The Idea of Distance in Data-driven Curriculum Policy Making:
A Productive Critique
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14288/tci.v15i2.191062Abstract
The aim of this article is to develop a productive critique of the neoliberal idea of distance as it has come to be expressed within the context of data-driven curriculum policy making. The argument is structured around three expressions of distance (spatial, methodological, and relational) related to different levels of policy making. A critical examination shows that the production and use of numerical data have come to influence policy makers at all levels, equating what is of educational value with what can be made measurable and therefore comparable. Furthermore, it shows that standardizing the way education is thought and acted out by policy makers and practitioners according to an evaluative rationale leads to problematic reduction of the educational imagination, distancing educational actors from each other. Non-affirmative educational theory is used to develop a more reflexive position understanding that the answer to what is of educational value emanates from communicative interactions allowing different educational aims to coexist and influence each other. The productivity of the critique developed in this article, therefore, lies in its ability to enrich the educational discourse and to widen the imagination of the alternatives scenarios of educational futures at hand.References
Addey, C., Sellar, S., Steiner-Khamsi, G., Lingard, B., & Verger, A. (2017). The rise of international large-scale assessments and rationales for participation. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 47(3), 434–452.
Alasuutari, P., & Rasimus, A. (2009). Use of the OECD in justifying policy reforms: The case of Finland. Journal of Power, 2(1), 89–109.
Apple, M. (2002). Does education have independent power? Bernstein and the question of relative autonomy. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 23(4), 607–616.
Au, W. (2011). Teaching under the new Taylorism: High stakes testing and the standardization of the 21st century curriculum. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 43(1), 25–45.
Baroutsis, A., & Lingard, B. (2017). Counting and comparing school performance: An analysis of media coverage of PISA in Australia, 2000–2014. Journal of Education Policy, 32(4), 432–449. doi:10.1080/02680939.2016.1252856
Bauman, Z. (2006). Liquid fear. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Beck, U. (1992) Risk society. Towards a new modernity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Biesta, G. (2010). Why “what work’s” still won’t work: From evidence-based education to value-based education. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 29(5), 491-503.
Connell, R. (2013). The neoliberal cascade and education: An essay on the market agenda and its consequences. Critical Studies in Education, 54(2), 99–112, doi:10.1080/17508487.2013.776990
Gorard, S. (2001). International comparisons of school effectiveness: The second component of the “crisis account” in England? Comparative Education, 37(3), 279–296. doi:10.1080/03050060120067785
Gorur, R. (2015). Producing calculable worlds: Education at a glance. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 36(4), 578–595.
Gorur, R. (2017). Towards productive critique of large-scale comparisons in education. Critical Studies in Education, 58(3), 341–355. doi:10.1080/17508487.2017.1327876
Gundem, B. B. (2010). European curriculum studies. Continental overview. In C. Kriedel (Ed). Encyclopedia of curriculum studies (pp. 354–358). London, UK: Sage.
Hegarty, S. (2014). From opinion to evidence in education: Torsten Husén’s contribution. In A. Nordin & D. Sundberg (Eds.), Transnational policy flows in European education: The making and governing of knowledge in the education policy field (pp. 47–56). Oxford, UK: Symposium Books.
Kamens, D. H. (2013). Globalization and the emergence of an audit culture: PISA and the search for “best practices” and magic bullets. In H-D. Meyer & A. Benavot (Eds.), PISA, power and policy. The emergence of global educational governance (pp.117-140). Oxford, UK: Symposium Books.
Lawn, M. (2013). The internalization of education data: Exhibitions, tests, standards and associations. In M. Lawn (Ed.), The rise of data in education systems (pp. 11–25). Oxford, UK: Symposium Books.
Lawn, M. (2014). Nordic connexions: Comparative education, Zilliacus and Husén, 1930–1960. In A. Nordin & D. Sundberg (Eds.), Transnational policy flows in European education: The making and governing of knowledge in the education policy field (pp. 21–32). Oxford, UK: Symposium Books.
Lewis, S., & Hogan, A. (2016). Reform first and ask questions later? The implications of (fast) schooling policy and “silver bullet” solutions. Critical Studies in Education. doi:10.1080/17508487.2016.1219961.
Lewis, S. (2017). Governing schooling through “what works”: The OECD’s PISA for schools. Journal of Education Policy, 32(3), 281–302.
Lingard, B., & Rawolle, S. (2011). New scalar politics: Implications for education policy. Comparative Education, 47(4), 489–502. doi:10.1080/03050068.2011.555941
Lingard, B., & Sellar, S. (2013). “Catalyst data”: Perverse systematic effects of audit and accountability in Australian schooling. Journal of Education Policy, 28(5), 634–656.
