PISA as an ideational roadmap for policy change: exploring Germany and England in a comparative perspective

Abstract

Education policy has undergone transformation in many countries over the last decade. In this article, we focus on the effects of the most significant international initiative in secondary education, which is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). We analyse two countries that provide variation regarding the degree of change in their respective education policy-making due to this study; while Germany substantially reformed its education system in reaction to its mediocre PISA results, almost no change has been observed in England. As we show, alterations and shifts in ideas of education policy best account for such a change.

Keywords:

• Germany
• England
• education policy
• PISA
• international organisations
• soft governance
• OECD

Acknowledgements

This article is a product of the research conducted in the project ‘Internationalisation of Education Policy’ of the Collaborative Research Center ‘Transformations of the State’ at the University of Bremen. The centre is funded by the German Research Foundation.

Notes

1. http://www.pisa.oecd.org/pages/0,3417,en_32252351_32235918_1_1_1_1_1,00.html (accessed October 10, 2012).

2. Regions include, for instance, the Chinese special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.

3. The information from interviews is cited by interview codes to guarantee the interview partners' complete anonymity.

4. For an overview regarding education policy and decision-making in Germany, see Erk (2003) and Wolf (2008).

5. On the other hand, the federal structure in education can facilitate reforms as well. Single Länder can act as trailblazers to introduce certain changes without the need for encompassing and difficult negotiations.

6. http://www.kmk.org/information-in-english/standing-conference-of-the-ministers-of-education-and-cultural-affairs-of-the-laender-in-the-federal-republic-of-germany.html (accessed November 12, 2012).

7. Third International Mathematics and Science Study, see Mullis et al. (2000).

8. http://www.iqb.hu-berlin.de/bista (accessed November 21, 2012).

9. Because the education systems of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are both historically and politically different, this case study is limited to England.