De-scandalisation and international assessments: the reception of IEA surveys in Sweden during the 1970s

Abstract

This article is concerned with the early phase of international large-scale assessments. Drawing on media discussions before and after the release of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) surveys of 1973, the chapter discusses the relationship between international assessments, scandalisation, and descandalisation, with a specific focus on the interpretation of the comprehensive school reform in Sweden. The first section of this article deals with the early years of the 1970s, a time in which international data on education played a minimal role in educational discourse, creating space for other ways of discussing the perceived quality of schooling. The second section covers the effects of the IEA surveys released in 1973, whose positive results took Sweden by surprise, leading to what could be called a de-scandalisation. Finally, the implications of the emergence of international testing are analysed in terms of what de-scandalisation meant in this particular historical phase, and what it tells us about the nature of large-scale assessments.

The PISA calendar: Temporal governance and international large-scale assessments

“…The article thus comprises two sections, and the sources used for each section differ as they are meant to illustrate different things. Both sections draw on previous and ongoing research about the history of international comparisons and the history of crisis narratives in education (Landahl, 2017;2018a;2018b;2018c). In relation to those projects, many materials have been collected regarding the history of IEA.…”

When Myth-Building Meets Nation-Branding: Fabricating the “Swedish Educational Model” in French Media Discourse (1964–2019)

“…69 There is a striking coincidence between the launching of the grundskola and the release of the first IEA pilot study on pupils' achievements, in 1962. 70 The Swedish comprehensive school-a pioneer institution, inspired by the synergy between policymakers, research and business-became the laboratory of future, large-scale assessment. As early as 1961, the records of Swedish researchers in the field of longitudinal follow-up of pupils' performance led the OECD to organise a conference in Stockholm on a related topic: the best exploitation of talent through the school system.…”

The Importance of Sample Weights and Plausible Values in Large-Scale Assessments

“…International large-scale assessments such as PISA (The Programme for International Student Assessment), PIAAC (The Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies) and TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics Science Study), play a key role in determining educational policies besides their primary objectives of measuring, evaluating and monitoring the educational process (Bialecki, Jakubowski, & Wisniewski, 2017;Figazzolo 2009;Novoa & Yariv-Mashal, 2003;Steiner-Khamsi & Waldow, 2018). In the early periods of these assessments, the developers highly emphasized that the aim of the assessment was mainly monitoring the process rather than cross-country comparisons (Landahl, 2018). Yet, in the following periods, cross-country comparisons raised the interest of both local and international media, which led the test results to be used as also for indicators of economic growth and rationales for policy reforms.…”

“…In some cases, these major reforms include curricular changes, orientation and the integration of disadvantaged groups; whereas minor reforms include changes in textbooks, educational materials, integration of educational hardware-software and local school cultures. Specifically, it is known that France (Carvalho & Costa, 2015;Michel, 2017), Portugal (Carvalho & Costa, 2015), Poland (Bialecki et al, 2017), Hungary (Carvalho & Costa, 2015), Germany (Ertl, 2006), Sweden (Landahl, 2018), Israel (Pizmony-Levy, 2018) and Spain (Tiana Ferrer, 2017) utilized these source of data to legitimize recent radical policy reforms or curricular changes that were carried out by the different governmental institutions (Wiseman, 2013). Similarly, in Turkey major curricular reforms and changes on the national high-stakes exams have been made since the beginning of the 2000s.…”

“…Bu reformlar makro boyutta müfredat değişiklikleri, öğretim ve öğrenme süreçleri yaklaşımlarındaki değişmeler, ölçme süreçlerindeki değişiklikler, dezavantajlı grupların oryantasyonu; mikro boyutlarda ise ders kitapları, materyaller, donanım-yazılımlar ve yerel okul kültürlerinde yapılan değişiklikler olarak sıralanabilir. Özellikle Fransa (Carvalho & Costa, 2015;Michel, 2017), Portekiz (Carvalho & Costa, 2015), Polonya (Bialecki et al, 2017), Macaristan (Carvalho & Costa, 2015), Almanya (Ertl, 2006), İsveç (Landahl, 2018), İsrail (Pizmony-Levy, 2018), İspanya (Tiana Ferrer, 2017) gibi birçok ülkenin müfredat reformları ya da köklü eğitim politikalarını meşrulaştırmada PISA ve TIMSS sonuçlarından faydalandığı bilinmektedir (Wiseman, 2013). Türkiye'de de özellikle 2000'li yılların başından itibaren gerçekleştirilen müfredat reformları ve ulusal sınav sistemlerinde yapılan değişiklikler bu makro girişimlere örnek olarak gösterilebilir.…”