Dennis Niemann

When Do Numbers Count? The Differential Impact of the PISA Rating and Ranking on Education Policy in Germany and the US

Why do international comparisons have an impact on some countries while other countries do not respond? This article examines the power of international ratings and rankings (R&R) using the OECDs PISA study and its differential impact on education policymaking as a case study. It argues that international R&R have an impact when two conditions are simultaneously fulfilled: the evaluated topic is framed as crucial in the national discourse, and a substantial gap between national self-perception and the empirical results can be observed. After assessing the media impact of PISA on 21 OECD countries, the theoretical argument is illustrated by an evaluation of the differing reactions of two similarly poorly performing countries: Germany and the US. While the German system of secondary education was strongly affected by the international comparison, beginning with the first PISA study in 2000, and underwent comprehensive changes, the US first responded noticeably in the public and the political discourse only in 2010 to its below-average ranking.

PISA as an ideational roadmap for policy change: exploring Germany and England in a comparative perspective

Education policy has undergone transformation in many countries over the last decade. In this article, we focus on the effects of the most significant international initiative in secondary education, which is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Developments (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). We analyse two countries that provide variation regarding the degree of change in their respective education policy-making due to this study; while Germany substantially reformed its education system in reaction to its mediocre PISA results, almost no change has been observed in England. As we show, alterations and shifts in ideas of education policy best account for such a change.

Effects of international assessments in education – a multidisciplinary review

Advanced data analysis techniques, available and encompassing data, and facilitated global exchange of information have led to a steady growth of assessments that are used to make informed policy decisions. In line with this general trend, international assessments in education have also become a global and accepted phenomenon. International education assessments have some grave and far-reaching implications for the organization and structure of national education systems. Educational reform as a direct response to results of international assessments can be observed in many countries. Most of the recent literature on the effects of assessment projects looks only at the level of formal policies, without taking mechanisms and effects on actual practices and outcomes into account. This is one of the starting points for this special issue on the effects of international assessments in education. The contributions of this special issue broaden the perspective for a better understanding of the phenomenon of international education assessments. Taken together, the issue demonstrates that international assessments inform how education and educational performance are framed today. The papers in this issue also show that the impact of international assessments manifests itself in formal and direct ‘top-down’ ways as well as in more subtle, hidden ‘roundabout’ ways

Measuring Transformation of Education Policy—a Mixed-Method Approach

In his famous essay, “The Methodology of the Social Sciences” Max Weber indicated that new social and cultural phenomena bring along new academic problems. These new academic problems, however, call for an adjustment of the paradigmatic and methodological apparatus. In this chapter, we point to the methodological challenges arising from new and complex social phenomena in the realm of internationalizing education policy and how they can be addressed by a systematic combination and pooling of different methods with their particular strengths and limitations. Basically, new analytical problems can be dealt with in three different ways. The first and least desirable way is to downsize the phenomenon in question to make it accessible within a given methodological framework. The second is to refine a given methodological framework to make it cover more aspects of the phenomenon in question, thus to increase the validity of the respective type of data. The third is to deepen the overall validity of analysis by a systematic rearrangement of the methodological framework. Such an arrangement should combine both qualitative and quantitative methodological strategies with descriptive and explanative logics of research. A carefully arranged mixed-method approach can not only account more deeply for more facets of the phenomenon in question, but can also connect the methods involved in an appropriate way in order to counterbalance their limits and to pool their strengths.

Observing local dynamics of ILSA projections in federal systems: a comparison between Germany and the United States

ABSTRACT By comparing two federal education systems, namely Germany and the U.S., and their reactions to PISA we show how international, large-scale student assessments (ILSA) have been used by national stakeholders to gain leverage for legitimising or de-legitimising policy reforms in education. From a neo-institutionalist perspective we argue that country-specific path-dependencies and policy legacies, such as different systems of power devolution, testing traditions and also non-governmental actor influence, additionally moderate the impact of ILSA.

Soft governance by hard fact? The OECD as a knowledge broker in education policy

As the policy field of education has become increasingly internationalized over the last two decades, international organizations like the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) play an increasingly decisive role in the diffusion of knowledge, monitoring, and research in global education policy. Although the OECD lacks any binding or coercive governance instruments in relation to states, or ability to provide material incentives for compliance, it has nevertheless successively expanded its influence regarding education. From a perspective of social constructivism, we argue that the transmission of ideas and information generated through ratings and rankings can be viewed as a crucial governance tool for the influence of an international organization (IO). Our article seeks to analyze how the OECD uses large-scale education assessments to promote the economically based idea of human capital and related learning techniques in education policy – thus influencing national education systems. Furthermore, the OECD and its distinctive approach of soft governance through putative hard fact may become a role model for other IOs, both in the field of education and beyond.

Policy Change in Secondary Education: Germany and England Compared

In many OECD countries, education policy has been transformed over the last decade.1 In response to labour market demands, increasing costs for public education institutions and demographic challenges, the education sector has gradually come under growing pressure. Most significantly, international organizations (IO) have started to play a central role in education policy-making by developing new forms of governance for that field. As a result, education policy — traditionally considered an exclusive national domain of Western welfare states — has become a highly contested area of international governance (Martens et al. 2007). Yet it is not clear what kind of effect the activities of IOs have: Do they bring about greater harmonization among national education policies by promoting uniform solutions for commonly shared problems? Or do national institutions continue to follow their own logic, thereby hindering effective coordination through IO governance?