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The multiple effects of international large-scale assessment on education policy and research
Lewis, Steven Lingard, Bob
Lewis, Steven
Lingard, Bob
Author
Abstract
This paper introduces a serendipitous special issue of Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, focusing on the rise of large-scale international testing and performance data in school system accountability and the effects that such changes have produced in education policy and research. These developments are theorised in terms of the reworking of the State and networked modes of governance, including the increased involvement of edu-businesses in education policy-making and enactment, and the emergence of new topological spatialities and connectivities associated with globalisation. We contend that the prevalence of international large-scale assessments has greatly enhanced the mutual ‘visibility’ between participating national (and subnational) schooling systems within a commensurate space of measurement, which in turn makes possible new ways of acting in light of ‘evidence-informed’ policy-making. This analysing and theorising serves to both contextualise and introduce the papers included in this special issue. The paper closes by considering the implications of such developments on education policy and research, and how this necessitates the development for a new approach for researchers engaged in policy analysis, now and into the future.
Keywords
large-scale assessment, accountability, policy, research, topology, edubusinesses, evidence-informed policy
Date
2015
Type
Journal article
Journal
Discourse : Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education
Book
Volume
36
Issue
5
Page Range
621-637
Article Number
ACU Department
Research Office
Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education (ILSTE)
Faculty of Education and Arts
Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education (ILSTE)
Faculty of Education and Arts
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Source URL
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Open Access Status
License
All rights reserved
File Access
Controlled