This article problematizes the way of thinking schooling in discourse of sign system, which involves opposition, and double gesture of inclusion/exclusion. Drawing on two fundamental texts of Taoism, the Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu, this article puts forward the seemingly passive Non-Word and Non-Self to resist the hierarchy ordering of…

Formative assessment has been considered an essential concept for motivating and improving learning. However, implementing formative assessment has been confronted with challenges in Confucian-heritage culture (CHC) contexts such as Hong Kong and Shanghai, where the atmosphere of high-stakes tests dominates at policy and classroom levels. Whether…

Turkey's politically induced 'curricular modernization initiative' intended a philosophical change and a system-level transformation from behaviouristic to constructivist-inspired pedagogies in the early 2000s. Science curriculum has been one of the curricula that has taken precedence. It has changed four times since then. The latest science…

This article addresses issues of educational leadership in postcolonial and post-conflict environments. The focus relates to large-scale testing protocols, diversity in schools, asset-based community development, and communications technology. The article highlights the importance of context to the tenets of social justice, equitable human…

The purpose of this study is to comparatively investigate the science teaching curricula in Turkey, which have undergone changes four times since the millennium. For this purpose, we carried out a technical and taxonomic examination of the learning outcomes listed in the science curricula that were introduced in 2000, 2005, 2013, and 2017…

Large-scale international assessments, such as PIAAC (Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies) or PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), have heightened interest in the comparative analysis of factors influencing the formation of skills and their change over time. However, such comparison has been hindered…

The Republic of Ireland has a history of high reading scores in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Analysis from PISA 2018 shows that although the country has many cultural similarities to the four UK nations (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland), 15-year-old pupils in the Republic of Ireland achieved…

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) was designed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to evaluate the quality, equity, and efficiency of school systems around the world. Specifically, the PISA has assessed 15-year-old students' reading, mathematics, and science literacy on a 3-year cycle, since…

Abstract The 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has drawn a substantial amount of attention from science educators and educational policymakers because it marked the first time that PISA assessed students' ability to evaluate and design scientific inquiry using computer-based simulations. We undertook a secondary analysis…

We propose a theory of education curricula as horizontally differentiated by their paces. The pace of a curriculum and the preparedness of a student jointly determine the match quality of the curriculum for this student, so different students derive different benefits from learning under the same curriculum. Furthermore, a change in the curricular…

In this paper, we try to unravel some of the unintended and intended academic effects associated with post-Soviet educational reforms by focusing on three cases: Estonia, Latvia and Russia. We have chosen this comparison because a unique "natural experiment" in the three countries allows us to compare the changing academic performance on…

This study examined and compared school autonomy in China and the United States. Based on the international PISA 2012 school data, the authors examined three aspects of school autonomy. We found that in comparison with the United States, (1) principals from China were less likely to have responsibility over eleven school decisions (hiring…

International surveys have served as agents of change for the introduction of reforms in curricula worldwide. The Israeli Ministry of Education set a goal of raising Israel's ranking in international surveys so that Israel will be among the 10 leading countries in the Program for International Student Assessment and Trends in International…

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an important cross-national study of 15-year-olds' academic knowledge and skills. Educationalists and public policymakers eagerly await the tri-annual results, with particular interest in whether their country has moved up or slid down the international rankings, as compared to earlier…

The goal of this work is to better understand the institutional changes in the educational systems of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. We demonstrate that the educational reforms implemented during the transformation introduced very different institutional arrangements in the four countries, despite the fact that their systems…