are based on data relating to grades. Unlike the other evaluation systems studied here, indicators measuring nationwide test results are lacking. Overall, the result indicators represent the subject knowledge discourse, while the other three discourses of learning are not represented. SvD Skolvalet

Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) is the third largest morning newspaper in Sweden in terms of sales. It is owned by the Norwegian publishing house Schibsted

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and labels itself ideologically as independent conservative. SvD Skolvalet (SvD School Choice) provides information about some 800 compulsory schools in the Stockholm region. The user can decide how important the various search indicators are and the search service then presents a ranking according to the search preferences. Most indicators represent background information, but the two that represent results – nationwide test results and leaving certificate grades – are based on the subject knowledge discourse in three school subjects. The other three discourses of personal fulfilment, citizenship and social inclusion or social justice are not represented. VäljaSkola

VäljaSkola (Choose School) is a relatively new website and is provided by the Swedish National Agency for Education. Its purpose is described as follows: “At VäljaSkola, the Swedish National Agency for Education’s various measures of quality and results are presented. Here you can search for and compare schools. The purpose of the website is to support students’ and parents’ school choices” (VäljaSkola, 2016, author’s translation). All the nine result indicators are based on grades. There is a strong focus on subject knowledge (mainly in three subjects). The other three discourses of learning, i.e. personal fulfilment, citizenship and social inclusion or social justice are not represented.

Influential contexts An examination of the evaluation systems results in another interesting finding and helps us to understand how these systems influence teaching and school choice. Two of them are embedded in highly political contexts. Grundskolekvalitet is used on the Swedish Association of Independent Schools’ website Skolvalet.nu, the purpose of which is to advocate school choice and independent schools and provide a basis for school choice decisions: “Skolvalet.nu is an arena for parents, students and teachers who want to defend free school choice” (Skolvalet, 2015). The website is continually upgraded. For example, on 26 March 2015 the website promoted a petition in support of free school choice depicting a banner with the words: “Stand up for free school choice. Make your voice heard”. Later, on 25 September 2015, 24 short videos were posted showing more or less famous people speaking about the importance of standing up for free school choice. Among them were the leaders of the Centre and Moderate parties and the managing director of the Swedish Association of Independent Schools. On 27 November 2015 80 diagrams were posted under the heading ‘Facts’. Most of them featured the positive results of independent schools. However, the source information was often incomplete and information about the source

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studies (e.g. sample selection, non-response, social background and discussion) was lacking. SvD Skolvalet (SvD, 2016) is also embedded in an ideological context that promotes school choice. Its website presents articles describing various aspects of school choice in a positive light. Headings such as “Guide to school choice – how you find your top-ranking school”, “The schools with the best grades” and “The queues for popular independent schools are growing” illustrate this political tendency. Ideology is also implicit in some of the articles’ presentations of the status of various schools: A parent whose child is queuing for Fredrikshovs slotts skola [Fredrikshov Castle School] says that the child’s school has become an increasingly important marker of status. To many families in Östermalm (a high-status area in Stockholm), it is only Carlsson’s or Fredrikhov Castle School that counts. This concern is about ensuring that their children get the suitable contacts for adult life, says a parent who wishes to remain anonymous. (SvD, 2016)

How do the indicators represent the national curriculum? This section relates the analysis of the evaluation systems’ indicators to the national curriculum (see Table 12.2). The analysis demonstrates that the performance indicators largely consist of data relating to grades and national test results, thus representing a connection to the third part of the national curriculum, i.e. syllabuses, including the knowledge requirements for the various grade levels. The link to the subject knowledge discourse is obvious, since the syllabuses are descriptions of school subject contents. However, the examined indicators have insignificant connections to the other two parts of the national curriculum, namely the fundamental values and tasks of school and overall goals and guidelines. These two parts are largely linked to the other discourses of learning: personal fulfilment, citizenship and social inclusion or social justice. A clear conclusion of the analysis is that subject knowledge is represented by performance indicators in the examined evaluation systems, with minor exceptions in SIRIS. This reductive simplification of the national curriculum is exaggerated by the complete dominance of indicators representing only three school subjects: Swedish, English and mathematics.

Concluding discussion By describing and analysing common performance indicators used in the Swedish school system, this study contributes knowledge about how indicators (i.e. assessment) can influence teaching and school choice and how indicators

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and the national curriculum interact. In the national curriculum, the state defines legitimate school knowledge, but given that assessment and curriculum interact, views of what good results actually mean are influenced by the focus on assessments (i.e. performance indicators) (cf. Bernstein, 1971). The main conclusion of this examination of the performance indicators in the various evaluation systems is that subject knowledge is a completely dominant discourse, while the other three discourses of learning – personal fulfilment, citizenship and social inclusion or social justice – are not represented by any indicators. It is therefore probable that a discussion about student results/ achievements and even school quality is implicitly defined by the subject knowledge discourse, thus suggesting a reductive simplification of the national curriculum. However, such an emphasis does not seem consistent with today’s policy trends. Although subject knowledge will certainly be valuable in young people’s future lives, it is not sufficient in a world in which people have to respond to anti-democratic trends, ‘alternative facts’ relating to numbers of refugees or a denial of climate change. Such challenges call for schooling that emphasises broad goals, such as critical thinking, democratic values, creativity, equality and the development of broad human perspectives. The findings illustrate how the three message systems (Bernstein, 1971) of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment interact and how the performance indicators (i.e. assessment) affect the interpretation of the curriculum in practice. The obvious gap between the curriculum and assessment can be described as a hiatus in the interaction between two message systems. There is a risk that the communication of a reductive national curriculum could lead to narrow conceptions of teaching and what constitutes a good school. The ‘reductiveness’ is reinforced by the fact that most evaluation systems have indicators that only represent three subjects and that qualitatively formulated knowledge goals are quantitatively represented (i.e. data on grades and test results). This direction is notable, especially as previous research has demonstrated that a restricted curriculum tends to widen social divides (Ainscow, 2005; Møller, 2009). However, the findings also raise a question that merits further research, namely the extent to which the three ‘absent’ discourses are embedded in the subject knowledge. In the light of previous research, it is reasonable to assume that performance indicators influence school practice. For example, Lundahl et al. (2015 p. 50) write that “those who control assessment and evaluation in a school system also have power over what happens in teaching” (translated by the author). In line with Dahler-Larsen’s (2014) reasoning about the constitutive effects of evaluation systems, the performance indicators by and large define reality. In the present study, quantitative measures of subject knowledge are found to define results and quality. These indicators make various interpretations more or less desirable: subject knowledge appears desirable, while the other discourses appear to be less prioritised. Furthermore, the indicators have the potential to steer action, in that they influence what is prioritised regarding school choice and the realisation of the curriculum in teaching. Action thus confirms the

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definitions of the indicators: measurable subject knowledge becomes a commonly accepted or taken-for-granted definition of school results and knowledge. Gert Biesta reasons in a similar way about the quality discourse and claims that “the culture of performativity in education” implies that “targets and indicators of quality become mistaken for quality itself ” (Biesta, 2009 p. 35). The focus on subject knowledge can at least partly be explained by the so-called PISA shock (Haugsbakk, 2013), i.e. reactions to unexpectedly poor results in international comparisons. Another factor contributing to this focus is the global education policy trend towards test-based accountability that is assumed to “enhance the quality of a nation’s human capital and thus their international economic competitiveness” (Lingard, Martino & Rezai-Rashti, 2013 p. 540). This competiveness trend is part of the current preoccupation with measuring and comparison (Grek et al., 2009). The findings illustrate how market logics (e.g. school choice, privatisation and competition) and bureaucratic logic (e.g. state management by objectives and results) (Freidson, 2001) have merged to define school results. One intention of Sweden’s new curriculum and grading system was that the syllabuses would be more clearly focused on subject content (SOU, 2007:28). The argument was that this focus connected to the central idea of management by objectives and goals, namely, that the goals should be as precise and concrete as possible to facilitate comparisons (Laegrid, Roness & Rubecksen, 2006). Interestingly, school choice ideology shares the same basic assumption, although the rationale differs. School choice presumes rational, well-informed customers who base their decisions on relevant information (Musset, 2012). In two of the evaluation systems the indicators are embedded in a context of school choice ideology. It seems highly probable that the articles on the SvD Skolvalet site contribute to legitimatising competition and school choice. Reading that there are very long queues for Carlsson School would certainly influence parents and indicate that early registration was essential. The diagrams presented at Grundskolekvalitet.se also illustrate such an ideology, although they lack complete source information and reasoning about the importance of social background for school performance. In addition, the selection of results is biased in favour of independent schools. Overall, the findings indicate that market logics and management by objectives and results together constitute an interpretive prerogative when defining school results/achievement. Based on the four discourses of learning, the focus of the examined evaluation systems on easily measurable data representing subject knowledge in the three main subjects is reductive and inadequate both in relation to the national curriculum and as a basis for well-informed school choice. Such an education policy direction deviates from Sweden’s long-standing political intention that school should contribute to the formation of a democratic and equal society (see e.g. SOU, 1948:27). This intention is still evident in the Swedish national curriculum and the Education Act. The present findings illustrate how such intentions risk being neglected as a consequence of marketisation, management techniques and performance culture in the school system.

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Notes 1 This text is an upgraded, reworked and translated version of a previously published article in Swedish: Lundström, U. (2017) Att mäta det vi värderar eller värdera det vi kan mäta? Resultatindikatorer som grund för skolval. Utbildning & Demokrati, 26(1), 43–46. 2 The following is used as a broad definition of an evaluation system: “Structures and processes established to produce streams of data or knowledge [. . .] intended to play a role in future action situations” (Lindgren, Hanberger & Lundström, 2016; see also Leeuw & Furubo, 2008 p. 159). An evaluation system includes evaluations, ranking, statistics, information systems and quality reports. 3 The origin of this is disputed. 4 Discourse is defined as “the language, concepts and categories employed to frame an issue” (Bacchi, 1999 p. 2). Here I connect learning discourses to the curriculum theory assumption that someone has the authority to define what constitutes legitimate knowledge. 5 The names of the evaluation systems were translated by the author. Furthermore, as the content of internet sources often change, the analysis relates to the dates specified in the citations. 6 The exact number of goals is debatable because there are overlaps and repetitions. Regarding the overall goals and guidelines, only the bullet points under the heading ‘Goals’ for the syllabuses and only the goals expressed in bullet points have been counted. 7 The keywords are from the English version of the national curriculum (NAE, 2011). 8 The sum of the 16 best grades in the leaving certificate (17 subjects for those who have chosen a modern language).

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E. Forsberg & D. Sundberg (ed.) Vad räknas som kunskap? Läroplansteoretiska utsikter och inblickar i lärarutbildning och skola (pp. 20–38). Stockholm: Liber. Englund, T. & Quennerstedt, A. (2008). Linking curriculum theory and linguistics: The performative use of ‘equivalence’ as an educational policy concept. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 40(6), 713–724. Freidson, E. (2001). Professionalism, the Third Logic. Cambridge: Polity Press. Gewirtz, S. (2008). Give us a break! A sceptical review of contemporary discourses of lifelong learning. European Educational Research Journal, 7(4), 414–424. Government Bill (1989/90:41). Kommunalt huvudmannaskap för lärare, skolledare, biträdande skolledare, och syofunktionärer [Municipal Governing of Teachers, School Leaders and Career Guidance Practitioners]. Stockholm: Ministry of Education. Green, J. (2011). Education, Professionalism and the Quest for Accountability: Hitting the Target but Missing the Point. New York & Oxford: Routledge. Grek, S., Lawn, M., Lingard, B. & Varjo, J. (2009). North by northwest: Quality assurance and evaluation processes in European education. Journal of Education Policy, 24(2), 121–133. Haugsbakk, G. (2013). From Sputnik to PISA shock: New technology and educational reform in Norway and Sweden. Education Inquiry, 4(4), 607–628. Holmlund, H., Häggbom, J., Lindahl, E., Martinson, S., Sjögren, A., Vikman, U. & Öckert, B. (2014). Decentralisering, skolval och fristående skolor: Resultat och likvärdighet i svensk skola. Rapport 2014:25. Stockholm: Institutet för arbetsmarknads-och utbildningspolitisk utvärdering. Jordahl, H. (2016). En effektivare skola ger mer kunskap [More Knowledge in a More Effective School]. Stockholm: Svenskt Näringsliv. Karatzias, A., Power, K. G. & Swanson, V. (2001). Quality of school life: Development and preliminary standardisation of an instrument based on performance indicators in Scottish secondary schools. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 12(3), 265–284. Keddie, A. (2013). Thriving amid the performative demands of the contemporary audit culture: A matter of school context. Journal of Education Policy, 28(6), 750–766. Laegrid, P., Roness, P. G. & Rubecksen, K. (2006). Performance management in practice: The Norwegian way. Financial Accountability & Management, 22(3), 251–270. Leeuw, F. L. & Furubo, J-E. (2008). Evaluation systems: What are they and why study them? Evaluation, 14(2), 157–169. Lindgren, L., Hanberger, A. & Lundström, U. (2016). Evaluation systems in a crowded policy space: Implications for local school governance. Education Inquiry, 7(2), 237–258. Lingard, B., Martino, W. & Rezai-Rashti, G. (2013). Testing-regimes, accountabilities and education policy: Commensurate global and national developments. Journal of Education Policy, 28(5), 539–556. Lubienski, C. (2009). Do quasi-markets foster innovation in education? A comparative perspective. OECD Education Working Papers, No. 25. Paris: OECD Publishing. Lundahl, C., Hultén, M., Klapp, A. & Mickwitz, L. (2015). Betygens geografi – Forskning om betyg och summativa bedömningar i Sverige och internationellt [Research about Grading and Summative Assessment in Sweden and Internationally]. Stockholm: Vetenskapsrådet. Lundahl, L., Erixon Arreman, I., Holm, A-S. & Lundström, U. (2013). Educational marketization the Swedish way. Education Inquiry, 4(3), 497–517. Lundström, U. (2015). Systematic quality work in Swedish schools: Intentions and dilemmas. Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration, 19(1), 23–44.

