From the 23rd to 26th of November 2009 in La Palma island, in the Canaries, the Comparative Education Society in Europe (CESE) organized an international symposium entitled PISA under Examination: Changing Knowledge, Changing Tests, and Changing Schools. During four days seventeen leading scholars of Europe and America presented their contributions to debate the different problematiques of the remarkable phenomenon represented by the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment or PISA. PISA is not merely an educational event. It is also a media circus which involves the public rehearsal for reasons for failure or success; and even, in some cases, public and political and academic explanations about why 'failure' was not really that, and why 'success' was not really that either. At the centre of all these indications, we find the growing influence of international agencies on education and schooling which is decisively contributing to a marketisation of the field of education, in the context of an increasingly multilevel and fragmented arena for educational governance based on the formulation, the regulation and the transnational coordination and convergence of policies, buttressed at the same time by the diffusion of persuasive discursive practice. Organized in four sections entitled The Comparative Challenges of the OCDE PISA Programme, PISA and School Knowledge, The Assessment of PISA, School Effectiveness and the Socio-cultural Dimension, PISA and the Immigrant Student Question, and Extreme Visions of PISA: Germany and Finland, the contributions of this book offers a comprehensive approach of all these challenging and significant issues written from different and distinct research and academic traditions.

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an international achievement measure that assesses 15-year-old student performance in the areas of reading, mathematics, and science literacy in over 70 countries and economies triennially. By presenting an in-depth examination of PISA’s role in education governance and policy discourses, this book provides the reader with a critical analysis of the educational change process within our increasingly global educational policy environment. Exploring the prominent socio-political drivers of large-scale educational reform across the globe, chapter authors examine PISA’s national and global implications from a diverse range of regional contexts. Through the presentation of cross-disciplinary viewpoints and topical issues related to the PISA international survey, this volume explains the degree to which PISA-focused research is linked to national educational policy discourses and international education agendas.

This is one of six volumes that present the results of the PISA 2018 survey, the seventh round of the triennial assessment. Volume I, What Students Know and Can Do, provides a detailed examination of student performance in reading, mathematics and science, and describes how performance has changed since previous PISA assessments.

This report presents the conceptual foundations of the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), now in its seventh cycle of comprehensive and rigorous international surveys of student knowledge, skills and well-being. Like previous cycles, the 2018 assessment covered reading, mathematics and science, with the major focus this cycle on reading literacy, plus an evaluation of students’ global competence – their ability to understand and appreciate the perspectives and world views of others. Financial literacy was also offered as an optional assessment.

This open access book compares and contrasts the results of international student assessments in ten countries. The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) released the results of its 2018 assessment in December 2019. This book reflects the debates that typically follow the release of these results and focuses on the causes of differences between countries. Such causes include continuous decline in one country, improvement combined with increasing internal inequalities in another country, or rapid improvement in spite of an outdated curriculum in yet another. In addition, the book discusses a number of general questions: Is knowledge outdated? Are computers taking over and replacing teachers? Are schools killing creativity? Are we adequately preparing the next generation? Are schools failing to educate our kids? The book starts out with a summary of PISA’s evolution and PISA results, and an explanation of the major factors that play a role in changes in countries’ results. The next ten chapters are devoted to ten specific countries, offering a summary of data and an explanation of the major drives for changes in education results for each one. Each chapter includes a short description of the country’s educational system as well as the impact of PISA and other ILSA studies on the country’s educational policies. The chapters also include a timeline of policy measures and main hallmarks of the country’s educational evolution, discussing the impact of these measures on its PISA results. A final reference chapter explains what PISA is, what it measures and how. While highlighting the 2018 results, the book also takes into consideration previous results, as well as long-term initiatives. This book gathers the contribution of well-known and respected experts in the field. Specialists such as Eric Hanushek, for the US, Tim Oates, for England, Montse Gomendio, for Spain, Gunda Tire, for Estonia, and all other contributors draw on their vast experience and statistical analysis expertise to draw a set of rich country lessons and recommendations that are invaluable for all of those who care about improving a country’s education system.

Finnish education has been a focus of global interest since its first PISA success in 2001. After years of superficial celebration, astonishment and educational tourism, the focus has recently shifted to what is possibly the most interesting element of this Finnish success story: that Finnish schools have been effectively applying methods that go against the flow of global education policy with no testing, no inspection, no hard evaluation, no detailed national curriculum, no accountability and no hard competition. From a historical and sociological perspective the Finnish case is not merely a linear success story, but is part of a controversial and paradoxical struggle towards Utopia: towards egalitarian schooling. Bringing together a collection of essays by Hannu Simola and his colleagues, this book analyses the key dimensions of schooling in Finland to provide a critical, analytical and uncompromising picture of the Finnish education system. Going beyond the story of success, the book reveals the complexities of educational change, but also identifies opportunities and alternatives for smart political action in complex and trans-national societies. Including a selection of key chapters on Finnish education policy and governance, teacher education and classroom cultures, the book will be of interest to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in comparative education, teacher education, educational policy and educational reform.

A collaborative series with the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education highlighting leading-edge research across Teacher Education, International Education Reform and Language Education.