Lingard, B., & Sellar, S. (2016). The changing organizational and global significance of the OECD’s education work. In K. Mundy, A. Green, B. Lingard, & A. Verger (Eds.), The handbook of global education policy (pp. 357–373). Chichester, UK: Wiley Blackwell.
Martens, K., & Niemann, D. (2013). When do numbers count? The differential impact of the PISA rating and ranking on education policy in Germany and the US. German Politics, 22(3), 314–332. doi:10.1080/09644008.2013.794455
Mølstad, C. E., & Karseth, B. (2016). National curricula in Norway and Finland: The role of learning outcomes. European Educational Research Journal, 15(3), 329–344.
Mølstad, C., Petterson, D., & Forsberg, E. (2017). A game of thrones: Organising and legitimising knowledge through PISA research. European Educational Research Journal, 16(6), 869–884.
Nordin, A. (2014). Crisis as a discursive legitimation strategy in educational reforms: A critical policy analysis. Education Inquiry, 5(1), 109–126.
Nordin, A. (2016). Teacher professionalism beyond numbers: A communicative orientation. Policy Futures in Education, 14(6), 830–845.
Nordin, A. (in press). Data-driven school crisis. In C. Elde Mølstad & D. Pettersson (Eds.), Numbers and knowledge in education: New practices of comparison, quantification and expertise. London, UK: Routledge.
Nordin, A., & Sundberg, D. (2018). Exploring curriculum change using discursive institutionalism—a conceptual framework. Journal of Curriculum Studies. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2018.1482961
Pizmony-Levy, O., Harvey, J., Schmidt, W. H., Noonan, R., Engel, L., Feuer, M. J., Torney-Purta, J. (2014). On the merits of, and myths about international assessments. Quality Assurance in Education, 22(4), 319–338.
Porter, T. M. (1995). Trust in numbers: The pursuit of objectivity in science and public life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
Power, M. (1997). The audit society: Rituals of verification. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Robertson, S. L. (2013). Teachers’ work, denationalisation and transformation in the field of symbolic control: A comparative account. In T. Seddon & J. Levin (Eds.), World yearbook in education 2013: Educators, professionalism and politics: Global transitions, national spaces and professional projects (pp. 77–96). London, UK: Routledge.
Rose, N. (1999). Powers of freedom: Reframing political thought. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Rose, N., & Miller, P. (1992). Political power beyond the state: Problematics of government. British Journal of Sociology, 43(2), 173–205.
Schmidt, V. A. (2011). Speaking of change: Why discourse is key to the dynamics of policy transformation. Critical Policy Studies, 5(2), 106–126.
Schmidt, V. A. (2016). The roots of neo-liberal resilience: Explaining continuity and change in background ideas in Europe’s political economy. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 18(2), 318–334.
Sivesind, K. (2014). Education in the spirit of Archimedes: Pertaining to the buoyancy of PISA. In A. Nordin & D. Sundberg (Eds.), Transnational policy flows in European education: The making and governing of knowledge in the education policy field (pp. 57–78). Oxford, UK: Symposium Books.
Slater, G. (2015). Education as recovery: Neoliberalism, school reform, and the politics of crisis. Journal of Education Policy, 30(1), 1–20.
Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2003). The politics of league tables. Journal of Social Science Education 1. Retrieved from http://www.jsse.org/index.php/jsse/article/view/470/386.
Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2013). What is wrong with the “what-went-right” approach in educational policy? European Educational Research Journal, 12(1), 20–33.
Takayama, K. (2008). The politics of international league tables: PISA in Japan's achievement crisis debate. Comparative Education, 44(4), 387–407.
Takayama, K. (2010). Politics of externalization in reflexive times: Reinventing Japanese education reform discourses through “Finnish PISA success.” Comparative Education Review, 54(1), 51–75.
Thomson, P., Lingard, B., & Wrigley, T. (2012). Ideas for changing educational systems, educational policy and schools. Critical Studies in Education, 53(1), 1–7, doi:10.1080/17508487.2011.636451.
Tröhler, D. (2014). Change management in the governance of schooling: The rise of experts, planners, and statistics in the early OECD. Teachers College 116(9), 1-26.
Uljens, M. (2016). Non-affirmative curriculum theory in a cosmopolitan era? Revista Tempos e Espaços em Educação, 18(9), 121–132.
Uljens, M., & Ylimaki, R. (2015). Towards a discursive and non-affirmative framework for curriculum studies, Didaktik and educational leadership. Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 1, 30–43.