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Lundström, U. & Parding, K. (2011). Teachers’ experiences with school choice: Clashing logics in the Swedish education system. Education Research International, 2011, Article ID 869852. Møller, J. (2009). School leadership in an age of accountability: Tensions between managerial and professional accountability. Journal of Educational Change, 10(1), 37–46. Musset, P. (2012). School choice and equity: Current policies in OECD countries and a literature review. OECD Education Working Papers, No. 66. Paris: OECD Publishing. National Agency for Education (NAE) (2011). Curriculum for the Compulsory School, Preschool Class and the Recreation Centre. Skolverket: Stockholm. OECD (2015). Improving Schools in Sweden: An OECD Perspective. Paris: OECD. Olssen, M. & Peters, M. A. (2005). Neoliberalism, higher education and the knowledge economy: From the free market to knowledge capitalism. Journal of Education Policy, 20(3), 313–345. Ravitch, D. (2010). The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. New York: Basic Books. Shore, C. & Wright, S. (2015). Governing by numbers: Audit culture, rankings and the new world order. Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale, 23(1), 22–28. SIRIS (2016). Skolverkets Internetbaserade Resultat-och kvalitets Informations System [InternetBased Result and Quality Information System]. Retrieved October 26, 2015, from http:// siris.skolverket.se/siris/f?p=Siris:1:0 SIRIS (2018). SIRIS, ett verktyg för ökad insyn i skolans värld! [SIRIS, a Tool for More Transparency in School]. Retrieved May 23, 2018, from https://siris.skolverket.se/ siris/f?p=SIRIS:1:0::NO::: Skolvalet (2015). Friskolornas riksförbunds webbplats: Skolvalet. För din rätt att välja [The Swedish Association of Independent Schools’ Website for School Choice]. Retrieved November 27, 2015, from http://skolvalet.nu/ Skolverket (2016). Uppgifternas tillförlitlighet [Reliability of the Data]. Retrieved May 26, 2016, from www.skolverket.se/statistik-och-utvardering/om-skolverkets-statistik/ uppgifternas-tillforlitlighet-1.37779 Stockholms stad (2015). Hitta och jämför grundskolor [Find and Compare Comprehensive Schools]. Retrieved November 20, 2015, from www.stockholm.se/-/Jamfor/?enhetstyp= 61c1cc6e99bf409a85ca4e3d0c137d5f&slumpfro=-2076937640 SOU (1948:27). 1946 års skolkommissions betänkande med förslag till riktlinjer för det svenska skolväsendets utveckling [Suggestions for Development of the Swedish School System]. Stockholm: Ecklesiastikdepartementet. SOU (2007:28). Tydliga mål och kunskapskrav i grundskolan. Förslag till nytt mål-och uppföljningssystem [Clear Goals and Knowledge Requirements in Compulsory School]. Betänkande av Utredningen om mål och uppföljning i grundskolan. Stockholm: Utbildningsdepartementet. SOU (2013:56). Friskolorna i samhället [Independent Schools in Society]. Stockholm: Utbildningsdepartementet. SOU (2016:38). Samling för skolan. Nationella målsättningar och utvecklingsområden för kunskap och likvärdighet [National Objectives and Areas of Development]. Delbetänkande av 2015 års skolkommission. Stockholm: Utbildningsdepartementet. Sundberg, D. & Wahlström, N. (2012). Standards-based curricula in a denationalised conception of education: The case of Sweden. European Educational Research Journal, 11(3), 342–356.

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SvD (2016). SvD Skolvalet – Grundskolan [School Choice. The Comprehensive School]. Retrieved May 17, 2016, from www.svd.se/svd-skolvalet-grundskolan Svenskt Näringsliv, Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting & Friskolornas riksförbund (2016). Grundskolekvalitet [Comprehensive School Quality]. Retrieved May 30, 2016, from www. grundskolekvalitet.se/ Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (2016). Öppna jämförelser. Grundskola 2016 [Open Comparisons]. Stockholm: SKL. VäljaSkola (2016). Skolverkets webbplats för skolval [The NAE’s Website for School Choice]. Retrieved May 30, 2016, from http://valjaskola.se/servlet/Satellite?c=Page&cid=13740 97577257&pagename=skolresultat%2FPage%2FstartpageLayout Waslander, S., Pater, C. & van der Weide, M. (2010). Markets in education: An analytical review of empirical research on market mechanisms in Education. OECD Education Working Papers, No. 52. Paris: OECD Publishing. Young, M. (1999). Knowledge, learning and the curriculum of the future [1]. British Educational Research Journal, 25(4), 463–477.

Chapter 13

Supplementary tutoring in Sweden and Russia A safety net woven with numbers Eva Forsberg, Tatiana Mikhaylova, Stina Hallsén and Helen Melander Bowden

Supplementary tutoring on the educational Agora Supplementary tutoring is not a new phenomenon. For a long time schools, private suppliers and non-profit organisations have provided tutoring both in and out of school hours in ways that reflect the specific history and culture of individual nations and education systems. Supplementary tutoring is a broad concept that encompasses various practices with different purposes and is delivered in different places and modes, for free or for a fee. While some aim to promote students’ interests in extra-curricular activities, others are oriented towards supporting students in their schoolwork in general, with homework, or in preparation for tests and exams. Sometimes these activities take place within the school, but often they are conducted in learning centres, students’ homes or public places like libraries. In many countries, teachers serve as tutors, although other adults and university students also provide support, as do parents and peers. The support comes in many modes, mainly one-to-one, but also in small groups, as whole class teaching and online tutoring. Tutoring is more common amongst primary and secondary school students, but it applies to all levels of education. The intensity, scope and length of support also varies (Bray, 2009). Private supplementary tutoring – a hidden market

In recent decades, education has increasingly been supplemented by organised tutoring, especially private supplementary tutoring (PST). The global rise of PST has been described as a boom that is akin to an epidemic and is now regarded as a multi-billion edu-business industry. In many places, PST is outside the state regulations as an educational practice and systematic knowledge about tutoring is scarce, though increasing. Generally, there is a lack of reliable data on the scope, scale, access, costs and tutoring practices. Tutoring has been recognised as a hidden and sometimes black market. The latter refers specifically to PST, also known as ‘shadow education’ – a notion dating from the early 1990s and later defined as tutoring in academic school subjects, beyond-the-schoolwalls and in exchange for a fee. According to Bray (2007), PST only exists

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due to the very presence of mainstream education, and its scale and shape correspond to those of the mainstream system. Often, the shadow metaphor and mimic character of PST are taken for granted, although lately questions about whether PST supplements, duplicates or substitutes mainstream schooling have been raised (cf. NESSE, 2011). The expansion of PST has made it more visible, but research on PST still has many methodological challenges (Bray, 2010). The object of research is not easily identified. Different terms are used to conceptualise the same phenomenon and the same term is sometimes used to describe different objects. The ability and willingness to provide data are often restricted, and instruments for securing data are lacking. This may be linked to issues of status and parents’ possible pros or cons in the educational race. Being outside the institutional framework of the public education system, national data on PST is often missing and as a result it has proven especially difficult to obtain a clear picture of web-based tutoring. PST research is also very sensitive to issues of trustworthiness, since it is a politically delicate topic and involves risks for private businesses’ appearances and therefore ultimately their survival. While much of research focuses on variables that influence the uptake and effectiveness of PST, studies of tutoring practices are less common. The growing significance of supplementary tutoring for individuals, organisations and society calls for scrutiny (Bray, Kwo & Jokic, 2015). Research design

In this chapter, we explore supplementary tutoring in Sweden and Russia, two countries with rather different contexts that have received little attention in research on PST. Sweden, a country with some 10 million inhabitants and state investments in education above OECD-average (5.2 per cent of GPD in 2015), is still a low-intensity country with regard to PST. Russia, on the other hand, with a population of 143 million and a relatively low investment in education (3.1 per cent of GPD in 2015), boasts a highly intense tutoring market, with almost half of the students in primary and secondary schools being tutored in at least one subject (OECD, 2016). In Sweden, the most common form of providing PST is through private companies, although independent tutors are also available. In contrast, the majority of tutors in Russia operate informally, although in recent years dozens of companies providing online and classroombased tutoring have been established. By analysing national policy and information on the websites of PST companies in each country, we explore the representation and legitimation of PST and the relationship between PST and regular education, with an emphasis on the role of numbers and quantification in framing this relationship. The remainder of the chapter is divided into four sections. The first section presents our analytical concepts and the theoretical framing of the study.1 In the second and third part, national policy and PST

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websites in Sweden and Russia are analysed and contrasted. In the final section, we present our concluding notes.

Theoretical framing of supplementary tutoring PST is still a descriptive and under-theorised research field. Here, theoretical concepts need to be developed in order to achieve a deeper understanding (Entrich, 2018). In the following, we outline the concepts that have guided our analyses. Economic, cultural and educational factors are recognised as ‘drivers’ of supplementary tutoring. The majority of research points to macro-level factors, such as expenditure on public education, characteristics of education systems, high-stakes testing and household income. Less attention has been paid to more proximal, psychological factors, like expectancy values, including “parents’ perceptions of the importance of educational achievement and the self-regulation required to achieve it; parental role construction and sense of efficacy” (Ireson & Rushforth, 2014 p. 16). In the international literature, many argue that the uptake of tutoring can be traced back to parents’ perceptions of quality of public education combined with parental desire to minimise the risk of their children ‘being left behind’ (Bray, 2009; Koinzer, 2013). In some contexts, it is teachers’ low status and salaries that push towards extended PST. The expansion is also explained as a growing acceptance of private sector roles in education, with private tutoring no longer viewed as a supplement, but as the expected norm (Bray, 2017). In contrast to models of rational choice, and allocation and social reproduction theories to analyse PST, Mori and Baker (2010) consider an institutional model. PST is here regarded as an outgrowth of the educational revolution and as a consequence of the success of formal mass schooling rather than its failure (Baker & LeTendre, 2005). Schooling can reflect economic and political inequality, but it is also a major creator of an ever more complex, knowledgerich human society with an independent influence on other major social institutions. From this perspective, PST is produced by “the educational revolution and an educational culture of a schooled society”. This argument subsumes the human capital and conflict perspectives, recognising the knowledge society and a quest for more teaching and credentials as the main routes to adult social status. The institutional perspective also points to an increase in government interest and a further institutionalisation of supplementary education. ‘Mass shadow education’ for academic achievement and societal progress will produce a large variety of organisational forms. We may also expect an increased involvement and investment from governments and households. Moreover, this can be related to the notion of the risk society, in which members are increasingly occupied with the future and safety management (Beck, 1992; Giddens, 1999).

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The public – private interplay on the educational Agora

Education as a ‘public good’ mostly implies a primary responsibility of public institutions to provide and fund educational opportunities. However, the leading role of the state has been questioned. Whether interpreted as a humanistic vision, or a code of governance, the principle of education as a public good refers to the preservation of ‘collective interests of society’ and to the central responsibility of the state in doing so. Public goods are free of charge and, by tradition, are provided by the state or a non-profit organisation. They are also equally accessible (Locatelli, 2018). ‘Private good’ is a product or service consumed by individuals for money. It includes exclusivity (in case of scarcity) and selectivity (not everybody can purchase the service). Usually, private goods are produced and provided by companies within the private sector and the relation between the seller and the buyer is primarily determined by financial regulations and ‘contracts’ (Labaree, 1997). Education has increasingly become the object of such commercial transaction; here we refer to this marketisation of education as ‘commodification’ and the service in terms of ‘supply’ and ‘demand’, the latter responding to ‘individual interest’, ‘benefit’, ‘expectation’ or ‘satisfaction’. Above, a rather clear-cut picture is painted of the distinction between public and private goods. In a perfectly free market, well-informed parents would be able to choose between many different forms of PST. However, this is often not the case – distortions are noted when it comes to information, circumscribed choices and a mix of public and private interaction. While the mission of public education is laid down in law, the mission of PST is negotiated and expressed in supply and demand. Basically, public education as a social right is distinct from private tutoring as a commodity (Ball, 2004). With the expanding educational landscape and the mixture of state government and private operations, the public-private interplay may take new forms. Supplementary tutoring is still largely unregulated, mainly privately funded and unrecognised as part of national education systems. Thus, the nature of the relationship between the public sector and PST is less clear and largely unspoken. The relation has been described as blurred and the role of PST in the educational landscape in need of recognition and reconceptualisation (Srivastava, 2008, 2016). Consequently, an exploration of the publicprivate interplay is called for. Policy strategies

In contrast to government-initiated reforms of regular education, the development of PST has largely been a bottom-up process. The absence of governing has left the field of PST open for a variety of actors (NESSE, 2011), although today there is an emerging interest in the governing of PST with different

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modes of regulation pushing towards expansion or restriction (UNESCO, 2017). The expansion of regulation adds to the complexities of the publicprivate interplay on the educational Agora. Drawing on Bray (2007), we define the types of state involvements as ‘laissez-faire’ and ‘regulation strategies’, the latter specified in terms of ‘promotion’ and ‘prohibition’. With laissez-faire leaving PST to the market, regulation refers to financial, ideological, judicial and evaluation tools of governing, including non/educational features and in/ direct measures (Vedung, 1998). Promotion is executed through incentives, while prohibition means a total ban of (commercial forms of) tutoring. A mix of state-involvement strategies may be expected. Legitimacy of private supplementary tutoring

What makes PST legitimate? As part of the educational Agora, PST is dependent on the legitimacy of mainstream education, which in general is of great national political concern, with goals like equality and academic qualification. This makes the question of public versus private goods a key issue, and government strategies of state-involvement in PST may function as indicators of the political (il)legitimacy of PST. As private edu-businesses, PST legitimacy is basically dependent on company owners’ motives for starting and running PST, tutors’ reasons to engage in private tutoring (provider claims) and families’ arguments for employing PST (parental claims). Provider claims may concern for example the quality of services, tutor qualifications, credentials for PST, the reputation of the PST service, shortfalls of regular schooling and the individualised nature of the service (Davis, 2013). Ultimately, the legitimacy of the tutor (the legitimate educator) is validated by parents’ (the legitimate consumer) responses (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990). As such, legitimacy is based on supply and demand, as well as company and tutor economic profits. The customers ordering, contract signing, evaluating and continuing or terminating can be seen as indicators of parental legitimacy. In such a vein, Aurini (2004) has shown that PST draws legitimacy from the emerging culture of intensive parenting and educational customisation. Parental claims may be driven by optimistic aspirations for the futures of their children and anxiety about their current schooling experiences. These elements may predispose parents to respond favourably to the legitimating claims made by PST providers. There may also be a drift towards ‘bespoke education’, that is, parents tailoring their children’s educational life to meet specific aspirations and optimal outcomes (Ireson & Rushforth, 2014). Some view this as gendered work, mothers weaving an individualised safety net, due to an absence of guarantees for intergenerational transfers of status. Consequently, consumers “pursue strategies of self-investment that are informed by a calculative ‘actuarial rationality’, which weighs benefits against cost and risk” (Doherty & Dooley, 2018 p. 552).

