The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has garnered increasing attention since its inception in 2000. Correspondingly, there has been heightened interest in 'PISA poster countries' like Singapore and Shanghai-China. Yet to date, little is known about the processes and dynamics of the construction of PISA discourses within these…

Two separate data searches underlie this analysis of how references to educational research and to PISA are used in the Swedish education debate. The data consist of 380 newspaper articles from the eight largest print media outlets in Sweden and 200 protocols from parliamentary debates (2000 to 2016) that made explicit reference to 'PISA' and/or…

This paper empirically documents media portrayals of Australia's performance on the Program for the International Student Assessment (PISA), 2000-2014. We analyse newspaper articles from two national and eight metropolitan newspapers. This analysis demonstrates increased media coverage of PISA over the period in question. Our research data were…

Science excellence is associated not only with a student's inherent aptitude but also a range of contextual factors. The objective of this paper was to identify the most important contextual characteristics of top performers in scientific literacy, by simultaneously considering factors at the PISA questionnaire-based student, family, and school…

This article describes and discusses what happens when knowledge for policy generated within PISA is received by its target audience: what have the Portuguese policy actors been doing with PISA data and analysis when they consider, express and justify their choices? Drawing on previous and current studies, using interview materials and formal and…

This paper examines the impact of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in two national policy contexts: Canada and Australia. Drawing on theories of globalisation and affect, the paper explores 'catalyst data' and its effects in these contexts to show how affective…

The OECD's PISA programme has been portrayed as central to the emergence of a regime of global educational governance and the subsequent convergence of policies towards a standardised model. Whilst there is an extensive literature describing PISA's impact on education policies, there is a paucity of analysis of how PISA data is presented to the…

This article explores the discourses concerning, and actors promoting, the recent 'rise' of East Asia in the global trend of education policy borrowing. It focuses on the ways in which English policymakers and media have represented the 'success' of East Asian education systems in international large-scale tests. Taking the Organization for…

PISA, which was launched by OECD, is one of the most significant and successful initiatives on which education systems have recently collectively embarked. However, although it is a well-coordinated international programme, its reception differs according to country. There is therefore a need to analyse specific national circumstances in order to…

Researchers interested in the global flow of educational ideas and programmes have long been interested in the role of so-called "reference societies." The article investigates how top scorers in large-scale assessments are framed as positive or negative reference societies in the education policy-making debate in German mass media and…

Research about innovation adoption underplays the role of educational attainment in the individual consumption of technology; consequently, past research underestimates the importance education plays independent of wealth in diffusion, particularly as absolute levels of formal education rise worldwide. Using data from the Programme for…

This volume includes four sections of the 2020 NORDSCI international conference proceedings: (1) Education and Educational Research; (2) Language and Linguistics; (3) Philosophy; and (4) Sociology and Healthcare. Education and Educational Research includes 15 papers covering the full spectrum of education, including history, sociology and economy…