Gita Steiner-Khamsi

This timely book investigates the emergence of data-for-accountability as a governing tool in education. Five leading scholars explore its evolution over time and across regions, highlighting how datafication in education benefits some and disadvantages others. The authors trace the origins of using data for accountability in education back to the 1990s, demonstrating how various actors have adapted and tailored this trend, thus diversifying its use as a governance tool. They examine the rise of student testing, performance-based evaluation and governance by numbers to reveal the political, economic and pedagogical uses and abuses of data. Drawing on a variety of methods, theories and disciplines, including a combination of macro-, meso-, and microlevel analyses, the authors illustrate how these instruments have taken root globally, why they persist and how their meanings and effects vary across policy contexts. Data for Accountability in Education is a crucial resource for scholars, students and practitioners in comparative education and international education policy, as well as those engaged with the sociology of education. Policymakers working with educational data will also find the book a valuable reference point for understanding accountability in education.

This open access book investigates a topic underexplored in policy transfer: time. Drawing on well-known theories from comparative education, public policy studies, political science, and sociology, but written in an easy-to-understand language, the author discusses seven temporalities of policy transfer: historical period, future, sequence, timing, lifespan, age, and tempo. The temporal dimension helps us understand when the current school reform, known as the school-autonomy-with-accountability reform, developed into a global script, why it conquered the globe, and how it was selectively adopted and translated into each local context. Also, for the first time in this book, the author demonstrates what exactly diffused and what “stuck,” that is, which features of the reform were eventually institutionalized. Internationally renowned for her seminal work on policy borrowing, the author systematically applies a comparative, transnational, and global perspective to capture the role of the OECD and the World Bank in advancing and accelerating the reform’s worldwide diffusion.

This open access book investigates a topic underexplored in policy transfer: time. Drawing on well-known theories from comparative education, public policy studies, political science, and sociology, but written in an easy-to-understand language, the author discusses seven temporalities of policy transfer: historical period, future, sequence, timing, lifespan, age, and tempo. The temporal dimension helps us understand when the current school reform, known as the school-autonomy-with-accountability reform, developed into a global script, why it conquered the globe, and how it was selectively adopted and translated into each local context. Also, for the first time in this book, the author demonstrates what exactly diffused and what “stuck,” that is, which features of the reform were eventually institutionalized. Internationally renowned for her seminal work on policy borrowing, the author systematically applies a comparative, transnational, and global perspective to capture the role of the OECD and the World Bank in advancing and accelerating the reform’s worldwide diffusion.

Bortom PISA introducerar internationell och jämförande pedagogik, ett relevant forskningsfält för alla som är intresserade av hur utbildning tar form i en social kontext. Hur och varför skiljer sig olika länders skolor åt och hur kan vi studera dessa skillnader? Hur går det till när en viss typ av pedagogik sprider sig över nationella och kulturella gränser? Med ett internationellt perspektiv synliggör tio pedagogik- och utbildningsforskare dels den svenska utbildningstraditionens särdrag och förändringar, dels internationella trender och tendenser. Antologin visar en genväg förbi den cementerade debatten om skolans tillstånd genom att uppmärksamma frågor, fenomen och processer som inte synliggörs i internationella mätningar. Medförfattare till boken är Jakob Billmayer, universitetslektor i pedagogik vid Mittuniversitetet, Janne Holmén, docent i historia och verksam vid Uppsala universitet, Johanna Ringarp, doktor i historia och verksam vid Uppsala universitet, Linda Rönnberg, docent i statsvetenskap och verksam vid Umeå universitet, Petter Sandgren, doktorand i historia vid European University Institute i Florens, Barbara Schulte, docent i pedagogik och verksam vid Lunds universitet, Margareta Serder, vetenskaplig ledare vid FoU Skola i Skåne och Gita Steiner-Khamsi, professor vid Teachers College, Columbia University i New York. Bortom PISA vänder sig till alla verksamma i och kring skolan som vill bidra till att föra diskussionen om skolan framåt.

Will the 'best practices' of schools in Scotland work in South Africa? Are PTA's, a mainstay of American school governance, as valuable in European countries? Who decides and why? The globalization of educational policy has become a popular, if not ubiquitous, phenomenon among educational policymakers across the world. It has led many observers to conclude that educational systems in different parts of the world are converging towards one international (neo-liberal) model of school reform. This practice of 'borrowing' and 'lending' school reforms requires a serious examination of the politics and the economics of transnational educational transfer. In this volume, Steiner-Khamsi and her colleagues provide an in-depth empirical and critical examination of the practice of global educational policy. Contributors question the value of importing and exporting educational policies, analyze who benefits from these arrangements, and test the effectiveness of adapting one country's policies in other (often quite culturally distinct) countries. The book investigates how 'global' policies have been implemented locally, and examines the extent to which they work in diverse locales.