Uljens, M., & Ylimaki, R. (2017). Non-affirmative theory of education as a foundation for curriculum studies, didaktik and educational leadership. In M. Uljens & R. M. Ylimaki (Eds.), Bridging educational leadership, curriculum theory and didaktik: Non-affirmative theory of education (pp. 3–150). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Wahlström, N., & Sundberg, D. (2018). Transnational curriculum standards, curriculum reforms and classroom practices—an introduction. In N. Wahlström & D. Sundberg (Eds.), Transnational curriculum standards and classroom practices. The meaning of teaching (pp. 1-14). London, UK: Routledge.
Wu, M. (2010). Measurement, sampling and equating errors in large-scale assessments. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 29(4), 15–27.
Alasuutari, P., & Rasimus, A. (2009). Use of the OECD in justifying policy reforms: The case of Finland. Journal of Power, 2(1), 89–109.
Apple, M. (2002). Does education have independent power? Bernstein and the question of relative autonomy. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 23(4), 607–616.
Au, W. (2011). Teaching under the new Taylorism: High stakes testing and the standardization of the 21st century curriculum. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 43(1), 25–45.
Baroutsis, A., & Lingard, B. (2017). Counting and comparing school performance: An analysis of media coverage of PISA in Australia, 2000–2014. Journal of Education Policy, 32(4), 432–449. doi:10.1080/02680939.2016.1252856
Bauman, Z. (2006). Liquid fear. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Beck, U. (1992) Risk society. Towards a new modernity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Biesta, G. (2010). Why “what work’s” still won’t work: From evidence-based education to value-based education. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 29(5), 491-503.
Connell, R. (2013). The neoliberal cascade and education: An essay on the market agenda and its consequences. Critical Studies in Education, 54(2), 99–112, doi:10.1080/17508487.2013.776990
Gorard, S. (2001). International comparisons of school effectiveness: The second component of the “crisis account” in England? Comparative Education, 37(3), 279–296. doi:10.1080/03050060120067785
Gorur, R. (2015). Producing calculable worlds: Education at a glance. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 36(4), 578–595.
Gorur, R. (2017). Towards productive critique of large-scale comparisons in education. Critical Studies in Education, 58(3), 341–355. doi:10.1080/17508487.2017.1327876
Gundem, B. B. (2010). European curriculum studies. Continental overview. In C. Kriedel (Ed). Encyclopedia of curriculum studies (pp. 354–358). London, UK: Sage.
Hegarty, S. (2014). From opinion to evidence in education: Torsten Husén’s contribution. In A. Nordin & D. Sundberg (Eds.), Transnational policy flows in European education: The making and governing of knowledge in the education policy field (pp. 47–56). Oxford, UK: Symposium Books.
Kamens, D. H. (2013). Globalization and the emergence of an audit culture: PISA and the search for “best practices” and magic bullets. In H-D. Meyer & A. Benavot (Eds.), PISA, power and policy. The emergence of global educational governance (pp.117-140). Oxford, UK: Symposium Books.
Lawn, M. (2013). The internalization of education data: Exhibitions, tests, standards and associations. In M. Lawn (Ed.), The rise of data in education systems (pp. 11–25). Oxford, UK: Symposium Books.
Lawn, M. (2014). Nordic connexions: Comparative education, Zilliacus and Husén, 1930–1960. In A. Nordin & D. Sundberg (Eds.), Transnational policy flows in European education: The making and governing of knowledge in the education policy field (pp. 21–32). Oxford, UK: Symposium Books.
Lewis, S., & Hogan, A. (2016). Reform first and ask questions later? The implications of (fast) schooling policy and “silver bullet” solutions. Critical Studies in Education. doi:10.1080/17508487.2016.1219961.
Lewis, S. (2017). Governing schooling through “what works”: The OECD’s PISA for schools. Journal of Education Policy, 32(3), 281–302.
Lingard, B., & Rawolle, S. (2011). New scalar politics: Implications for education policy. Comparative Education, 47(4), 489–502. doi:10.1080/03050068.2011.555941
Lingard, B., & Sellar, S. (2013). “Catalyst data”: Perverse systematic effects of audit and accountability in Australian schooling. Journal of Education Policy, 28(5), 634–656.
Lingard, B., & Sellar, S. (2016). The changing organizational and global significance of the OECD’s education work. In K. Mundy, A. Green, B. Lingard, & A. Verger (Eds.), The handbook of global education policy (pp. 357–373). Chichester, UK: Wiley Blackwell.
Martens, K., & Niemann, D. (2013). When do numbers count? The differential impact of the PISA rating and ranking on education policy in Germany and the US. German Politics, 22(3), 314–332. doi:10.1080/09644008.2013.794455
Mølstad, C. E., & Karseth, B. (2016). National curricula in Norway and Finland: The role of learning outcomes. European Educational Research Journal, 15(3), 329–344.