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Education and the possibility of boundary objects in supplementary tutoring

We approach education as a source in our search for ‘boundary objects’. Such objects can inhabit several communities of practices due to their robustness and ability to adapt. Boundary objects are often considered as ‘weakly structured’ in common use, only becoming ‘strongly structured’ when they are operationalised within specific social practices. This means that they have different meanings, but still some common structure (Star & Griesemer, 1989). Basil Bernstein’s three message systems of education frame the identification of potential educational boundary objects existing in both regular schooling and PST. Curriculum defines what counts as valid knowledge, pedagogy defines what counts as a valid transmission of knowledge, and evaluation defines what counts as a valid realization of this knowledge on the part of the taught. (Bernstein, 1977 p. 85, italics added) More specifically, the message systems comprise a number of elements such as actors, activities, interaction modes and tools that may function as boundary objects. Today, curriculum and evaluation tend to change places, with the tail wagging the dog, rather than the other way around (Forsberg & Pettersson, 2014). Global and national assessment cultures function as gatekeepers, determining what counts as valid and legitimate knowledge and who is in need of support. A wider ‘democracy discourse’ stressing social objectives, such as equality of opportunities, equal rights, equivalent schooling and the fostering of democratic citizenship, is challenged by a ‘performance discourse’ that instead pays attention to pupils’ learning outcomes and school results based on pupils’ achievements (Forsberg, Hortlund & Malmberg, 2016).

The Swedish welfare state school – a system in transition In the 1950s Sweden developed a comprehensive, unified and un-streamed school system, almost exclusively run by municipalities. Curricula, regulations, funding and recruitment were primarily state issues. The notion of equality was the expressed guiding principle for reforms and centralisation, and standardisation was the method for implementing ‘a school for all’. Students’ need for support was primarily addressed by remedial teaching within regular schooling and school hours. Sweden was characterised as a typical social democratic welfare state regime (Esping-Andersen, 1996). A challenged welfare state

Globalisation, new technologies, a less stable political situation, better-educated citizens’ calls for influence and discussions about the knowledge society has

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promoted changed relations between the state, the market and the civil society (SOU, 1990 p. 44). The welfare state with a strong public sector was questioned as an effective instrument for the distribution of welfare and social change. The criticism focused on inadequate governance, increased costs, inefficiency and an overload of tasks (Forsberg & Lundgren, 2010). Moreover, despite educational reforms and resource allocations, the system did not deliver what it promised, as social background remained the best predictor of educational attainment (Härnqvist, 1992). Vertical and horizontal changes in governance

The growth of the shadow education sector can be linked to changes in the governance of the education system, which has been radically and extensively transformed (Lundahl et al., 2014). Shifts in governance on both vertical and horizontal axes have extended the educational Agora. On the vertical axis, globalisation and decentralisation have distributed responsibilities in new ways. The state is still regarded as an important source of change and control, although embedded in international discourses. However, municipalities and independent schools are made accountable and responsible for outcomes. On the horizontal axis, the marketisation of education has created a large sector of state-funded (mainly private) independent schools operating in parallel to municipality-driven schools (Forsberg et al., 2017). An assessment culture in transformation and expansion

Now, in the twenty-first century, an assessment culture of measurable knowledge is distributed through more inter/national tests, earlier grading, specified grading criteria, inspections, rankings and comparisons at different levels and parental involvement. Numerical grades tend to reduce the complexity of more elaborated verbal assessments. Additionally, the purpose of the national tests has shifted from guidance in professional judgement to gatekeeping of a comparative ideology. Over a decade, falling trends in international tests have caused a lot of educational dismay, especially when outcomes of tests have been used to distribute shame, blame or glory (e.g. Pettersson, 2008; Steiner-Khamsi, 2004). In media debates, the tests often serve as a marker of legitimation for arguments of both stability and change (Forsberg & Román, 2014).

The reformation of supplementary tutoring in Sweden During the nineteenth century, private tutoring was as common as regular education in Sweden. With the growth of the mainstream educational system, private tutoring lost its place on the Swedish educational Agora. The reformation of supplementary tutoring in Sweden started as a bottom-up movement, when

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a household tax deduction reform, which included babysitting, was introduced in 2007 (SFS, 2007:346). This caused both a growth of private organisations offering homework support and provided families with the opportunity of tutoring. As such, the expansion of the PST market was a consequence of economic rather than educational decision-making. PST is a politically sensitive issue in Sweden, and homework support has been on the agenda in three consecutive national elections. The tax deduction has now been abolished and replaced by government subsidies to school organisers (municipality, private or state-run) (SFS, 2014:144) and non-profit organisations. School organisers may involve non-profit, but not private, companies in state-supported tutoring. In addition, it is mandatory for school organisers to set up so-called ‘vacation schools’ for students leaving years 8 and 9 who are at risk of not qualifying for upper secondary school (SFS, 2010:800). School organisers can also apply for funding for students in earlier grades and in upper secondary schools (SFS, 2014:47). The aim of the vacation schools and the homework support reforms is to assist students, on a voluntary basis, with their homework or schoolwork in general, after regular school hours. As of today, tutor qualifications in the mandatory ‘vacation school’ are expected to follow the praxis of regular schooling. Thus, the organisers are expected to employ teachers, but may for a short period use tutors without teacher credentials. For tutors within the supplementary homework support no formal qualifications are required. Common to these reforms is the notion of ‘homework support for all’, or at least everyone who is in need of support, as clearly expressed by the prime minister: The Swedish school system must be cohesive and equitable. . . . Tax subsidies for those who can afford private homework support will be abolished. Homework support must be given to all pupils, regardless of their ability to pay. (Government declaration, 2014) Reforms were legitimised with reference to falling school results in international tests and to the increased performance gap between different groups and schools, thereby challenging issues of equivalence. The expressed purpose with the subsidies is to “increase the possibilities for all pupils to develop as far as possible in their learning, and to contribute to increased equivalence” (SFS, 2014:144). In the allocation of subsidies, the national agency is to prioritise schools with weak performances. After attending ‘vacation schools’, pupils should be offered an opportunity to re-test their knowledge of a subject or a course. The support to private supplementary tutoring organisations ceased with the abolition of the tax deduction. This was obviously a drawback and many companies’ turnover dropped to about half. However, PST seems to have come to stay and a slow but upward trend can be noted, which is likely associated

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with changed perceptions and attitudes towards PST. In general, tutoring in the Swedish educational landscape takes many forms, with public and private suppliers, and has over time been more or less regulated.

Russian educational policy in transition to market economy In contrast to the Swedish case, PST has a long history in Russia. Having emerged in the latter part of the nineteenth century against the background of the expanded system of public education, it was able to survive under the Soviet regime when collective values were placed in the foreground and almost any sort of private enterprise was prohibited (Mikhaylova, 2018). After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russian education adopted a neo-liberal approach and underwent a plethora of market-driven reforms with a strong emphasis on outcomes. Arguably, the enhanced competitiveness within and between schools, accompanied by declining state expenditure on education and an increasingly obvious crisis of confidence indicated by the opinion polls (see below), provided a solid foundation for the expansion of PST. However, until recently PST has largely been ignored by educational policymakers, although it frequently recurred on the agenda of the Ministry of Finance; the main issue being whether private tutors should pay taxes or not. According to the Russian Tax Code (FNS, 2015, 217:70), private tutors who are not registered as individual entrepreneurs are seen as non-juridical persons and their services are equated with child-minding, nursing and house cleaning. Such categories of self-employment are currently exempt from taxes. Ultimately, in the context of low salaries and a protracted economic crisis, this regulation may push teachers to engage in PST. Moreover, their right to provide PST is granted by the Law on Education (MON, 2012/2018, article  32). The only reservation concerns the situation in which the provision of paid educational services to the students of the same educational institution leads to a ‘conflict of interest’ (a.a. 48:2). The explanatory part of the Law specifies that such a situation may occur when teachers’ interests in material benefits negatively affect their primary work (a.a. 2:33). In other words, it seems obvious that Post-Soviet Russia has adopted an encouraging strategy towards PST. The lack of legislative regulations (apart from advising teachers against tutoring their own students) provides a fertile ground for its further growth. However, it would be wrong to claim that the negative consequences of PST in deepening social inequalities have been totally overlooked. Hence, the remarkable expansion of the hidden educational market in the 1990s was used as one of the legitimating sources for the introduction of the Unified State Examination (USE) in 2001. In short, USE is a standardised and centrally administrated achievement test serving primarily as a tool for final certification and selection to higher education. It replaced the former system of separate examinations, which at the time had given rise

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to different types of pre-entry tutoring programmes. By hiring a tutor affiliated to a particular university, applicants presumably gained privileged access to that university. Under such circumstances, PST was considered a link in the chain of corruption (Prakhov, 2017). By means of unification of assignments and testing procedure, USE should ideally have provided equal conditions for university admission for all and reduced the demand for pre-entry tutoring. As such, the reformation of the admission system in Russia exemplifies an attempt at the indirect regulation of PST. However, educational research indicates that after the introduction of USE, the tutoring market took a new turn, even if it did not decrease in size (Prakhov, 2017). In fact, the opposite was the case. According to the latest opinion polls, the number of parents who believe that successful admission to higher education is impossible without a tutor has increased from 65 per cent in 2016 to 72 per cent in 2018 (VCIOM, 2016, 2018). Given that USE not only serves as an assessment tool, but also as a means of monitoring the quality of education and holding schools and teachers accountable (Tyumeneva, 2013), a continuous expansion of the tutoring market is anticipated. As is shown below, references to USE results are frequently employed by tutoring providers as indicators of existing expertise.

Private supplementary tutoring in Sweden and Russia as represented in marketing In the following, we draw on two different PST organisations, one from Sweden (SWE-PST) and one from Russia (RUS-PST) by analysing how they present and market their services on their respective websites that also includes parental evaluations.2 SWE-PST is one of the largest tutoring companies in Sweden and offers services to students at primary, but more importantly, lower and upper secondary level. The company mainly performs services in some of Sweden’s major cities, but to a lesser extent also online. Around 1200 part-time employees, hired by the hour, serve as tutors, or, in the company’s terminology, as study coaches. The qualification requirements of study coaches are that they are at least 18 years of age, preferably university students with satisfactory upper secondary subject knowledge and without a criminal record. The recruitment interview checks for tutor insights into effective study manner and the ability to inspire and motivate learners. The tutors attend a two-day introduction course in the pedagogical method employed by the company. Most tutors in SWE-PST are in their twenties and stay with the company for about a year. The typical student in both countries is either in need of remedial teaching, or striving for better grades in order to attend a specific school or education programme. RUS-PST represents the largest online PST platform in Russia and provides contacts between tutors and clients. It describes itself as a “professional community of tutors” with services at all levels, including preschool and higher education. Out-of-school individuals (e.g. adults) can also take advantage of PST. The online platform contains over 250 000 tutor profiles. A potential

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tutor has to undergo an interview in order to be registered. In addition, many candidates have to pass an exam in the subject they are to teach and/or provide references. If accepted, tutors can create their own personal profiles by uploading photos, video presentations, certificates, diplomas, awards and so on. The developers of the platform consider the feedback collected from each client to be the main indicator of tutors’ proficiency, which in turn forms the basis for their ranking. The curriculum for private supplementary education practices

The overall mission of SWE-PST is to increase “study pleasure, higher motivation and better subject knowledge”. Both the company name and the logo refer to the importance of knowledge and a desire to do “something for the individual”. Already from the start at the beginning of the twenty-first century, a slogan emphasising tutoring ‘for better grades’ was employed. At the same time, a vision to “help parents prepare their children for the future” and “ease families’ everyday life” was stressed. The service was named ‘study coaching’. Presumably, the “service would have many winners – families, children, parents, school teachers, and also young people who would get a foothold in working life” with new merits to add to their CVs. The idea of being a “complement to teachers, not their competitors” is also put forward. While uniting a large number of suppliers and consumers, the Russian website does not provide one single vision of the mission of PST. Instead, the goals of tutoring are formulated by customers, not by providers. The only common denominator indicated by the website’s developers is “helping people receive quality education” while opposing the notion of “buying grades, not knowledge”. A similar idea is expressed in the Swedish case. Although a wide range of academic subjects are offered on both websites, mathematics, science, national language and modern languages are among those most in demand. Some subjects are more popular than others. In SWEPST, mathematics is the most popular subject, followed by science. In Russia, English is the most sought-after subject, followed by mathematics and the Russian language. The popularity of English in RUS-PST could be linked to a shift in the perception of foreign languages. According to Kozar (2015), after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the importance of English as a means of communication, rather than a set of grammatical rules, urged people to learn English in a way that differed from that in school. As local authority-based education was unable to adjust to this change, the teaching of English rapidly passed into the hands of private providers. Self-produced pedagogic texts/educational media are not used in SWE-PST. However, in addition to regular school textbooks and previous national tests, students may be referred to a publicly available digital maths application. Students are prepared for upcoming national tests with the help of national tests

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from previous years. In contrast, as a supplement to regular school textbooks, Russian tutors also produce their own material. In general, RUS-PST seems to operate in parallel with regular education. Although the majority of customers seek tutors to increase students’ chances of passing different types of school’s tests and examinations, the direct connection between PST and mainstream education ends here. Consider, for instance, the following utterance from a tutor published on the public forum of the website: I am tutoring in social science, preparing graduates for the USE. Recently I received a review. . . . One thing caught my attention. . . . The pupil’s father writes: “I know that the topics that are currently being studied at school are not covered in any way, but I think that the tutor should be interested in that”. I develop my own program . . . which is different from the one in school. What is the point of paying attention to school (if we start from scratch)? Your opinion, colleagues? Moreover, it is interesting to note that in Russia students are actually given homework by tutors, whereas in Sweden students are given assistance to do homework assigned by the school. Arguably, the link between PST and the school’s curriculum is stronger in Sweden than in Russia. The pedagogy of the private supplementary tutoring practices

In SWE-PST the specific method of the pedagogical practice “consists of three key components: clear objectives, effective work structure and continuous follow-up. Prior to each occasion, short-term goals are set in subject knowledge, study technique and motivation that are then followed up”. At a general level, successful academic achievement is considered an output of the interplay between three areas of concern: 1) the study coach as a role model, 2) inspiration and motivation and 3) study skills and organisation. Concerning the kinds of tutoring, there are many similarities between the chosen cases. Although there are various modes of tuition (small groups, classes, online and so forth), the most common form of PST in both Sweden and Russia is one-to-one. This allows tutors and students to engage in the teaching and learning process in a way that is radically different from regular schools. For instance, the location is not institutionalised, since most tutoring takes place in the students’ home (SWE-PST), or as in Russia in either the tutors’ or students’ homes, alternatively in public places. Time is also of crucial importance. Contrary to regular schooling, the length of the sessions and the duration of the services are set in negotiations between the parents and the tutor in both countries. In SWE-PST, tutoring is offered on a weekly basis, or more flexibly, but still continuously. There is also the possibility of a 15-session punch-ticket or one-time preparation session for upcoming national tests.

