Revisiting the fabrications of PISA

Abstract

Since the beginning of the current century, the acronym PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) seems to pervade the multiple contexts where the education systems and their governing are subjected to debate. The presence of this Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) international large-scale assessment in national spaces has diverse manifestations, such as supporting “analyses and rationales” for the discussion of specific issues, or being used as a “source” for secondary studies or as “learning opportunity” for the development of accountability policies (Lawn and Grek 2012). So far, PISA became a central element of a universe of knowledge, which, paraphrasing Lindblad and Popkewitz (2004: xx-xxi), ensures that expert-based education policies can lead each nation into the so-called knowledge society. The chapter addresses this umbilical relation between governing and expert knowledge by examining the meanings and processes that sustain PISA contemporary status of indispensable resource for the imagination and scrutiny of educational issues and policies. Based on the revision of a previous article on the organizational and cognitive dimensions of PISA (Carvalho. Eur Educ Res J 11(2):172-188, 2012), and on the posterior works on the uses of PISA in national and supranational contexts (Carvalho and Costa. Discour Stud Cult Polit Educ 36(5):638-646, 2015; Carvalho and Costa. A European politics of education? Routledge, London, 53-72, 2016; Carvalho et al. Eur J Educ 52(2):154-166, 2017) and on the intensification and sophistication of PISA’s association with the policy processes (Carvalho. Organized-and organizing-mutual surveillance. Plenary presentation at the Seminar “Education governance and international assessments”, ESRC series on ‘The Potentials, Politics and Practices of International Assessments. University of Edinburgh, 2014; Carvalho. Educação & Sociedade 37(136): 669-683, 2016), the chapter focuses on the fabrications, that is the fictions and the making (Popkewitz. Educational knowledge. State University of New York Press, Albany, 3-27, 2000a, Popkewitz. Educational Researcher 29(1):17-29, 2000b) that support the projection of PISA as a central element for thinking-acting education policies.