This article describes and discusses what happens when knowledge for policy generated within PISA is received by its target audience: what have the Portuguese policy actors been doing with PISA data and analysis when they consider, express and justify their choices? Drawing on previous and current studies, using interview materials and formal and informal policy documents, as well as texts published in the written press, the article analyses two main phenomena related to the reception of PISA and how this has evolved between 2001 and 2012 in Portugal: the consolidation of PISA's credibility as a source for policy processes and texts; the emergence of new actors and modes of intervention in the production of knowledge for national policy, drawing on PISA. Finally, it presents an analysis of the reception of PISA 2015 in the Portuguese media, focusing on the interventions by political actors in the Portuguese daily and weekly written press. Two main elements emerge from our content analysis as the main common elements of that reception: the consecration of PISA's credibility; and the practices of qualification and disqualification of educational policies and perspectives. The article concludes by emphasising the regulatory role of PISA in Portuguese policy processes and the relevant contribution played by the politics of reception in legitimising this role.

In this paper, we discuss the case of the recent introduction of a career guidance software within Italian schools with the aim to explore the use of digital devices in the governance of educational processes within the field of lifelong guidance. First, we provide a semiotic analysis of the software and its online platform with the aim of exploring how it articulates a complex network of material and discursive relations. Second, we show the types of practices the software makes ‘affordable’ within the Italian school context, and the organisational and cultural tensions it creates. Following recent studies on digital governance and adopting a policy instrument approach, we show how the introduction of a digital object within the school environment mobilises school actors around new ways of conceiving and delivering education that transcends the local dimension (looking towards national and European ideas) and favours the penetration of economic imperatives and rationales within Italian schools. The career guidance software analysed constitutes in this regard a meaningful illustration of how the governance of the European education space is mediated, activated and accomplished using digital instruments. Software, platforms and websites exert a persuasive power on their users, who in turn contribute to transform the educational order while transforming themselves.

The current study developed and tested the indirect effect of the relational job characteristics (i.e., perceived prosocial impact and perceived social value) on the burnout syndrome through the autonomous motivation. The cross-sectional survey data analysis of 1,538 Portuguese contact center workers was analyzed using the software package Mplus to conduct structural equation models. Autonomous motivation partially explains the negative relation between the relational job characteristics and burnout. However, the direct relationship between perceived prosocial impact and burnout was not significant. To promote awareness about the perceived value and impact of work and to invest in the interactions between workers and customers are the major practical implications of this study.

Este artigo apresenta uma pesquisa sobre dois atores que entraram recentemente na cena educativa portuguesa, pela via da filantropia e com o objetivo de apoiar, produzir e difundir conhecimento para melhorar as políticas públicas e informar as decisões dos cidadãos. Procurando analisar os produtos que materializam e operacionalizam a intervenção dos dois atores coletivos, o artigo tem por objetivo contribuir para a discussão sobre a emergência, a expansão e o papel deste tipo de atores no quadro dos processos de reconfiguração dos modos de regulação dos sistemas educativos e da intensificação da mobilização do conhecimento em política. A pesquisa baseou-se numa extensa análise documental e em entrevistas, evidenciando o modo como esses atores, que se apresentam como mediadores e peritos, atuam no espaço público, bem como as regras que conformam suas proposições sobre os sistemas educativos e acerca das melhores formas de governá-los.