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Naturally, the kinds of interaction influence both the content and the relations between the tutor and the student. Young people, who are often still in education themselves and are tutors in SWE-PST are expected to be more of a role model, a coach and a friend, rather than a teacher. It is therefore hardly surprising that the relations between the partners involved in PST differ from those between teachers and students in Swedish mainstream schools. However, a rather different situation occurs in Russia, where the majority of tutors are school or university teachers with advanced academic degrees (Kozar, 2013). Clearly, under these circumstances tutor-student relations are more hierarchical than those in Sweden. Indeed, judging by evaluations, many parents expect the tutor to be demanding and ‘strict but fair’. The evaluations and output of the private supplementary tutoring practices

As stated above, assessment is an important part of PST. Different kinds of tests are used to identify the knowledge gaps that are to be covered by the tutoring. At the same time, the primary aim of PST is to improve students’ grades or test scores. Several forms of evaluation are used in both Sweden and Russia: continuous feedback to parents and students, homework, national tests and outcome data on the achievement of the tutoring practice. Students’ abilities to obtain successful results in teacher-based and national tests in regular schooling, together with their experiences and attitudes towards schoolwork, form the basis for negotiations on how to proceed. Assessments are also at the heart of the pedagogical process and are embedded in goal setting, performance and feedback, including preparations based on tutors’ ‘teaching to the test’. Judging by customers’ evaluations in Russia, not providing extra home assignments is considered negative. Reflect, for instance, on the following reviews; the first from a satisfied parent and the second from a less pleased parent: [Name] is quite a young tutor, but a good one. She gave homework to my child, and then checked it. I am completely satisfied with their classes. Too little homework. The knowledge obtained during class is not sufficient for effective preparation for the USE. The Swedish website uses an external review service to make it possible for parents to publicly share their experiences and express dis/satisfaction with the tutoring practices, including the tutor’s contribution. In Russia, the company’s administrators contact the customers by telephone and then publish their feedback directly on the website. It is worth noting that evaluations are written by parents, and usually by mothers. An interesting difference between the countries is the issue of transparency at an individual level. In RUS-PST, the excellence and success rate of a tutor is publicly distributed on the web platform.

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In Sweden, the transparency refers to the company and the collective level. However, the feedback between parents, administration and tutor allows for and encourages feedback on a tutor’s work, including the possibility to change tutor. Assessment data on output, both narratives and numbers, are frequently used for marketing purposes on both websites. The SWE-PST narratives reflect academic success, but also comments from parents about the relief they felt on shedding the responsibility for homework: Now, [name] is doing homework, instead of surfing social media on the internet. Finally, I do not have to fight with [name] about his maths homework and he learns correctly. Thanks to homework support, [name] is accepted to the education of his dream. SWE-PST also states, “9 out of 10 families are satisfied customers, 7 out of 10 students get higher results, 7 out of 10 students feel more motivated”. At RUS-PST, on the contrary, apart from detailed descriptions of education and teaching experiences, younger tutors refer to their own results in USE to ensure their expertise in particular subjects: In 2014 and 2016, I passed the USE in chemistry with a score of 100. Others list the USE points scored by students: The results from 2018: USE in mathematics – 96, 94, 88, 86, 82, 76, 74, 74, 62, 62. USE in physics: 92, 86, 82, 78, 58. 55. In a similar manner, parents and students refer to the USE results when assessing the provided services: In general, everything was fine and we are pleased with the tutor .  .  . Scored 71 at USE and got to enter the university that we wanted. Preparation for USE is also one of the most common goals of PST (mentioned in 64 out of 100 evaluations). Parental involvement and negotiations

The regulation of parental involvement in education in Sweden and Russia is higher than the average in OECD countries. In private edu-business, the position of a parent is even stronger, but the relation is different. As PST is customer-oriented, students’ parents are particularly important. Parents, mostly

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mothers, are the prime tutoring initiators and present themselves as the customersto-be. They are also informers of which services are requested and negotiate on behalf of the students. In both countries, parents and students are offered free consultations, and students’ needs are matched with “the most suitable tutor”. Ultimately, parents define the objective of the tutoring classes, their duration and type of provision. They may also test the tutoring practice for a fortnight or so. It is worth noting that the Swedish provider can set limits for the number and frequency of tutoring hours per week in order to avoid the students being overloaded, whereas Russian tutors may encourage students to take more classes per week by offering a discount. Parents continuously offer and receive feedback during the contracted period and after it. In SWE-PST, parents have access to a website, which allows them to follow what is done and their children’s progress or setbacks. As a customer buying a commodity, a parent is also in a position to demand flexibility from the provider and the right to stop using the PST service at any time. While parents have more direct impact on parts of their children’s education through PST, the use of the service is also a way of taking less responsibility. Consider the following statement from a parent: First of all, my role as a parent is reduced to being just a parent. You cannot get the same respect as an external educator. There is always a load of reasons not to do assignments, but all of them go away when a coach is teaching. Second, not all school subjects are easily teachable for a parent, and then it is nice to let go.

Supplementary tutoring – a destination and residence for knowledge in numbers In this chapter, we have targeted supplementary tutoring3 by drawing on national policies and marketing advertisements of tutoring services, arguably a part of the media spectacle of PST (Koh, 2016, see also Debord, 1977). In the following, the representation and legitimation of supplementary tutoring in Sweden and Russia and the role played by the quantification of knowledge in shaping the relation between the public and the private are discussed. Legitimacy of the expanded educational Agora

Worldwide, the twentieth century was characterised by the overwhelming rise of mass schooling and the construction of compulsory national educational systems. The recent changes in state-market relationships have reshaped the educational Agora and expanded its horizons. The overall growth of supplementary tutoring has attracted government interest in the hidden and, in some sense, black market of PST. This trend can be observed in countries as different

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as Sweden and Russia, which demonstrates a move from a laissez-faire approach towards an acceptance and, at least in part, the encouragement of a growing private educational sector. Encouragement strategies and financial incentives are now employed in both countries, albeit underpinned by different problems and ideologies. In Sweden, PST was initially a political non-issue and was not compatible with the idea of the welfare state’s responsibility of funding and providing education. However, in the last decade tutoring has recurrently appeared on the political agenda with the principles of ‘a school for all’ and ‘parent’s free choice’ as key issues. Having abandoned a laissez-faire approach towards supplementary tutoring, the state initiated an encouraging strategy under the slogan of ‘homework support for all’. This has included economic incentives oriented towards local authority schools and has made them responsible for offering homework support and mandatory ‘vacation schools’. In other words, the legitimacy of supplementary tutoring in Sweden was gained by implementing the principle of mass tutoring, which required a move from the private to the public sector. To some extent, expectations of accountability and follow-up were introduced, albeit on a small scale. In Russia, during the Soviet Union era PST was not given any attention by policymakers because it was assumed to be non-existent, like other forms of private entrepreneurship. However, in post-Soviet Russia, PST has grown as an effect of outcome-oriented educational policies combined with the unfavourable economic situation of teachers. Not surprisingly, in this context the regulations address taxes and, in part, the ethical aspects of PST when school teachers tutor students from their regular classes. The corollary of this development was a sort of hothouse for private businesses in education built by the neo-liberal state. Judging by parental claims expressed in polls, PST not only appears as a legitimate business, but also as a norm for academic nurturing. A common trait of the presented cases is that they reflect an increased trust in numbers expressed in the extensive use of performance evaluations. Moreover, we have identified a move towards a more explicit and direct regulation of supplementary tutoring. Another rather conspicuous trend is an almost complete absence of regulation regarding educational aspects. Supplementary tutoring is both outside-in and inside-out driven (Schutz et al., 2018). Apart from policies that produce and encourage the growth of PST, a number of factors contributing to the expansion of the educational Agora have been identified. Among them are different actors’ educational aspirations and perceptions of mainstream schooling. Low or declining results in inter/national tests and exams are presented as the primary driver put forward in policy as well as in provider and parental claims. As such, a performance culture of quantifications, comparisons and rankings is at the heart of drivers pushing towards supplementary tutoring. Another key factor pulling parents and their children towards tutoring is the different modes of PST, especially the one-to-one tutoring, thus realising

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the idea of individualisation and bespoke education. Related significant factors are parental and student feedback, both initially and continuously during the uptake of PST. A further set of factors applies to PST as a commodity and parents as legitimate consumers. Contracting along with flexibility responds to a parental calculative rationality indicating the value of keeping up and getting/ staying ahead in the educational race. Although facilitating the burden of parenting is one of the drivers of PST, ultimately the legitimacy is anchored in the knowledge that students are expected to acquire and master. As reflected above, legitimacy is a continually unfolding process (Deephouse et al., 2017). Once gained, legitimacy has proven hard to maintain and bottomup movements have been interrupted and put on hold by state intervention. The reverse is also true, namely that social movements tend to precede stateruling. Beyond regulation, we have identified cultural and normative sources of legitimacy as represented in PST marketing and information. Worth noting is the back-stage position of students’ voices while simultaneously being at the centre of attention. Boundary objects in the interface of public and private

In this final section, we recall the concept of shadow education that suggests the mimicry character of PST. In comparison with regular schooling, the message system of the curriculum appears restricted. While the prime mission of PST is to strengthen academic achievements, the mission of regular schooling is wider and encompasses the upbringing of an educated democratic citizen and ensure equitable access to quality education for all. This difference is reflected in both the content of PST (strongly emphasising some subjects) and teaching materials (directly relevant for chosen subjects). From a curriculum perspective, the mission and content are narrower than those in regular schools, although teaching materials in RUS-PST may exceed those used in ordinary school. In our examples, one-to-one tutoring dominates the practices of PST. This restricts interaction to student-tutor relations, leaving collaborations between students out of the equation. However, one-to-one is rare in mainstream schools and here PST goes beyond regular organisations by offering a more customised practice. Moreover, the student-tutor relations are manifested in expected role performances. In the SWE-PST, the tutor as a young role model and friend is emphasised, which confirms prior research findings of PST in the Swedish part of our project (Hallsén & Karlsson, 2018). These character descriptions of the tutor and relations with the students differ from studies in many other contexts, where students’ regular teachers or other qualified teachers are tutors. In the Russian case, it is more common to stress the academic dimension of the relationship and the tutor’s role as a teacher. Worth noting is also the positioning of the student in-between parental demands and tutor (company) supply. From this perspective of pedagogy, our cases of PST

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exemplify both an abridged and an expanded version of mainstream education. However, research on teacher-student interaction in tutoring is rare. In order to more fully explore pedagogy as a boundary object, more studies of micro processes similar to those concerning regular schooling are needed (see e.g. Koole, 2010; Melander & Aarsand, 2017). Turning to evaluation, the variety of assessment practices and tools come to the fore. Here, we find the prime boundary object between regular schooling and supplementary tutoring. The foundation of supplementary tutoring is directly linked to education marking and examination systems as well as inter/ national tests. Both the growth of supplementary tutoring and its legitimacy are anchored in providers and parental perceptions of assessment outcomes and the values attached to them. Results of tests and examinations in numbers are accepted as valid information to decide whether a student needs supplementary tutoring (remedial/enriching) or not. As such, there is an acceptance of numbers as the ‘currency’ used by schools, nations and edu-businesses to send messages about how well students, schools and education systems are doing. This is not all that surprising, given their function as credentials and exchange media in student transfers between different levels of education and the allocation of life chances and future positions in working life. As mentioned, there are differences between our cases, with Sweden attending more explicitly to the development of study skills and student motivation and engagement as instruments in reaching the goal of improved results. Both the independent tutors in Russia and the Swedish tutoring company mainly market the success of their practices in numbers of students improving their achievements, increased engagement and satisfied customers. However, there is also continuous narrative feedback, allowing for evaluations on a regular basis. When we approach PST at an abstract level, a number of boundary objects are easily identified. The notion of message systems is equally valid to explore PST as regular schooling and the same applies to key actors (students, teachers and parents), tools (educational media, including test samples) and activities (teaching and evaluation modes). However, the functions, roles and relations are different and the mimicry character of PST may be questioned, even when PST fulfils the requirements of shadow education as the tutoring of academic school subjects performed for a fee in out-of-school hours. While regular schooling and PST are linked, the relationship is dynamic, context dependent and the complex nature of PST “require adjustments to conceptualisation of shadow education” (Bhorkar & Bray, 2018 p. 154). This corresponds both to the extent of the mimicry character and the supplementary aspect of tutoring. The legitimacy of PST relates to outcomes of mainstream schooling and university entrance requirements, the latter being especially visible in Russia. Moreover, PST in Sweden also applies to making the everyday lives of parents easier and as such is not directly related to education. The notion of ‘parentocracy’ was introduced by Phillip Brown (1990) to capture a third educational wave in Britain, preceded by mass schooling for

