The discursive uses of PISA results: What can they tell us about ideas of development?

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Thursday 7:45am
  In Poster Session: Global Metrics, Local Resistance: Education Policy, Technology, and the Politics of Learning

Abstract

This paper explores how global education assessments are interpreted and used in public discourse, and what notions of development emerge from them. I focus on a particular country, Paraguay, as an instrumental case study. A systematic review of media and user-generated discourse on X (formerly Twitter) show that PISA facts are reduced and distorted as they move from technical into public discourse, where educational “facts” become discursive tools in the local arena. Four narratives of development surfaced in the analysis, development as: a linear race, economic growth, dependency, and as a treat to tradition. This study contributes to understanding how education policy is experienced in historically situated discursive spaces by analyzing the cultural and political appropriation of global metrics.

Author

• Alicia Rocio Elias-Caballero, Teachers College, Columbia University