Data, trust and faith: the unheeded religious roots of modern education policy

Abstract

This paper explores the unheeded religious roots of the modern conviction to standardised, scientific education policy and its inherent sciento-social epistemology. In doing so, it traces the discursive roots of this hierarchical but non-governmental idea of social governance from its 16th century Scottish Presbyterian predecessors to its advocates at Teachers College, Columbia University around and after 1900 and ultimately to its global spread in the later twentieth century via the OECD.