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the working classes and meritocracy, in which merits manifested in educational credentials were expected to determine the allocation of life chances. Parentocracy implies a dimension of parental involvement, as “consumers of educational services (on behalf of their children), who must be able to exercise choice in the educational goods they purchase for their children” (Barrett DeWiele & Edgerton, 2015 p. 191). In the Swedish context, where charter schools are common, parental proactive interventionist styles are also present in relation to the mainstream schools (Englund, 2010). Thus, the equality of life chances is an issue that is raised in both regular schooling and supplementary tutoring in Sweden. Our final remark applies to PST as a public and/or private good. In the field of education, the exploration of public and private good is mostly approached from an economic perspective and equated with the public-private sector divide. Missions and services provided by private businesses and entrepreneurs are considered as private good, and those provided by the state as public good. This overly simplistic and misleading conceptualisation does not suit the more complex situation of the expanded educational Agora in our cases (see also Buchmann et al., 2010). Public charter schools and state incentives for supplementary tutoring are significant examples of the public-private interplay, which concerns not only funding and provision, but also ideology and the rule of law. However, as long as governments do not attempt to systematise and evaluate the data regarding PST, this part of the educational landscape is likely to remain hidden. Based on the thesis of the schooled society, supplementary tutoring can be viewed as a product of the increasingly ‘pedagogised’ society, largely as an effect of the worldwide implementation of mass schooling together with parental aspirations for the futures of their children. In the risk society, this includes public and private interests weaving a safety net of numbers to avoid children being left behind. In this new and enlarged educational Agora, it is less obvious what serves the public good of the collective society and all its citizens, and what implies benefits only for some individual students and their families. The social and cultural reproduction of elites reflects inequalities produced by regular education (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990). Certainly, educational and cultural capital affect the (s)election of educational opportunities in the wider educational landscape. Even in a comparatively egalitarian context like Sweden, family wealth has “profound consequences for the distribution of educational opportunity across multiple generations” (Hällsten & Pfeffer, 2016 p. 2). Consequently, the use of both PST and voluntary public tutoring is circumscribed and in praxis not equally distributed among children with different backgrounds and resources. As such, these tutoring practices ought to be considered as private goods. On the other hand, as a supplement to and an extension of regular schooling, tutoring can function as a corrective to some of the dysfunctions in ordinary school. Some aspects of supplementary tutoring are surely beneficial to students, their families and the wider society (Bray, 2014). When PST turns into a parallel to regular education

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and a norm that is applied to everyone, it is less clear where the border of public and private lies. However, allowing the notion of public good to encompass PST and voluntary tutoring would mean leaving the idea of equality of life chances behind, which would drain the notion of its value.

Notes 1 The research and findings reported in this chapter are part of a three-year research project on homework support as supplementary tutoring in Sweden, funded by the Swedish Research Council (Forsberg, 2015), including a doctoral project on PST in Russia (Mikhaylova, 2016). 2 The tutor websites of 2018 differ in character, one marketing a tutor company and the other presenting individual independent tutors, which also affects our data. In the Russian case, specific tutors are targeted and the data is more varied and heterogenic. In Sweden, on the other hand, the common and collective dimensions are in the foreground. However, there are also crucial similarities in what is re-presented. Differences correspond primarily to how various aspects are mediated. In SWE-PST, supplemented information provided by the company is also used to explore the tutoring practice. 3 In this concluding discussion, we refer to supplementary tutoring, which here comprises both public and private tutoring out of regular school hours. When the discussion refers explicitly to either of them, we specify the use of the terms.

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Commission by the NESSE network of experts, by author Mark Bray. Retrieved from www.nesse.fr/nesse/activities/reports OECD (2016). PISA 2015 Results (Volume II): Policies and Practices for Successful Schools. Paris: OECD Publishing. Pettersson, D. (2008). Internationell kunskapsbedömning som inslag i nationell styrning av skolan. Uppsala Studies in Education No 120. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Prakhov, I. (2017). The prevalence and efficiency of investment in pre-entry coaching in Russia. Tertiary Education and Management, 23(2), 170–185. Schultz, D., Jonker, J. & Faber, N. (2018). Outside-in constructions of organizational legitimacy: Sensitizing the influence of evaluative judgments through mass self-communication in online communities. International Journal of Communication, 12, 290–312. SOU (1990:44). Demokrati och makt i Sverige. Maktutredningens huvudrapport. (Swedish Commissions of Inquiry 1990:44. Democracy and power in Sweden. The main report). Stockholm: Allänna förlaget. SFS[w6] (2007:346). Om skattereduktion för hushållsarbete [Swedish Code of Statutes no. 2007:346. About tax deduction for household work]. Stockholm. SFS (2010:800). Skollagen [The educational act]. SFS[w6] (2014:47). Om statsbidrag för undervisning under skollov [Swedish Code of Statutes no. 2014:47. About government subsidies for teaching during school holidays]. Stockholm. SFS[w6] (2014:144). Om statsbidrag för hjälp med läxor eller annat skolarbete utanför ordinarie undervisningstid [Swedish Code of Statutes no. 2014:144. On government subsidies for homework support or other schoolwork out of regular school hours]. Srivastava, P. (2008). The shadow institutional framework: Towards a new institutional understanding of an emerging private school sector in India. Research Papers in Education, 23(4), 451–475. Srivastava, P. (2016). Questioning the global scaling up of low-fee private schooling: The nexus between business, philanthropy, and PPPs. A. Verger, C. Lubienski & G. SteinerKhamsi (eds.) The Global Education Industry. World Yearbook of Education 2016. London: Routledge & Stanford: Stanford University Press. Star, S. L. & Griesemer, J. R. (1989). Institutional ecology, ‘translations’ and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907– 1939. Social Studies of Science, 19, 387–420. Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2004). The Global Politics of Educational Borrowing and Lending. New York: Teachers College Press. Tyumeneva, J. (2013). Disseminating and Using Student Assessment Information in Russia. Washington: World Bank. UNESCO (2017). Accountability in Education: Meeting Our Commitments. Paris: UNESCO. VCIOM (2016). EGE: 2016: Mify i realnost’. Retrieved from http://wciom.ru/index. php?id=236&uid=115766 VCIOM (2018). Shkol’noye obrazovaniye: otsenka rossiyan. Retrieved from https://wciom.ru/ index.php?id=236&uid=9276 Vedung, E. (1998). Policy instruments: Typologies and theories. M-L. Bemelmans-Videc, R. C. Rist & E. Vedung. Carrots, Sticks and Sermons: Policy Instruments and Their Evaluation. New York: Routledge.

Chapter 14

School certification Marketing schools by appearance Urban-Andreas Johansson and Christina Elde Mølstad

Introduction Since the mid-1990s several international school systems, including that in Sweden, have developed a ‘mindset’ on how education, the economy and the ‘market’ are related and interlinked as a consequence of neo-liberal reforms (Fernández, 2012; Dahlstedt, 2007). This mindset has further developed into a specific reasoning of how education can be understood and thought about. Neo-liberal reforms can also lead to an organisational movement that is often summarised as decentralisation. One aspect of decentralisation seems to be to make marketing and competition natural parts of education. Sweden is an especially interesting example if this, due to the intensity of such reforms, which can for example be observed in how education is discussed in terms of a ‘local school market’ (Lundahl, 2002; Lundahl et al., 2010; also see Lundström in this book). In this somewhat new educational reasoning, students have been perceived and understood as ‘customers’, which in the official rhetoric enables them to choose between schools. This naturally creates competition between different schools to attract the ‘right kind’ of ‘customers’, or students (e.g. Lund, 2006; Norén, 2003). In order to compete and attract students, schools in Sweden have developed different marketing technologies to portray themselves as the best option. We call this ‘selling themselves by appearance’. These specific technologies include websites for promoting the school, different kinds of bonuses e.g. computers, attractive summer camps or promises of a successful future dependent on the kinds of grades that are achieved. In this chapter we problematise an activity that can be classed as a technology of appearance in Sweden – namely different kinds of certification. Although certification is constructed in different ways and highlights different aspects, it has the expressed purpose of attracting potential students and their parents. The purpose of certification often seems to be to visualise the school as modern and keeping up with what is perceived as the most important social areas of development. As such, certification as an activity seems to be applied to appearance and as something that is a cut above other schools. Certification on e.g. environmental issues has been part of the Swedish educational discourse for a couple of decades. What we can now observe in the case of Sweden is that certification

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is also directed at individuals – and consequently also serves as a technique for recruiting the right type of student. A specific example of this new technique that is elaborated on in this chapter is certification expressing and guaranteeing that all the school personnel are certified as gender- and gay-rights knowledge holders (LGBTQ certification).1 In the chapter, this specific activity of LGBTQ certification is presented by investigating how the process of obtaining certification is constituted in the Swedish context. In our investigation, data from various certified schools are included in order to discuss how the certification itself can be understood as a specific marketing technology. The process of obtaining certification is followed by means of data obtained from websites, social media accounts and interviews with school actors published in local and national newspapers. The data consists of statements made by principals, teachers and ‘project managers’ working on the implementation of LGBTQ certification. The implementation process is based on statements illustrating the kinds of change that this work will mean in schools. It is important to stress that we do not discuss the actual changes, but only the expressed, expected, claimed or experienced changes. The processes that we have followed were chosen based on information from the website of a specific organisation working with this kind of certification (RFSL, 2017a). After filtering the information obtained, we selected three different schools to portray how the process of LGBTQ certification is constituted in Sweden and how it can be used for ‘selling the school by appearance’. All three examples are municipal-run schools, which in our view are more interesting in relation to how they cope with a logic that is discussed as being more suitable for profit-making private schools in Sweden.

The context of certification The history of certification in Swedish schools has not been investigated to any great extent. The first evidence we can find is when schools became part of the educational discourse in the late 1980s and early 1990s. At that time, environmental issues formed the basis for different kinds of certification, which can be explained by the political and media debates held at the time (Peterson, 2012). The political and media debates about the human impact on the environment made it possible for companies to act on these issues and to prove to customers, rivals and politicians that they were taking them seriously. One activity that demonstrated this was taking part in different certification processes that not only signalled responsibility for the environment, but also responsibility for society at large. These first certifications were also an attempt to work practically on environmental issues within the companies’ own domains. Certification was also a way of creating links between institutions and experts and for organisations to rearrange their internal affairs in a more environmentally friendly way. However, as we argue in this chapter, certification also became part of a specific marketing technique in order to portray the organisation as keeping up with current societal affairs. Swedish schools were no exception in

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this development of using certification to signal the importance of environmental work, and in 1996 a specific certification on environmental issues was promoted by a certification agency with an expressed focus on schools (e.g. Håll Sverige Rent, 2017). This was the first ‘wave’ of certification to take place in Swedish schools. Even though environmental issues can be understood to constitute the first ‘wave’ of certification, the number of issues that schools can obtain certification for today have increased to the extent that there is now a wide variety of different kinds of certification, e.g. UN certification, antidrug-certification and LGBTQ certification. The latter is one of the most recent certificates in the Swedish school market, with the first secondary school obtaining LGBTQ certification at the end of 2015 (Skolvärlden, 2016). LGBTQ certification is not only interesting because it is new in the Swedish school market, but also because it marks a shift in the kinds of issues for which Swedish schools can obtain certification. The earlier ones stressed issues of quality assurance in terms of more ‘general ideologies’ that applied to all kinds of students. LGBTQ certification is also marketed as a quality assurance, but is directed towards a certain kind of student. This is interesting, because it can be understood as a more strategic way of marketing schools and targeting certain kinds of students. As such, LGBTQ certification is something new and can be seen as a promotion strategy to attract students to a particular school, which further highlights that LGBTQ rights are important in an educational environment. This can also be said to be true for e.g. environmental certification, but what is new is that LGBTQ certification can on the one hand be used to signal societal awareness and on the other the ‘market-value’ of LGBTQ. Hence, LGBTQ certification is not only directed towards a collective, but is also directly targeted at individuals. There are a few options to choose from when it comes to LGBTQ certification. These are provided by companies in the private sector,2 in crossregional collaborations3 or by the government. The certification offered by these actors is similar in content, but offers a variety of designs for the certification process, such as location-based versus web-based processes, different timelines for the process and different price tags. The Swedish Government, through the Swedish Council for Youth and Civil Society, offers LGBTQ certification. The difference between this and other certification is that it is free of charge and that schools obtain a diploma instead of a certificate. Despite being free of charge, it is used to a lesser extent than that offered by a more prominent organisation when it comes to LGBTQ rights in Sweden, namely the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Rights [RFSL]. This organisation has been issuing LGBTQ certification to different actors in various arenas for the last decade. The certified organisations are preschools, youth recreation centres, healthcare offices and municipality offices. RFSL also performed the certification of the first secondary school in Sweden in 2015. Since then, it has certified approximately

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10 other secondary schools and more are currently participating in the certification process (RFSL, 2017b). The most apparent difference between the certification offered by RFSL and that of other actors is the extent to which it is sought after and used by schools as a marketing technique. This is discussed in more detail below. From the contextual description above, and due to the growing importance of LGBTQ certification in Swedish education, it is important to elaborate on whether LGBTQ certification can be understood as a marketing technology used by schools for ‘selling themselves by appearance’. Is the mere existence of this certification sufficient enough to illuminate it as a phenomenon of educational appearance and as a marketing technique? The question is not easy to answer in a direct way, since the reasons why schools covet LGBTQ certification vary. Nevertheless, in the following section we describe the process of LGBTQ certification and indicate how it is used in the larger Swedish educational discourse. This also enables us to comment on how the prevailing educational reasoning in Sweden today can be understood, which we believe is not that different from how education has developed in several other countries.

