PISA truth effects: the construction of low performance

Abstract

Countries with large numbers of students who struggle to master basic reading skills at age 15 are likely to be held back in the future, when those students become adults who lack the skills needed to function effectively in the workplace and in society. Among students who fail to reach the baseline level of performance (Level 2) in mathematics, reading or science, most can be expected not to continue with education beyond compulsory schooling, and therefore risk facing difficulties using mathematics, reading and using science concepts throughout their lives … Even in the average OECD country, where more than one in five students does not reach Level 2, tackling such low performance is a major challenge. (OECD, 2013, p. 254, our emphases in italics)Keywords: performance; competency; PISA; students; STS; scientific literacy This quote is from an OECD publication that reports the results from the 2012 PISA survey, on which the above analysis is based. The Swedish PISA results from that year were the lowest ever in all three knowledge areas at stake, which shocked the nation. Since low performance on the PISA is put forward as serious personal and societal risks, this concern is expected. In December 2013, the Swedish results were broadcast directly from a press conference held at the National Agency of Education. The message was that the results were very serious, overwhelming, and signaled a school system in crisis. During the press conference, Director-General Anna Ekström also emphasized her confidence in PISA: 'Here at the National Agency for Education, we trust PISA' (Ekström, 3 December 2013). Through this broadcast, and massive media reporting, the crisis of the Swedish school system became publicly indisputable. Although we share the view that many things probably would be in place to strengthen Swedish schools, we find this type of unreserved faith in PISA as evidence of educational failure or success, to be problematic. In this article, we make an attempt to unpack what we would term the taken-for-granted notion of low performance. Using the theoretical lens of Michel Foucault (1971), and particularly Bruno Latour's (1999) STS studies, our main thesis is that low performance is not a given category, but a reality performed into being by students, test instruments, and measurement rationality.In the global structure of education, understanding what important knowledge 'is', and what could be its missing parts, has become a grand narrative of our time, with help from the idea of a globalized educational system (Novóa, 2013). Actors in the global education market (or rather, instigators at the Organisation for Economic Co- * Email: margareta.serder@mah.se 2 operation and Development [OECD], the European Commission, the World Bank, and UNESCO (Grek, 2009; Lawn & Grek, 2012;Morgan, 2009) for international assessments such as PISA are constructing the standards for what is a successful student or a successful nation.However, the role of PISA deviates from other assessments in that it constitutes the very in...

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