Mølstad, C., Petterson, D., & Forsberg, E. (2017). A game of thrones: Organising and legitimising knowledge through PISA research. European Educational Research Journal, 16(6), 869–884.
Nordin, A. (2014). Crisis as a discursive legitimation strategy in educational reforms: A critical policy analysis. Education Inquiry, 5(1), 109–126.
Nordin, A. (2016). Teacher professionalism beyond numbers: A communicative orientation. Policy Futures in Education, 14(6), 830–845.
Nordin, A. (in press). Data-driven school crisis. In C. Elde Mølstad & D. Pettersson (Eds.), Numbers and knowledge in education: New practices of comparison, quantification and expertise. London, UK: Routledge.
Nordin, A., & Sundberg, D. (2018). Exploring curriculum change using discursive institutionalism—a conceptual framework. Journal of Curriculum Studies. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2018.1482961
Pizmony-Levy, O., Harvey, J., Schmidt, W. H., Noonan, R., Engel, L., Feuer, M. J., Torney-Purta, J. (2014). On the merits of, and myths about international assessments. Quality Assurance in Education, 22(4), 319–338.
Porter, T. M. (1995). Trust in numbers: The pursuit of objectivity in science and public life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
Power, M. (1997). The audit society: Rituals of verification. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Robertson, S. L. (2013). Teachers’ work, denationalisation and transformation in the field of symbolic control: A comparative account. In T. Seddon & J. Levin (Eds.), World yearbook in education 2013: Educators, professionalism and politics: Global transitions, national spaces and professional projects (pp. 77–96). London, UK: Routledge.
Rose, N. (1999). Powers of freedom: Reframing political thought. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Rose, N., & Miller, P. (1992). Political power beyond the state: Problematics of government. British Journal of Sociology, 43(2), 173–205.
Schmidt, V. A. (2011). Speaking of change: Why discourse is key to the dynamics of policy transformation. Critical Policy Studies, 5(2), 106–126.
Schmidt, V. A. (2016). The roots of neo-liberal resilience: Explaining continuity and change in background ideas in Europe’s political economy. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 18(2), 318–334.
Sivesind, K. (2014). Education in the spirit of Archimedes: Pertaining to the buoyancy of PISA. In A. Nordin & D. Sundberg (Eds.), Transnational policy flows in European education: The making and governing of knowledge in the education policy field (pp. 57–78). Oxford, UK: Symposium Books.
Slater, G. (2015). Education as recovery: Neoliberalism, school reform, and the politics of crisis. Journal of Education Policy, 30(1), 1–20.
Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2003). The politics of league tables. Journal of Social Science Education 1. Retrieved from http://www.jsse.org/index.php/jsse/article/view/470/386.
Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2013). What is wrong with the “what-went-right” approach in educational policy? European Educational Research Journal, 12(1), 20–33.
Takayama, K. (2008). The politics of international league tables: PISA in Japan's achievement crisis debate. Comparative Education, 44(4), 387–407.
Takayama, K. (2010). Politics of externalization in reflexive times: Reinventing Japanese education reform discourses through “Finnish PISA success.” Comparative Education Review, 54(1), 51–75.
Thomson, P., Lingard, B., & Wrigley, T. (2012). Ideas for changing educational systems, educational policy and schools. Critical Studies in Education, 53(1), 1–7, doi:10.1080/17508487.2011.636451.
Tröhler, D. (2014). Change management in the governance of schooling: The rise of experts, planners, and statistics in the early OECD. Teachers College 116(9), 1-26.
Uljens, M. (2016). Non-affirmative curriculum theory in a cosmopolitan era? Revista Tempos e Espaços em Educação, 18(9), 121–132.
Uljens, M., & Ylimaki, R. (2015). Towards a discursive and non-affirmative framework for curriculum studies, Didaktik and educational leadership. Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 1, 30–43.
Uljens, M., & Ylimaki, R. (2017). Non-affirmative theory of education as a foundation for curriculum studies, didaktik and educational leadership. In M. Uljens & R. M. Ylimaki (Eds.), Bridging educational leadership, curriculum theory and didaktik: Non-affirmative theory of education (pp. 3–150). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Wahlström, N., & Sundberg, D. (2018). Transnational curriculum standards, curriculum reforms and classroom practices—an introduction. In N. Wahlström & D. Sundberg (Eds.), Transnational curriculum standards and classroom practices. The meaning of teaching (pp. 1-14). London, UK: Routledge.
Wu, M. (2010). Measurement, sampling and equating errors in large-scale assessments. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 29(4), 15–27.
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2018-11-16
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