The process of certification In the following we describe how the process of certification in schools takes place. This is done by investigating how the process is described by the schools themselves and how the documentation is constructed and interpreted by school representatives. The first step in the process of LGBTQ certification is to submit an application to the certifying organisation (RFSL in our case). This is to make sure that the school is organised in a way that meets the requirements of the certifying organisation. These requirements are based on a scale measuring the perceived level of acceptance of the school personnel, the level of organisational adaptability and the kind of ethical work the organisation is already involved in. One of the requirements is that: It was verified that the policy documents we work with meet the requirements set by the certifying company. When informed, we were notified that we had passed. We have always worked towards gender equality, so that we are now also certified feels like a good indication that this work has been successful. (Interview in local newspaper with school A, translated by the authors) The policy documents referred to above are the various regulating documents that Swedish schools must comply with, such as the Education Act and the Discrimination Act. In addition, Swedish schools have to develop local policy

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documents that regulate the local work on equal treatment, which includes specific plans on how to address these issues. This is what we describe as the ‘three-layer aspect’, because LGBTQ certification can be viewed as the third layer of regulatory documents on how to treat and handle the work on equal treatment in schools. All the documents, or ‘layers’, are prescriptions for how to regulate similar issues. Having three different layers indicates that it would be almost impossible for Swedish secondary schools to be turned down when applying for LGBTQ certification, given that by law they have to comply with the national regulating documents. When accepted to proceed with the certification, the schools are faced with a price tag. The starting price for certification granted by the RFSL is about 125 000 SEK (ca. 14 000 USD) for a group of 25 people, although to some extent this is dependent on the number of personnel included in the certification (RFSL, 2017c). As all the school’s personnel must be involved in the certification process, regardless of whether they are principals, teachers, kitchen staff or caretakers, the price normally increases for every staff member included over the initial 25. After passing these initial steps the actual process of getting certified can be initiated. Even though all the schools in our material had worked with these issues prior to certification, they all chose to proceed with the process. When we look at why the schools chose to go through a process of certification when they did, it is normally stated that it was in line with their work on equal treatment and ethical considerations. One statement is formulated in the following way: LGBTQ issues have been actualised over the last couple of years. But there has always been a great deal of work with ethical considerations in Swedish schools. Now we will prepare for even more attention to these questions. (Interview in local newspaper with school B, translated by the authors) Conclusively, there seems to be an awareness in schools that these issues are something that they have worked with long before the idea of certification emerged. In addition, they all argue that as LGBTQ issues have now become more important in the societal discourse, there is a need to address these specific issues in a more explicit way than before. They also argue that the certification itself is to be understood as something that correlates with their previous work on similar issues. However, this third layer of regulatory work on equal treatment also seems to be seen as a kind of catalyst to expand the work of LGBTQ issues in the organisations. When exploring the question of why they are interested in becoming certified, the principals of the schools all refer to a perceived fact that LGBTQ issues have become more topical in recent years. As such, they stress that LGBTQ issues have been perceived as more central in the societal discourse on inclusion and are therefore important for schools to address.

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Acquiring LGBTQ certification is a one-year process that is divided into different steps and has two parallel parts: 1) education in LGBTQ issues and anti-oppressive education and 2) change management. This includes planning for the implementation of the certification in the organisation, analysing the situation in that same organisation, attending lectures on LGBTQ issues and anti-oppressive education and, finally, planning the work after certification. The different parts of the certification process are based on four seminars and two meetings. The process as a whole takes about five months. After this, the certifying company runs a follow-up session some six to twelve months after the actual certification process. In the process of becoming certified, the schools go through different steps depending on the lecture content of the certification. These lectures relate to the social, educational and physical aspects of the school. This can be described as a kind of intervention of the space and place of the school itself, where the school personnel review their own participation in the school environment and how they can best implement the new approach that the certification provides for. This has been described as: LGBTQ certification at school is already visible, including rainbow coloured carpets and lockers. Although all schools have previously worked with similar questions, we hope that the LGBTQ certification will provide security. . . . It is safe to get here no matter who you are. This is a guarantee that we are applying to an anti-oppressive educational work method. (From school A’s website, translated by the authors) This intervention of the school’s space and place is shown in different ways. One is ‘rainbow decorating’ different parts of the school with rainbow stickers, for example on the entrance doors and the school’s website. Another is that some of the schools go further in their decorating by making the interior design rainbow coloured in order to showcase the LGBTQ certification itself and create a safer school environment. This implies that the environment was seen as unsafe before the certification, which raises questions about what the students should be kept safe from. This is not explicitly explained by the certifying company or the schools being certified, but can be understood as a result of the LGBTQ community being a social group in constant risk of challenge (RFSL). The result of the LGBTQ certification is described in different ways, but in the example below it is obvious that the affect can be seen by the personnel involved: The LGBTQ certification will be visible in both the psychological and physical environments of the school. The education has affected, among other things, the literature used, language use at school, but also what the logo of the school looks like. The education has allowed us to open our

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eyes as to how we interact with the students. It is important for teachers to think about how they express themselves when it comes to gender roles. (Interview in national newspaper with school B, translated by the authors) The certification process also includes a review of the textbooks used in the school. All teachers are required to go through the textbooks used in their classes and analyse the language in them as part of the certification process. If they make findings that produce or reproduce heteronormativity, homophobia or transphobia, they need to decide whether to replace that particular textbook or use the ‘problematic’ parts of it as examples of heteronormativity, homophobia or transphobia and create discussions about them. This aligns with the overall idea of the certification, namely to intervene in the entire school environment in order to create safe places and safe spaces for all students. As indicated earlier, this is illustrated in various ways. Another example of this is: We went on a ‘norm inspection’. . . . We’ve . . . looked through all our forms and changed ‘mother’ and ‘father’ to ‘guardian’. Those students who don’t have a mother or a father shouldn’t feel singled out. And another thing as simple as the school toilets – are there men’s and ladies’ toilets and nothing in between, or are there gender-neutral toilets? . . . We also have discovered how we address the students. There used to be a lot of ‘What’s up girls?’ and ‘Hey boys’. But not all boys necessarily identify as boys. (Interview in local newspaper with school C, translated by the authors) This, and the other examples presented earlier, are part of the two parallel parts of the certification, namely education in LGBTQ issues and change management. These examples illustrate the different ways in which the LGBTQ certification process aims to challenge school environments socially, physically and educationally. In order obtain the certificate at the end of the certification process, the schools need to illuminate the knowledge that their employees have acquired during the process. This includes the school board having to show that the employees have a basic knowledge of LGBTQ issues that aligns with the educational plan of the certifying company (RFSL, 2017a). In addition, they need to have developed a concrete plan of work towards an ‘open and inclusive’ environment through LGBTQ perspectives. Further, they must also develop a plan stressing how the school is going to proceed when it comes to a welcoming and respectful treatment of all students and visitors that takes the LGBTQ perspectives into account. Finally, they also have to develop a plan for how they will work on attitudes towards LGBTQ issues amongst employees, students and visitors and how they will coordinate complaints and/or cases of discrimination (a.a.).

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After having gone through the process for LGBTQ certification, the school staff will have to explain how the results of the certifying process will be reflected in the schools’ physical and social environments. The physical environment is changed by the ‘rainbow decorating’ discussed earlier. The social environment is described as: The education is competence raising but also creates a forum where we who work at the school get an opportunity to discuss and reflect on norms and interactions with students in a broader perspective. The certification is in line with our vision of a human society, where a school of heart, humanity and tolerance for each other’s differences are fundamental. (school C’s website, translated by the authors) The change that the certification aims to bring about also affects the interaction with students, the kind of literature that is used in the schools and the school’s ‘logotype’. An examination of the certified schools’ websites shows that the schools use the same symbols throughout the school. However, there is no information on their websites about what the certification means for the school organisation. The certification is valid for three years, after which the schools need to renew their certification or lose it. If it is not renewed it has to be applied for anew and paid for.

Discussion: the certification activity for the sake of appearance The schools chosen for this study are municipally run, non-profit schools. The non-profit status is a consequence of the neo-liberal reform of the 1990s that determined the Swedish educational system. Even though these schools are not allowed to make a profit, it does not prevent them from making use of technologies on the ‘local school market’ (Lundahl, 2002; Lundahl et al., 2010). For example, municipal schools have to compete with private (profit-making) schools by making themselves attractive to students, which has made appearance an important competitive edge. This is in order to appeal to a wider spectrum of students, which in the end amounts to more money for the school. Schools also recognise that LGBTQ issues have “become more actualised in recent years”, which indicates a possibility of making a profit from specific issues and using these issues to enhance their appearance. They therefore look for societal trends and what is ‘hot on the market’ in order to appeal to more students and perhaps gain credibility. Although certification can be understood as a marketing technology, it is also followed by changes in the schools. For instance, LGBTQ certification aims to bring about change in the school management by focusing on social, physical and educational aspects. This is done by introducing anti-oppressive work methods with a focus on LGBTQ issues. These changes range from everyday interaction with students, changes in educational design and creating

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a safer space for all students. The physical environment also changes as a result of the certification into something we call ‘rainbow decorating’ on lockers, carpets and so on, and the certification stickers presented on the certified schools’ websites and entrance doors. After gaining some insights into the actual process of becoming certified it is time to discuss the meaning of LGBTQ certification and the ‘rainbow decorating of schools’. ‘Rainbow decorating’ is not included in RFSL’s certification process but is freely chosen by the schools themselves, because they regard portraying the “LGBTQ certification as important and as something that is visible, for example through rainbow-coloured carpets and lockers”. This can be seen as a part of the marketing technology of the certification, in that it emphasises the certification itself and also the schools’ standpoint on LGBTQ issues and the inclusionary work that accompanies it. However, inclusionary work that is directed towards a specific social group of LGBTQ youth can also be understood as ‘pink capitalism’, ‘pink money’, or ‘pink economy’. This concept describes a socioeconomic and marketing phenomenon of including LGBTQ people in the market economy (see for example Gluckman & Reed, 1997; Jacobsen & Zeller, 2008). It is thus the combination of capitalism, market economy, sexual orientation and gender identity or expression that is promoted and where LGBTQ people are considered as a target market and or potential buyers. Certification creates kinds of students and schools by appropriating LGBTQ issues as a marketing technique and uses ‘rainbow decorating’ as a market technology for ‘selling by appearance’. This fairly new phenomenon in the Swedish educational landscape of certification can also be seen as a result of new market technology and the logic of comparison and numbers. As the results show, the schools understood LGBTQ certification as a marker of their previous work on similar issues. As such, certification is only used to label and highlight the work that has already been done and to provide a competitive edge. It would therefore seem that a comparative logic is important for motivating certification. However, certification also helps schools to develop and deepen their knowledge of norms, power and identity by going through the process of obtaining LGBTQ certification. But if schools have worked with similar issues in the past, why bother going through a long and expensive process of certification? If the schools themselves felt the need to acquire more knowledge about LGBTQ issues, they could have obtained it in other ways, or chosen a cost-free alternative. This indicates that the certification itself can be understood as something other than a tool with which to educate and deepen knowledge about LGBTQ issues. This could then be understood as an argument when trying to understand LGBTQ certification as a marketing technology for schools to ‘sell themselves by appearance’ in addition to their inclusionary work as a result of the certification. We have chosen to study the certifying organisation of RFSL and its specific activity of certification. Despite the fact that alternative options on the market are either free of charge, less expensive or more flexible in their educational

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design, it is clear that RFSL is the most common choice when it comes certification activities and that schools choose this more expensive option to solve their self-identified problem of creating a safer school environment. One possible explanation for this could be that RFSL certification indicates a greater amount of credibility due to its long and well-known work with LGBTQ issues. This further indicates that this specific certification is more highly regarded and important for the schools’ appearances. Hence, the importance of appearance is more important when choosing certification, than the cost and flexibility of the certification process itself. As such, this specific activity is regarded as important for attracting students and is seen as a competitive advantage. To sum up, in this chapter we have demonstrated that the activity of certification has been established as a way for schools to become visible in a competitive field of free school choice. The certification highlights the schools as having exceptional focus and knowledge in the specific certified field and that schools use the certification to stand out in the quest to be the best.

Notes 1 LGBTQ = Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer 2 See for example Diploma Utbildning 3 See for example Adlongruppen

References Dahlstedt, M. (2007). I val(o)frihetens spår: Segregation, differentiering och två decennier av skolreformer. Pedagogisk forskning i Sverige, 12(1), 20–38. Fernández, C. (2012). Liberaliseringen av svensk skolpolitik: en positionsbestämning. Statsvetenskaplig tidskrift, 114(2), 241–269. Gluckman, A. & Reed, B. (1997). The Gay Marketing Moment. J. P. Jacobsen & A. Zeller (2008), Queer Economics: A Reader. London & New York: Routledge. Håll Sverige Rent (2017). Om Grön Flagg. Hämtad November, 2017, från Håll Sverige Rent, www.hsr.se/hall-sverige-rents-gron-flagg/om-gron-flagg Jacobsen, J. P. & Zeller, A. (2008). Queer Economics: A Reader. London & New York: Routledge. Lund, S. (2006). Marknad och medborgare: elevers valhandlingar i gymnasieutbildningens integrationsoch differentieringsprocesser. Diss. Växjö: Växjö universitet. Lundahl, L. (2002). Sweden: Decentralisation, deregulation, quasi-markets: And then what? Journal of Education Policy, 17(6), 687–697. Lundahl, L., Erixon Arreman, I., Lundström, U. & Rönnberg, L. (2010). Setting things right? Swedish upper secondary school reform in a 40-year perspective. European Journal of Education, 45(1), 49–62. Norén, L. (2003). Valfrihet till varje pris. Om design av kundvalsmarknader inom skola och omsorg. Göteborg: BAS. Peterson, G. (2012). Miljö i Sverige under 50 år. Giftfri miljö, biologisk mångfald, kost för hälsa och mediala miljöhistoriska toppar. Göteborg: Chalmers Kemi-och Bioteknik. Hämtad December 22, 2017, från http://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/local_153696.pdf

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Riksförbundet för homosexuellas, bisexuellas, transpersoners och queeras rättigheter [RFSL] (2017a). Hur mycket värt är allas lika värde? Hbtq-certifiera er verksamhet med RFSL. Hämtad November 21, 2017, från RFSL, www.rfsl.se/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/RFSL_hbtqcertifiering.pdf Riksförbundet för homosexuellas, bisexuellas, transpersoners och queeras rättigheter [RFSL] (2017b). Certifierade verksamheter. Hämtad September 17, 2017, från RFSL, www.rfsl.se/ certifiering-och-utbildning/certifierade-verksamheter/ Riksförbundet för homosexuellas, bisexuellas, transpersoners och queeras rättigheter [RFSL] (2017c). Priser. Hämtad November 21, 2017, från RFSL, www.rfsl.se/certifiering-ochutbildning/priser/ Skolvärlden (2016). Här är skolan som HBTQ-certifierats. Hämtad November 21, 2017, från Skolvärlden, http://skolvarlden.se/artiklar/har-ar-skolan-som-hbtq-certifierats

