Conference paper
PISA- soft governing with hard-core impact?
Proceedings of the 2010 Australian Association for Research in Education Conference, pp.1-10
Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) Conference, 2010 (Melbourne, Australia, 28-Nov-2010–02-Dec-2010)
Australian Association for Research in Education
2010
Abstract
This paper presents work in progress on a doctoral project entitled "A cross-national, comparative study of cultural factors underpinning 15 year old students' performance in reading literacy in Australia , Finland , Sweden and Indonesia ". The study is based on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) surveys, but aims to go beyond the PISA league tables to provide an in-depth comparison of what literacy means to students and teachers in different national contexts. The focus of this paper is "PISA impact" and the implications of a universal literacy concept. In a globalised world education has taken on an instrumental dimension. When low performance is detected nationally, schools are typically held accountable. In international comparisons, national education systems are scrutinised and governance occurs through comparison. Of major importance then is the question of who constructs the tests and who sets the standards. Since the initiation of PISA in 2000 the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has become a major authority on the quality of educational systems. Students are assessed not against national school curricula but against "how well young adults, at age 15 and therefore approaching the end of compulsory schooling, are prepared to meet the challenges of today's knowledge societies" (OECD, 2001, p. 14). Thus teachers teach to a national curriculum, but students are assessed, and compared to others on international criteria. Since PISA surveys are taken seriously by participating countries, disappointing results typically lead to calls for action and OECD policy recommendations are implemented at national level. National steering documents still define a range of educational goals such as the students' personal, physical, mental, social, and creative development, but this may as well be regarded as politically correct rhetoric if classroom practices are predominantly concerned with academic performance to better meet testing requirements. In this context, this paper interrogates the possibility of 'global literacy' and the establishment of a broad socio-cultural reading literacy concept against which all students are uniformly measured. It asks whether a 15 year old student in rural Kalimantan has the same literacy needs as a 15 year old in New York City, and argues that what PISA represents is a soft governing with hard-core impact.
Details
- Title
- PISA- soft governing with hard-core impact?
- Authors
- Anna Dall (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast - Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
- Contributors
- S Howard (Editor)
- Publication details
- Proceedings of the 2010 Australian Association for Research in Education Conference, pp.1-10
- Conference details
- Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) Conference, 2010 (Melbourne, Australia, 28-Nov-2010–02-Dec-2010)
- Publisher
- Australian Association for Research in Education
- Date published
- 2010
- Copyright note
- Copyright © 2010 The Authors. Reproduced here with permission of the publisher.
- Organisation Unit
- School of Social Sciences - Legacy; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99449765102621
- Output Type
- Conference paper
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