Since 2000, the Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA, has tested 15-years-olds throughout the world in reading, math, and science. Developed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, and administered every three years, PISA is designed to yield evidence for governments on which education policies…

The article seeks to refine two central concepts in scholarly accounts of national policy responses to international data: 'selectivity' and 'instrumentalisation'. It does so by broadening, firstly, the empirical focus of research to include forms of international data other than the performance data of global learning metrics and international…

Recent analyses of education policy have used the concept of the assemblage to explain how the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's education work contributes to global policy convergence and new forms of policy mobility. These analyses often use Deleuze and Guattari's concepts of assemblage to designate relations between things…

This paper focuses on the role of the OECD as a boundary organisation in Swedish education policy during the last 10 years. This has been a critical period of the transformation of the Swedish education system. Post-PISA, Swedish education moved from a position of confidence and relative strength to one of crisis and slow recovery. So far, most…

This paper examines competency-based educational policy-making in a global context. Specifically, it explores how the thinking around competency, spearheaded by international organisations and experts, has led to the development and deployment of a particular notion of global competency. Drawing on critical policy research, I examine three…

This paper focuses on the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) "PISA for Schools" assessment. Our first substantive focus is a descriptive and analytical account of changes and developments in the functioning of this ground-breaking assessment since its creation in 2012. These changes include an expansion of the…

This is the fourth colloquium for "Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood" on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's International Early Learning and Child Well-being Study, and marks the recent publication by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development of reports on the first round of this study. In…

In 2018 the OECD added a set of global competence measures to its PISA programme, and reported on the outcomes in November 2020. In this paper I explore the provenance of the idea of global competence underpinning the OECD-PISA Global Competence framework and measure. The official account by the OECD references the OECD PISA Governing Board,…

This paper identifies OECD's shifting agendas and approaches to education since inception and distinguishes three time periods. Each of these periods reflects shifting geopolitical and economic realities that shaped OECD's priorities and modes of operation. They also demonstrate the adaptive capacity and expansionist nature of OECD's education…

In the evaluation of any political strategy, it is essential to carry out the collection and analysis of the available data. The presentation of a complex phenomenon by means of synthetic measures can improve both the political actors' understanding of the situation and the design of new measures. In this paper, we deal with the problem of the…

This article examines French and English average performances and educational inequality in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) between 2000 and 2018. It asks why English average scores in 2018 are much higher than those of France when they were fairly similar in previous PISA assessments. It questions why the impact of…

Facing increasing critique that PISA focuses too narrowly on cognitive achievement and human/knowledge capital, the OECD has recently shifted some of its focus to student happiness. The 2017 Students' Well-Being report distinguishes between 'happy schools' and 'unhappy schools', showing that among students who combined high performance and life…

In 2018 the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) stressed that 'citizens need not only the skills to be competitive and ready for a new world of work, but more importantly they also need to develop the capacity to analyse and understand global and intercultural issues' (OECD 2018, 2). The OECD global competence framework…

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has a key role in driving educational discourse and global educational governance. Its comparative 'Programme of International School Assessment' (PISA) has explicitly linked the knowledge and skills of young people with the economic potential of countries. Through the International…

This article examines how Chinese education officials interpret and utilise selective information from Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to legitimate and consolidate contested reform messages and initiatives in Shanghai. A content analysis of data obtained from newspaper articles, official documents and education essays…