With the increasing influence of multilateral institutions on all spheres of life, even education, this article aims to examine how the OECD and its PISA study further perpetuate hegemonic power structures.
Introduction
Globalisation is seen as the increasing interdependence between nations, cultures and economies in which multilateralism is often regarded as the driving force behind it (O’Sullivan, 2019). Multifarious institutions such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), World Bank, the United Nations etc., have often been seen as the main contributors behind international cooperation. With their powerful influence, they are able to change the nation's policies with their recommendations (Bonal & Tarabini, 2013). The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has been implemented since 2000 and has involved more than 90 countries (Zhou & Jong, 2020). According to Schleicher (2018), PISA is “not only the world’s most comprehensive and reliable indicator of students’ capabilities, it is also a powerful tool that countries and economies can use to fine-tune their education policies” (p.2). With this magnitude of assessing students, we set out to examine the possible hegemonic power structures of PISA in the global world order and its influence.
The concept of Hegemony
A structure of power is omnipresent. However, despite the pervasiveness of its impacts, power structures are rarely examined (Duenkel, Pratt, & Sullivan, 2014). If left unaddressed, the status quo keeps getting augmented, based on to whom power belongs and what it represents (Duenkel et al., 2014). Gramsci (1971, as cited in Fenton, 2018) defined this as hegemony, through which a group with power upholds it over those with less power, and runs the system in their way (Fenton, 2018). Through this structure, dominant groups put the concepts which they hold as preferred and familiar into the dominant understandings (Takayama, 2012). A key factor in this method is that the dominant group does not impose the system against the will of the societal stakeholders, but rather operates having gained their consent (Fenton, 2018). Hegemonised groups thus take part in their own subordination on account of their own consent (Fenton, 2018). Consequently, this enables the perpetuation of the ruling hegemonic structure. Without investigations, these subtle structures may keep perpetuated unknowingly while their influences are not fully understood (Duenkel et al., 2014). Gramsci (1971) viewed education and media as the major instillers of cultural practices and beliefs, stating that “every relationship of hegemony is necessarily an educational relationship” (350, as cited in Duenkel et al., 2014, 268). Power and authority are also underlying in education; educators and researchers need to consider the educational power dynamics, to discontinue perpetuating them unconsciously (Duenkel et al., 2014). Therefore, a starting point is to identify and become aware of the hegemonic structures and its implications. In light of the above, it is crucial to bring the existing power structures into discussions in education, to become aware of how they impact education and how education impacts them.
The Hegemony of PISA
A prominent example of hegemonic structure in education is seen in PISA, the standardised testing project by OECD. PISA is an assessment of the abilities of 15-year old students in secondary schools (OECD, 2007). It enabled international comparison of different systems in education, identifying the problems to suggest reforms with the aim of reaching the global standards of results (Bonal & Tarabini, 2013). Since its establishment, PISA has had a larger influence on the public than any other international standardised tests, framing educational policies and practices on a national and global scale (Bonal & Tarabini, 2013). In 2006, PISA already had 57 countries and economies participating, which covered 90% of the global economy (OECD, 2007), introducing its hegemonic operation (Dahlstrom, 2009). The increase in participation for every edition demonstrates PISA’s hegemonic character, holding the role of determining educational trends globally; while participation is voluntary, more countries wish to be included in this assessment (Bonal & Tarabini, 2013). This exhibits the uniformity of educational systems deriving from voluntary participation of nations, but not from enforcement from international organisations (Bonal & Tarabini, 2013). As a result, this continues to support the hegemony of PISA.
Accordingly, PISA has become an important event for the media in numerous countries (Takayama, 2012), and it has kept its global presence via its strategy of public relations to establish a great media influence (Kallo, 2009, as cited in Takayama, 2012). Correspondingly, as Grek (2009) asserted, OECD has risen as “one of the most powerful agents of transnational education” (p. 24). With PISA’s presence, OECD maintains its global occupancy in education policy fields, providing the growing convergence in education policy worldwide (Grek, 2009). OECD (2007) itself views PISA as “a tool to assist governments in their policy choices on education” (para. 4), and in effect, PISA elicits national concerns and is used to gain support to change educational agendas (Dahlstrom, 2009). OECD (2003) asserted that PISA would publicise the results displaying “which countries are progressing in the right direction and which are falling further behind” in regards to the achievement of students (p. 25). According to Grek (2009), using these results, PISA leads countries and economies to a certain model of educational reform and curriculum that the OECD favours. Takayama (2012) added that PISA delivers a certain set of concepts that forms a certain idea of what education should look like in a “knowledge economy” (p. 151). However, while such a critical and broad perspective enables questioning PISA’s hegemony and certain educational reform that PISA and OECD encourage, it is also important to consider various meanings and impacts that they can have (Takayama, 2012). In order to do so, different examples of influences of PISA are explored below.
