PISA: multiple ‘truths’ and mediatised global governance

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe OECD’s PISA programme has been portrayed as central to the emergence of a regime of global educational governance and the subsequent convergence of policies towards a standardised model. Whilst there is an extensive literature describing PISA’s impact on education policies, there is a paucity of analysis of how PISA data is presented to the public within nations by three main actors which interpret the results; namely the OECD itself, politicians, and the media. This study analyses how England’s 2012 PISA results were interpreted by those actors, focusing particularly on the role of the media. We demonstrate that the OECD’s original messages were significantly distorted by the UK Government and show how the media, driven by its own logic, framed the results in terms of a narrative of decline, crisis and the need for urgent reform, while, significantly, giving little coverage to either the recommended policy actions or the contrasting interpretations of the PISA results by politicians and the OECD. We argue that a form of ‘mediatised governance’ shaped and limited the overall frame within which the results were debated and had a powerful influence on how local politicians represented the PISA results and advocated their own policy actions.