A summary and an invitation Christina Elde Mølstad and Daniel Pettersson

As we explained in the introduction of the book, all the chapters in one way or another engage with the question of how we think, talk and write about contemporary education in a society that is increasingly engaged in a specific reasoning on education. We tentatively described this reasoning as a ‘chimera’ of quantifications and comparisons that gradually have been the dominant fulcrum around which educational activities circulate. In one way or another, all the chapters argue for the recognition and importance of this ‘chimera’ inscribed and visualised as ‘numbers’. In the chapters, the authors give examples of how this ‘chimera’ evokes a specific rationality that gives primacy to particular activities we described in terms of ‘number-intelligent’ activities in the introduction. These ‘number-intelligent’ activities are characterised by how we start to act and think within the ‘numbers’. In this lies a ‘double gesture’ in that, as soon as we start to act in a ‘number-intelligent’ way, all educational actions outside this specific way of thinking seem opposed to acting ‘intelligently’, which can lead to what we have called a ‘fear of being left behind’. This theme binds the chapters, which offer descriptions of activities taking place within a ‘number-intelligent’ rationality conjured by a ‘fear of being left behind’. As such, the chapters portray how educational ‘numberintelligent’ activities are co-produced in the tensions between society, politics and science. With inspiration from the French thinker Jean Baudrillard, we wrote in the introduction about four intellectual irritations that began to ‘get on our nerves’ as we thought about, wrote and edited this book. The four intellectual irritations all come from thinking about how the ‘chimera’ of quantifications and comparisons enfolds our reasoning and enables specific visions on the world to be made intelligible. The chapters constitute examples of how the ‘chimera’ becomes the fulcrum around which educational activities are created, legitimised, disseminated and made ‘common sense’. The first intellectual irritation deals with activities use to establish what we know and how we know it. Consequently, several chapters illuminate activities taking place within a ‘number-intelligent’ way of establishing societal, political

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and scholarly ‘facts’ and ‘truths’ on education. In doing so, the concepts of Agora and co-production are important for understanding that ‘facts’ and ‘truths’ are commonly constructed by societal, political and scholarly representatives and that they alter over time. Our second intellectual irritation is linked to the construction of ‘facts’ and ‘truths’ because it highlights that several acts of co-producing educational ‘facts’ and ‘truths’ are helped by a specific ‘technology’ based on the ‘chimera’ taking the forms of ‘Big Data’ and algorithms, which creates a situation where educational knowledge becomes positioned in a ‘non-place’. Educational knowledge then seems to be dependent on the ‘flesh, blood and mind’ of individual subjects and enters a ‘non-place’ of objective algorithms. Educational knowledge seems then to be independent on the ‘flesh, blood and mind’ of individual subjects and enters a ‘non-place’ of seemingly objective algorithms and ‘big data’. Our third intellectual irritation exemplified in the chapters deals with the way educational ‘numbers’, to a large extent and in several contexts, seem to separate and divide rather than unify and visualise. This controversy lies in how, on the one hand, ‘numbers’ measure but, on the other, create ‘statements’ about and generate a specific ‘seeing’ of the objects themselves. This controversy raises the question of what ‘numbers’ actually do to people. This question is never fully answered in the chapters, but the authors give several examples of how people, as well as institutions, firms and governments, start to act in ‘number-intelligent’ ways in relation to education. One result of these ‘number-intelligent’ activities is a changing language on education that seems to be truly international. For example, we have started to talk about education in terms of ‘crisis, ‘success’ and ‘failure’, which are mostly related to a ‘numberintelligent’ way of understanding education. Our fourth, and final, intellectual irritation is connected to this new language of education in which we, inspired by French thinker Guy Debord, can observe how educational activities are seen as ‘spectacles’ that reduce reality and encourage us to focus on appearance. Debord described ‘spectacles’ as when being is replaced by having, which in turn is replaced by appearing. What we actually aspire to is the appearance of ‘success’ more than, for instance, educational ‘quality’, although the two concepts are increasingly regarded as the same. In other words, the last intellectual irritation deals with how the ‘chimera’ of quantifications and comparisons creates educational ‘spectacles’ that underlie how we construct what the German sociologist Jens Beckert called ‘imagined futures’. A book like this that visualises the different scopes and angles of a phenomenon under scrutiny usually ends with a more extensive conclusive chapter. This book does not have such an extensive chapter, primarily because we do not attempt to explain the phenomenon of quantifications and comparisons within education. Instead, we want to illuminate activities on the educational Agora that are based on this specific kind of reasoning. Consequently, the

A summary and an invitation

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book and its individual chapters are an invitation to other scholars to discuss these matters openly. By not coming to any all-embracing conclusions, we hope that we have stimulated a lot of thinking and, with a little luck, several more ‘irritations’ that activate other scholars to consider such issues in a research context. As stated elsewhere in the book, educational knowledge is co-produced, and we look forward to more scholars engaging with the questions raised in the book.

Contributors

Carl-Henrik Adolfsson is Senior Lecturer in Education and a member of the research group SITE (Studies in Curriculum, Teaching and Evaluation) at Linnaeus University, Sweden. His research interest mainly concerns curriculum theory with a special interest of the ‘content question’. Helen Melander Bowden is Associate Professor of Education at Uppsala University, Sweden. Her primary research interests concern knowledge and learning in interaction, covering various areas such as learning in interaction within peer groups, instructional work in encounters between students and teachers, and interaction in professional contexts. Luís Miguel Carvalho is Full Professor of Education Policy and Administration at the Institute of Education, University of Lisbon, Portugal. He is author of several studies on educational policies and educational organisations. His recent work has a focus on international assessments and the role of expert knowledge in the fabrication of education policies. He is currently leading UIDEF, the research unit of the Institute of Education. Sarbani Chakraborty is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She focuses on different types of economisation processes that are currently at work in the Indian education field, how they differ and converge with each other, and how educational measurement practices are related to economisation processes. Jingying Feng is a PhD student at the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her interest of research focuses on the politics of educational knowledge executed in China, the international comparison of educational evaluation systems, and the search for international education assessment. Eva Forsberg is Professor in Education at Uppsala University, Sweden, scientific leader of the research unit STEP and general editor of The Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy. Forsberg’s main research interests comprise comparisons of educational governance, especially through evaluation and

Contributors

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assessment. Some ongoing projects are focused on peer review in evaluation of research and higher education, consequences of different forms of research reviews and private tutoring as shadow education. Catarina Gonçalves is a PhD student on Educational Policy and Administration at the Institute of Education, University of Lisbon. She is interested in the relation between knowledge and policy in the context of the changing modes of governing education, with a particular focus on digital devices as governing instruments. Catarina has been publishing on these matters both nationally and internationally. Radhika Gorur is Associate Professor and DECRA Fellow at Deakin University, Australia, and a Director of the Laboratory for International Assessment Studies. Her research seeks to understand how some policy ideas cohere, stabilise, gain momentum and make their way in the world. Using materialsemiotic approaches, she has been developing a sociology of numbers that makes explicit the instrumental and constitutive work of quantification, calculation and comparison in education policy. Her current research is on current global ‘datafication’ and accountability projects, with a focus on education reform and accountability practices in the Indo-Pacific. Stina Hallsén is a Senior Lecturer in Education at Uppsala University and a member of the research group STEP (Studies in Educational Policy and Educational Philosophy). Her research examines education policy and the interplay between actors in the education system, mainly within the field of curriculum theory. Kampei Hayashi is Associate Professor at Shinshu University, Japan and Guest Researcher at Uppsala University, Sweden. His research interest is on new phenomenon of comparative education, such as critical studies on international large-scale assessments and edu-business, especially focusing on ‘Education Export’ strategies and their hegemonic consequences. Urban-Andreas Johansson, MSSc, works as a Lecturer at the University of Gävle, Sweden in Education and Health Education with a special interest in societal changes, queer issues and critical studies on living conditions of queer people. Rita Foss Lindblad was Professor at the University of Borås, School of Education and Behavioural Sciences, Sweden. Her research focus was in exploring the social organisation of knowledge and learning in present societies. Over the years this has led her research in different directions; into the fields of higher education, formal education and adult education and into issues of lifelong learning, of professionalism and of the social embeddings of knowledge and learning. Sverker Lindblad is Professor of Education and Special Education at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. His research interest focuses on the

246

Contributors

intersections between education and society and between educational organisations and processes. Given this, he works in the areas of teaching and research in curriculum theory, education policy analysis, and school organisation and processes. Ulf Lundström is Associate Professor at Umeå University, Department of Applied Educational Science, Sweden. His main research interests lie within the areas of the teaching profession, teacher education and education policy, for example focusing marketisation, inclusion and evaluation, and how these policies are enacted in the local practice. Tatiana Mikhaylova is a PhD student in educational sciences at the University of Gävle and Uppsala University, Sweden. Her research interests centre on history, policy and philosophy of education. She is currently working on her doctoral thesis on the subject of private tutoring in Russia. Christina Elde Mølstad is Head of Department and Associate Professor at the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences. She especially specialises in the dissemination and use of international large-scale assessments, direct and indirect governing and in general in policy and comparative education. She is currently working as Head of the Department of Social and Educational Sciences and is leader of the research group Studies in Professional Development, Learning and Policy (SPLP). Andreas Nordin is Associate Professor in Education at the Department of Pedagogy and Learning, Linnaeus University, Sweden. His research interests are education policy and politics and curriculum theory with a special focus on the complex interplay between different policy arenas. He is editor of the Swedish educational research journal Pedagogisk forskning i Sverige. Daniel Pettersson is Associate Professor at the University of Gävle and Uppsala University, Sweden. He specialises in the history, dissemination and use of international large-scale assessments, and in general in policy narratives, educational history and comparative education. He is currently working as a project leader on the project International Comparisons and Re-modelling of Welfare State Education financed by the Swedish Research Council, being one of four general editors and chief editor of Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy (NordSTEP), and a member of the research group STEP. Thomas S. Popkewitz is Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, The University of Wisconsin-Madison. His current research focuses on international assessments and the search for ‘practical and useful’ knowledge as cultural practices in making kinds of people. His studies cross the fields of curriculum studies, the political sociology of education, and cultural history – to consider the politics of educational knowledge and paradox of exclusion and abjection in efforts to include.

Contributors

247

Caroline Runesdotter is Senior Lecturer at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and member of the research group Politics of Education. Her research interests comprise different aspects of the relation society/education, in contemporary as well as historical perspectives, including teachers working conditions, the fields of adult and popular education, and recently studies focusing the role of media in relation to education policy. Daniel Sundberg is Professor of Education at the Linnaeus University Sweden, where he is the co-leader of the SITE research group (together with prof. Ninni Wahlström). His main field of research is education reforms, curriculum and teaching, where changes over time and places in what counts as knowledge is central. In recent research projects Sundberg has investigated changing relations between educational research, politics of education and teaching practices from historical and comparative perspectives, for example in the book Transnational Curriculum Standards and Classroom Practices – The New Meaning of Teaching (Wahlström & Sundberg 2017). Sofia Viseu is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Education of University of Lisbon, where she works on educational policy and administration, research methods in education and social network analysis. She supervises postgraduate students interested in new regulation modes and governance in educational systems. She is the author of publications on educational policies, policy networks and processes of privatisation in education. Gun-Britt Wärvik is Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor in Education at University of Gothenburg, Sweden. She is a member of the research group Politics of Education. Her research concerns international and comparative education, including studies of educational policy and politics of knowledge with a focus on large-scale assessments, media analyses and studies of professions. Currently she coordinates the SIDA-funded Research Training Partnership Programme in International and Comparative Education, a collaboration with Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia.

Index

achievement 32 actor network theory (ANT) 100 Adolescence (Hall) 22 Adorno, Theodor 19 Agora: concept of 2–3, 38–39, 101–102; as constitutive of comparative education 43–44; legitimacy of 221–223; public – private interplay on 210; transformational powers of 45–46 Alpers, Svetlana 77 American Education, a National Failure (Rickover) 52 Anderson, Arnold 42 Animal Intelligence (Thorndike) 23 Annual Status of Education Report 159, 164–168, 170 Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 159 “aQeduto (Aqueduct) – Quality and Equity in Education”: convocation 121–122; establishment of 113–114; information generation 119; mediation using internal experts 114–115; as mediators and experts on education system and educational knowledge 118, 123; publication 119–121, 123; role in dissemination of information on student performance 117–118 ‘audit culture’ 189–190 Augé, Marc 6 Ball, Stephen J. 190 Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction (Tyler) 53 Berg, Marc 74 Bernstein, Basil 192, 212 ‘Big Data’ 7, 9 Bloom, Benjamin 53, 56

Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives 53 ‘boundary objects’ 212, 223–226 Brazil 178, 179 Bridge International Academies (BIA) 180–181 bureaucracy logics 193 Caswell, Hollis L. 53 Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) 29, 57 certification: context of 231–233; kinds of 232; in Sweden 230–239 ‘chimera’ of quantifications and comparisons 1–4, 6–7, 19–21 China: Civil Service Exam 160–161; international large-scale assessments 169–170; National College Entrance Exam 160; tradition of testing and measuring student performance 159–160; use of Programme for International Student Assessment 160–164, 169–170 City School Surveys (Caswell) 53 Coleman, James S. 52–53 colonialism 184–185 communicative discourse 130–131 communicative interactions 130–131 comparative education: dominance of large-scale research 45–46; education standards 50–51; role of Torsten Husén 41–44; science-society nexus 37–40, 45–46; specificities as research field 44–45; trajectory in Sweden 38–46 comparisons 19–21 complexity 39–40 Condorcet, Marquis de 20 constitutive acts 6 content standards 51–52