The influences of PISA
The effects of PISA on national education policies can be classified as direct and indirect according to Bonal and Tarabini (2013). They looked specifically in the context of Spanish educational policies to see how PISA could have influenced the country’s performance. The explanation of direct effects is straightforward, meaning that it can be immediately visible in the country's policies that are derived from the advice given linked with PISA. In the other case, indirect effects can be interpreted as implicitly veiled where the newly invoked policies or programmes do not directly mention the results of PISA and aim to present it more in a generic form. In the case of Spain, the implementation of educational programs that target reading skills in Catalonia can be seen as a direct consequence of the PISA numbers where the evaluation test showed that one in four students who completed primary school does not possess adequate reading skills (Bonal & Tarabini, 2013). The indirect effect is mostly utilised in the political context of self-promotion as seen in the case of the Catalan election where the nationalist conservative party (CIU) augmented the need for extended educational evaluation with the intention of increased performance regarding quality assessment (Bonal & Tarabini, 2013).
In general, there has been selectivity regarding the use of PISA’s data to further certain agendas of governments. Research has shown that factors such as teacher selection, equity in access, individuality and the relationship between performance and equity have not been addressed in the context of a well-performing education system as seen in the case of Finland (Bonal & Tarabini, 2013). Bolivar (2010) further argued that in the case of Spain there has been a significant politicisation of the data provided by PISA as seen by the national conservative party of Catalonia (CIU) (as cited in Bonal & Tarabini, 2013).
Another example is brought by Takayama (2016) and it is about a highly controversial policy that was introduced after the release of PISA in 2003 in Japan. As a result of low reading scores, students were asked to come earlier at school in order to spend some extra time on reading. The issue here is that this policy was not aligned with the curricular guidelines introduced by PISA, but the domestic actors used the ‘crisis atmosphere’ to put into action their desirable agenda. In other words, Takayama (2016) supports that the data that OECD and PISA engender are repeatedly mediated by national agents to bring about aftermath that are not automatically aligned with what is proposed by these international organisations.
On the other side, Rautalin, Alasuutari and Vento (2019) diminished the effect of PISA in the educational context but emphasised the influence of OECD and its dominance in the international debate. Regarding parliamentary discussions concerning education policy, 20% of them have included references to the OECD (Rautalin et al., 2019, p.513). The study also showed that references only increased in combination with knowledge production and policy advice together with the use of PISA, whereas the references in educational policy debate in the global community decreased with PISA.
Steiner-Khamsi (2004) highlighted the use of international organisations’ data to legitimise educational reforms (as cited in Bonal & Tarabini, 2013). This is further supported by Rautalin, Alasuutari and Vento (2019) who argued that there is a global trend regarding national policies that involves the inclusion of policy advice, recommendations and models given by international organisations. They further emphasise that these organisations are perceived as an authority that further adds credibility to the policy’s recommendations offered, even though these recommendations might have already existed in the domestic context.
According to Thomas (2021), “the OECD’s PISA project is not an educational project. It is a political project and has to be understood as an instrument of power” (p.7). Furthermore, OECD exercises groundless domination over educational practices in all member countries, and that domination is raising questions for the absence of democracy in education (Thomas, 2021). To be more specific, Thomas (2021) underlined the fact that it is not democratic at all, when the supervision of public education policies are in the hands of private institutions run by society’s wealthiest people. It is also worth mentioning that while OECD administrators are focusing on educational practices of the prosperous member countries, the World Bank is doing its own part towards developing countries in the Global South (Thomas, 2021).
