Contributing to the common good? Media coverage of the international largescale assessment of adult skills (PIAAC) in four national contexts

Abstract

This paper focuses on the rapidly expanding field of largescale international assessment surveys and their impact on the field of adult education and learning. I take the case of OECD’s survey assessing adult skills (PIAAC) and situate it within the wider context of the datification of educational policy and practice. The claims made for the policy effects of surveys like PIAAC are far-reaching and include the promotion of economic growth and more inclusive and equitable societies. I examine how these claims are translated into national contexts by examining documentary data collected from the OECDs publicity materials and media coverage of the second round PIAAC survey findings in 2016 in four of the nine countries that took part: Singapore, Greece, New Zealand and Slovenia. Using a socio-material approach, I discuss how these discourses were managed by the OECD and national actors and show how the survey findings are framed and interpreted through existing public debates. The paper concludes that international assessments do not serve the goals of growth and equity in any straightforward way, since many interests and contextual factors may intervene to create a mismatch between the testers’ intentions, media discourse and policy outcomes.

Keywords:

• Adult skills
• international assessment studies
• media analysis
• policy discourse

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The following countries participate in PIAAC: Round 1 (2008–2013): Australia, Austria, Belgium (Flanders), Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russian Federation, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom (England and Northern Ireland), United States. Round 2 (2012–2016): Chile, Greece, Indonesia, Israel, Lithuania, New Zealand, Singapore, Slovenia, Turkey. Round 3 (2016–2019): Ecuador, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Peru, United States.

2 Sincere thanks are due to all the people who contributed to the research reported in this paper: Margarita Calderon (Chile); Cormac O’Keeffe (France); Natalie Papanastasiou, Sofia Ntalapera, Despina Potari, Jeff Evans, Anna Tsatsaroni (Greece); Ari Danu, Didi Sukyadi David Mallows (Indonesia); Oren Pizmony-Levy (Israel); Tomoya Iwatsuki (Japan); Justina Naujokaitiene (Lithuania); Janet Coup/Pat Strauss NZ); Stanley Koh (Singapore); Petra Javrh (Slovenia); Caroline Runesdottir (Sweden); Ahmed Yildez (Turkey); Keiko Yasukawa (Factiva searches).