Index Cool Japan Fund 179 coordinative discourse 130–131 Cowen, Robert 40–41, 182 curriculum: content standards 51–52; ‘forces’ that developed course of American 21–22; performance standards 51–52; for private supplementary education practices 217–218; theory 192–193 Curriculum Design Principles (CDP) 62 ‘data-driven school crisis’ (DSC) 140 data revolution 71 Debord, Guy 9, 147–148 developmentalists 21–22 ‘development game’ 73–74 discursive institutionalism (DI): ideas 131–132; making compulsory education governable through externalisation 138–139; moral relief through externalisation 135–137; normalisation of national crisis discourse 132; normalisation of the national crisis discourse 137–139; normalising ‘crisis rationale’ 137–138; philosophical ideas 132; policy ideas 131; politics and media in discursive coalition 134–135; productive dimensions of 132; programmatic ideas 131; scandalisation of education 132–137; view of policy as a discursive practice 130–131 Durkheim, Emile 8 Economic Development Board (EDB) of Singapore 177 Educare Co-operative Limited (Educare) 178 Education 2030 Incheon Declaration and Framework for Action (UNESCO publication) 71 ‘Education 2030’ project 50, 60–62, 69 educational knowledge 5–6, 19, 31–32 educational psychology 24, 41 ‘Education at a Glance’ (OECD publication) 57 education export: exporter side 177–180; in GATS modes 176–177; importer side 180–181 Education Export Finland (EEF) 178–179 education reforms 53 Education Thesaurus (UNESCO) 54 Edu-Cluster Finland 179

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EDULOG: convocation 121–122, 123; establishment of 113–114; information generation 119, 123; mediation through external expertise 115–116; as mediators and experts on education system and educational knowledge 118, 123; publication 121, 123; role in dissemination of information on student performance 117–118 Edu-port Japan 179 efficiency problematic 91–92 Egypt 179 Eight-Year Study 53 Enlightenment 20 Epstein, Erwin 40 Equality of Educational Opportunity (Coleman) 52–53 Erasmus programme 57 Ethiopia 180 ethnicity problematics 91 European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training 57 evidence 101–102 ‘expert cultures’ 19 expertise: changing nature of 30–33; concept of 18–19; Husén context of ‘expertise’ 26–28; Schleicher context of ‘expertise’ 29–30; Thorndike context of ‘expertise’ 23–24 experts: Andreas Schleicher 19, 28–30; definition of 19; development of 18; Edward L Thorndike 19, 21–25; legitimacy of 32; Torsten Husén 19, 25–28, 41–42, 56 explananda 87–92, 95 explanandum 86 explanans 86, 87–88 explanantia 87–88, 95 Export Education Strategy 177 external explanans 87 ‘failure’ 146–147 ‘fear of being left behind’ 3, 4, 124 Ferné, Georges 38 Feyerabend, Paul 18 Finland 147, 178–179 Fladmoe, Audun 146–147 ‘formal discipline’ doctrine 23–24 Foshay, A. W. 42 Frank, Leoanard 73–74, 78–79 Freidson, Eliot L. 193 Friedman, Milton 191

250

Index

Fröbel, Friedrich W. A. 24 Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos (FFMS) 113 ‘gaps’ 87, 91 Gates, Bill 180 gender gaps 91 gender problematics 91 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 176 General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) 176–177 Germany 129 Gewirtz, Sharon 192 Ghana 181–182 Gibbons, Michael 38 global agendas 66–68 Global Alliance to Monitor Learning (GAML) 72, 73 Global Education Monitoring Report 72 Global Partnership for Education (GPE) 72, 74 Green, Jane 189 Habermas, Jürgen 19 Hacking, Ian 34, 159, 161 Hall, G. Stanley 22, 24 Hegarty, Seamus 127 Heimans, Jeremy 69–71 Herbart, Johann Friedrich 24 Holmes, Brian 54 Horkheimer, Max 19 humanists 21–22 Husén, Torsten 19, 25–28, 31, 39, 41–44, 56 ideas 131–132 India: international large-scale assessments 164–170; National Achievement Survey 167; trade partner with Japan 179; use of Annual Status of Education Report 159, 164–168, 170; use of Programme for International Student Assessment 159, 164–170 industrial management 21 inscription devices 75–80 inscriptions 102 “inside the black box” problematic 92 Institute of International Education at Stockholm University (IIE) 37–38, 44, 47 interactional acts 6 Inter-Agency Group on Education Inequality Indicators (IAG-EII) 72 internal explanans 87

International Association for the Evaluation Educational Achievements (IEA): early investigations undertaken by 27–28; establishment of 84, 127; evidence of failing standards in education 58; governance of 47; as mediator in curriculum making 54–56; ‘Twelve-Country Study’ 50, 53, 56–57; use of hierarchies and typologies methodology 31 International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) 27 international large-scale assessment research (ILSA research): communication patterns in 93–94; creation of 46; knowledge problematics 86, 91–93; notion of ‘gap’ in 87, 91; as part of domestic educational policy discourses 129–130; performing review of 85–86; styles of reason in 86–91, 95–97 international large-scale assessments: reception in China 159–164, 169–170; reception in India 159–160, 164–170 International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) 54, 57 Iran 178 ISIS recruitment 69–71 James, William 24 Japan 58, 179 Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO) 179 Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) 179, 183–184 Jasanoff, Sheila 5 Jensen, Casper B. 74–75 Jullien, Marc-Antoine de 50–51 Justino, David 113, 115 Kazamias, Andreas 40 Kellner, Douglas 147–148 Keynes, John Maynard 160 Kliebard, Herbert M. 21–22 knowledge 5–7, 31–32, 38–40, 44–45 knowledge problematics 39–40, 86, 91–93 Larsen, Marianne A. 40–41 Latour, Bruno 71, 75–80 Lawn, Martin 128 legitimacy 32, 101–102, 106–107, 129–130, 211 LGBTQ certification 231–239 Liberia 180, 182–183 lifelong learning 192

Index Lingua programme 57 logic 88 logics of bureaucracy/market/ professionalism logics 193 Malaysia 179 Malthus, Robert 160 management by objectives and results (MBOR) 191 market logics 193, 202 Martens, Kerstin 176–177 measurements 7–8, 76, 88 ‘media logic’ 146–147 ‘media spectacles’ 147–148 #MeToo movement 69–70 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 66, 68 Mill, James 160 Mill, John Stuart 160 Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) 179 Mitchell, Timothy 19 monitoring frameworks 75, 77–80, 81 Myanmar 179 Nakawa Vocational Training Institute (NVTI) 184 National Academy of Education 57 National Achievement Survey (NAS) 167 National Agency of Education 150 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 163 National College Entrance Exam (NCEE – Gaokao) 160 National Institute of Education (NIE) 177–178 National Teachers’ Association of Liberia (NTAL) 181 ‘new power’ 69–71 New Public Management (NPM) 189, 191 New Thinking in Comparative Education (Larsen) 40 New Zealand 177, 180 NIE International Pte Ltd. (NIEI) 177–178 Nokia 179 Norway 63 Nowotny, Helga 38 ‘number-intelligent’ activities 2–3 ‘numbers’ 1, 4, 7–9, 19–21, 32–33, 140, 170, 189–190 ‘old power’ 69–71 Oman 178

251

Omega Schools 181–182 Omidyar, Pierre 180 ontological flattening 68, 71, 80–81 ‘optical consistency’ 32–33, 78 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) 46, 55, 57, 58, 72, 84, 127, 149, 175, 191 Paine, Thomas 20 Partnership Schools for Liberia (PSL) programme 182–183 Paulston, Rolland 40 ‘Pay-As-You-Learn model’ 181 Pearson Education, Inc. 46, 181–182 performance indicators 189–190, 192–193, 196, 201–202 performance standards 51–52 ‘Performance Standards in Education’ initiative 58 Pestalozzi, Johann Heinrich 24 Petra programme 57 philosophical ideas 132 policy ideas 131 ‘policy transfer’ 182 Porter, Theodore M. 19, 128 Portugal: “aQeduto (Aqueduct) – Quality and Equity in Education” 112–122; EDULOG 112–122 Postlethwaite, Neville 42 power 69–71 Pratham (NGO) 167 ‘private good’ 210 private supplementary tutoring (PST): concept of 207–208; curriculum for 217–218; educational ‘boundary objects’ existing in 212, 223–226; evaluations and output of 219–220; legitimacy of 211; parental involvement and negotiations 220–221; pedagogy of 218–219; policy strategies 210–211; represented in marketing 216–217; in Russia 208–209, 215–220; in Sweden 208–209, 213–220 professionalism logics 193 programmatic ideas 131 Programme for International Student Assessment 2009+ (PISA 2009+) 165 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA): differences in ILSA research using TIMSS or 92–93; establishment of 55, 84–85; media debate on 148–149; ‘newsworthiness’ of 146–147; presentation in printed news media 145–156; ranking systems 99; role

252

Index

in establishment of Swedish educational crisis discourse 132–139, 145, 150–156; takeover by Pearson Education, Inc. 46; use in China 160–164, 169–170; use in education standardisation 60; use in India 159, 164–170; use in Singapore 178; use in Portugal 112–116, 119, 122 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 149 ‘public good’ 210 Qatar 178, 179 quantifications 1–4, 6–7, 19–21 ‘quick language’ 130 Ravitch, Diane 190 reductionism 39–40 Rickover, Hyman G. 52 Robinson, Saul 54 RTI International 72 Russia: curriculum for private supplementary education practices 217–218; educational ‘boundary objects’ 212, 223–226; Education Export Finland and 178; evaluations and output of the private supplementary tutoring practices 219–220; legitimacy of expanded educational Agora in 222–223; marketing of private supplementary tutoring 216–217; parental involvement and negotiations in private supplementary tutoring 220–221; private supplementary tutoring 208–209, 215–220; Unified State Examination 215–216 Saudi Arabia 178, 179 ‘scandalisation’ 128 Schleicher, Andreas 19, 28–30, 31–32, 127 school achievement comparison 52–54 school choice 191–202 science: discourses on science/society interactions 37–40, 45–46; expertise of 28; technology and 5–6; visual culture of 32–33 Scotland 59 Scott, James C. 81, 159 Seeing like a State (Scott) 81 Senegal 184 Senegal-Japan Vocational Training Centre (CFPT) 184 ‘Setting Standards’ conference 50 Shanghai 147 Shore, Cris 189

Simmel, George 159 Simons, Maarten 124 simplicity 39–40 Singapore 177–178 Singaporean Teachers’ Union (STU) 178 Singh, Arjun 165 Skolval Stockholm (School Choice Stockholm) 198 Skolverkets Internetbaserade Resultat-och kvalitets Informations System (SIRIS) 197–198 Soares dos Santos, Alexandre 113 social efficiency educators 21–22 social meliorists 21–22 Society of Spectacle, The (Debord) 9 socio-economic problematics 91 space 132 Spain 178 ‘spectacles’ 9–10, 147–148 standards: conference 58–60; content 51–52; ‘Education 2030’ project 50, 60–62, 69; first wave of terminological standardisation 54, 62–63; IEA as mediator in curriculum making 54–56; kinds of 50–51; performance 51–52; school achievement comparison 52–54; second wave of terminological standardisation 57, 62–63; third wave of terminological standardisation 60–61, 62–63; ‘Twelve-Country Study’ 56–57 Starke, Peter 176–177 ‘state intellectuals’ 26–27 statistics 20, 32, 129 Steiner-Khamsi, Gita 128 Struggle for the American Curriculum, The (Kliebard) 21 ‘Students’ Performance Standards’ (OECD publication) 58 ‘success’ 146–147 Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4): education agenda in 68; global datafication project 69, 72–75, 81; inscription devices 75–80; manifestation of ‘old’ and ‘new’ power mechanisms in 71–75; monitoring frameworks 75, 77–80; ‘optical consistency’ 78 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 66 SvD Skolvalet (SvD School Choice) 198– 199, 200, 202 Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) 198 Sweden: assessment culture in 213; certification activity for sake of appearance 237–239; curriculum

Index for private supplementary education practices 217–218; curriculum making model 63; discourses on science/ society interactions 37–40; educational ‘boundary objects’ 212, 223–226; evaluations and output of the private supplementary tutoring practices 219–220; evaluation systems used to promote school choice 191–192, 194, 199–200; governance of schools 191–192, 213; legitimacy of expanded educational Agora in 222–223; LGBTQ certification 231–239; marketing of private supplementary tutoring 216–217; national curriculum 200; parental involvement and negotiations in private supplementary tutoring 220–221; pedagogy of private supplementary education practices 218–219; performance indicators used in 189–190, 192–193, 196, 201–202; private supplementary tutoring 208–209, 213–220; relationship between the national curriculum and the discourses of learning 194; role of PISA in establishment of Swedish educational crisis discourse 132–139, 145, 150–156; school choice 191–202; Skolval Stockholm 198; Skolverkets Internetbaserade Resultat- och kvalitets Informations System 197–198; strong self-confidence in education 129; SvD Skolvalet 198–199, 200, 202; trajectory of international and comparative education in 40–46; VäljaSkola 199; welfare state school system 212–213 Swedish Institute for Educational Research (SIER): establishment of 99–104, 107–108; formalisation/legitimation of procedure of reviews 104–106, 108–109; narratives of legitimation at 106–107, 109 Swedish National Agency for Education (SNAE) 192, 197 Taylorism 52 technology 5–6 Thailand 179 ‘third-communities’ 119 Thorndike, Edward L 19, 21–25, 32 “three message systems of schooling” concept 192–193, 201, 212 Timmermans, Stefan 74

253

Timms, Henry 69–71 Tooley, James 181 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Wittgenstein) 3 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 84–87, 89, 92–93, 149, 163, 175, 178 Trust in Numbers (Porter) 19 ‘Twelve-Country Study’ (Foshay) 50, 53, 56–57 Tyler, Ralph 53 Uganda 184 UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) 72 Unified State Examination (USE) 215–216 United Arab Emirates 178, 179 United Kingdom (UK) 59, 177 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO): attempts at implementing standardisation in education 53, 54; creation of International Standard Classification of Education 57; establishment of 127; Institute for Education 26, 27, 54; Institute for Statistics 72; Millennium Development Goals 66; Sustainable Development Goal 4 68–77; Sustainable Development Goals 66–67 United Nations Expert Advisory Group 66 United States 52, 56–59, 163, 177 United States Agency for International Development (USAID) 72 VäljaSkola (Choose School) 199 Vietnam 178, 179 ‘visual cultures’ 77 visual techniques 32–33 von Wright, George Henrik 86 Walberg, Herbert 28 ‘ways of seeing’ 148–150, 152–155 Weinstein, Harvey 69–70 Werner, George 180 Winthereik, Brit R. 74–75 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 3 Wolhuter, Charl 40 World Bank 72, 175 Wright, Susan 189 Yeap Ban Har 175 Zuckerberg, Mark 180