To add on, Nay (2014) argued that the OECD is perpetuating its influence through the ‘fragile state’ concept, which has been used to further enhance legitimacy over their foreign assistance programs in developing countries in the Southern hemisphere. This ‘fragile state’ concept has been utilised to redefine policy agendas in a way that is more in line with donor-led reforms. Salzman and Terracino (2006) further argued the regard of OECD’s function as a public think-tank that aims to address a variety of policy fields and to exert influence through the advancement of policy standards (as cited in Nay, 2014). The asymmetrical power regarding international organisations is highlighted by Nay (2014): “the concept reflects the interests of Western donor governments, whose international hegemony is tied to their capacity to maintain a Westphalian order based on stable and predictable transactions among central governments” (p. 228). He further on addresses that the OECD helps to shape international norms regarding development as it has been regarded as a transfer platform. Where through the views of its powerful members and diverse approaches it produces transnational knowledge. Regarding the contribution of OECD to the ‘fragile state’ concept, there has been a perpetuation of international hegemony and a continuation of the fragile state concept that showcases asymmetrical power relations (Nay, 2014).
Conclusion
All in all, as it was written in OECD reports in 2004, PISA is considered as “the most effective way of influencing the behaviour of sovereign states” (OECD, 2004, p. 23). As it was mentioned above, the majority of countries wish to be included in these ‘Olympics of Education’ as Volante (2016) characterised them. Thus as a result the hegemony of this international organisation continues to spread increasingly. To be more specific, the educational proposals of PISA do not only have an impact on a nation's policies but they could be used as an apparatus for transforming the educational systems to serve governmental agendas. These direct and indirect aftereffects on nations are created exactly by the hegemonic composition of PISA in the global world. PISA of course is only one of the many multifarious institutions, like the World Bank and the United Nations, that might also have hegemonic roles in education, and this is something that researchers and educators need to examine often and consistently.
References
Bonal, X., & Tarabini, A. (2013). The role of PISA in shaping hegemonic educational discourses, policies and practices: The case of Spain. Research in Comparative and International Education, 8(3), 335-341.
Dahlstrom, L. (2009). Education in a post-neoliberal era: a promising future for the Global South?. Power and Education, 1(2), 167-177.
Duenkel, N., Pratt, J., & Sullivan, J. (2014). Seeking wholeheartedness in education: Power, hegemony, and transformation. Journal of Transformative Education, 12(3), 266-291.
Fenton, J. (2018). Putting old heads on young shoulders: helping social work students uncover the neoliberal hegemony, Social Work Education, 37(8), 941-954.
Grek, S. (2009). Governing by numbers: the PISA ‘effect’ in Europe. Comparative Education, 24(1), 23–37.
Nay, O. (2014). International organisations and the production of hegemonic knowledge: How the world bank and the OECD helped invent the fragile state concept. Third World Quarterly, 35(2), 210-231.
OECD. (2003). Annual report 2003. Paris, OECD. https://www.oecd.org/about/2506789.pdf
OECD. (2004). Getting to Grips with Globalisation The OECD in a Changing World. OECD. https://www.oecd.org/about/31499355.pdf
OECD. (2007). Finland takes number one spot in OECD's latest PISA survey, advance figures show. OECD. https://www.oecd.org/fr/presse/finlandtakesnumberonespotinoecdslatestpisasurveyadvancefiguresshow.htm
O’Sullivan, M. (2019). Globalisation is dead and we need to invent a new world order. The Economist. https://www.economist.com/open-future/2019/06/28/globalisation-is-dead-and-we-need-to-invent-a-new-world-order
Rautalin, M., Alasuutari, P., & Vento, E. (2019). Globalisation of education policies: does PISA have an effect?. Journal of Education Policy, 34(4), 500-522.
Schleicher, A., (2018). PISA 2018: Insights and Interpretations. Retrieved from https://www.oecd.org/pisa/PISA%202018%20Insights%20and%20Interpretations%20FINAL%20PDF.pdf
Takayama, K. (2012). Bringing a political ‘bite’ to educational transfer studies: Cultural politics of PISA and the OECD in Japanese education reform. In Steiner-Khamsi, G., Waldow, F (Ed.), World Yearbook of Education 2012: Policy Borrowing and Lending in Education (pp. 148-166). Routledge.
Takayama, K. (2016). Interview with Will Brehm [Audio podcast]. FreshEd, 19. https://www.freshedpodcast.com/keitatakayama/
Thomas, P. (2021). The discourse of international standard-setting: PISA tests and Norway, a critical discourse analysis. Education in the North, 28(2), 6-23.
Volante, L. (2016). International Organizations and Educational Reform. EdCan Network.
Zhou, X., & Jong, M. S. Y. (2020). From PISA 2009 to PISA 2018: Equity in Hong Kong Secondary Mathematics and Science Education. In 2020 International Symposium on Educational Technology (ISET) (pp. 277-279). IEEE.
Comments