Seeing education with one's own eyes and through PISA lenses: considerations of the reception of PISA in European countries

Abstract

The paper addresses the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) as a public policy instrument, whose worldwide circulation is mediated by processes of reinterpretation, negotiation, and re-contextualization, where national, local, and international agencies intertwine. It is focused on the active reception of PISA in six European spaces (Francophone Belgium, France, Hungary, Portugal, Romania, and Scotland) along its first three cycles. The paper identifies two contrasting developments: the Program's divergent uses and its attractiveness in different social worlds. The paper gives particular attention to what is called the ‘update of reference societies’ in the context of national receptions of PISA. These ‘updates’ are analyzed as part of a composite process that involves domestic reasons, either related to current agendas for education or to deep historical factors, and injunctions related to PISA's rationale and PISA objects.

Keywords:

• PISA
• OECD
• Europe
• policy tool
• mutual surveillance
• reference societies

Notes

1. For a different analysis of these six studies, focusing the knowledge actors mobilize when they talk about PISA, in the public debate, see Pons (2012).