The Media Discourse on PISA and School Reforms in Germany and China From the Perspective of “Policy Borrowing and Lending”

• In Event: Dissertation workshop session
  In Special Session: Policy Analysis

Proposal

After graduating from the Beijing Normal University in June 2017, I am enrolled in a Ph.D. program at the Humboldt University of Berlin under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Florian Waldow. The dissertation proposal has been finished. I’m beginning to collect data.
1. Research objective and questions
Historically, since the establishment of national education systems in the nineteenth century, "policy borrowing and lending" from foreign contexts forms an integral part of the development of the modern education systems in all states (Waldow 2014). With the widespread dissemination of international large-scale assessments in the age of globalization, a new model for “policy borrowing and lending” is being developed. PISA plays in this process the most important role (Steiner-Khamsi 2014).
Germany and China started participating in PISA respectively in 2000 and 2009. The relatively different results have triggered a major "PISA-Shock" in both countries (Waldow 2009, Sellar & Lingard 2013, Tan 2016), which led to a profound reflection on school systems and discussions on school reforms in both countries, often with references to other education systems. In this context, the question arises to what extent Germany and China differ with each other regarding to the construction of a reference system in the school reform debates.
Numerous studies show that the mass media play an essential role in the political agenda setting by selecting which news they report and how they present the topics (McCombs & Shaw 1974, Gamson & Modigliani 1989). In this research work, the media discourse on PISA and school reforms in Germany and China is examined. The research question is: To what extent does "policy borrowing and lending" differ in the school reform debates in Germany and China under the influence of the PISA studies? How can these differences be explained? From this, the following sub-questions can be deduced: (1) Which reference societies and which aspects of the respective reference societies are perceived in the media discourse of both countries? (2) How are the referential roles of these societies in the school reforms of both countries constructed in the media discourse? (3) Which political programs or agendas in the school reforms of both countries are legitimized by the media discourse? Which delegitimized? (4) How can the corresponding differences and possibly similarities between Germany and China be explained?
2. Theoretical basis
The analysis of media discourse on PISA and school reforms in Germany and China will be based on the theoretical thinking of “externalization” and “policy borrowing and lending”.
The concept of "externalization" can be traced back to the system theory of Niklas Luhmann, which was taken up by Jürgen Schriewer (1990) in the Comparative Educational Science. According to Schriewer, externalization is a "discursive formation that can become relevant in the context of borrowing and lending itself to the purpose of producing legitimacy" (Waldow 2012).
Based on Schriewer's work, Gita Steiner-Khamsi introduced the concept of externalization into the field of comparative political science in order to provide an interpretive framework for the systematic analysis of educational "policy borrowing and lending". It shows how the educational actors use external references to legitimize their preferred educational ideas and programs and to delegitimize non-preferred ones (Waldow 2014, Takayama 2010, Sung 2012).
3. Methodological approach
In this research project, the frame analysis serves as a primary research method to analyze the media discourses on PISA and school reforms in Germany and China. In the process of forming opinions, the mass media make use of so-called frames, which can reduce the complexity in the perception and processing of social reality (Waldow 2017). Frames are interpretive schemes that serve as an organizational principle, allowing the individuals to categorize and interpret daily experiences, social occurrences and events. The sociological investigation of these schemes is called frame analysis (Goffman 1974). During the data collection, each three representative newspapers in Germany and China are selected as the source of the media discourse. In Germany, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung and DIE ZEIT are available, while in China articles from People's Daily, China Education Journal and Wen-Hui News are being explored. For data analysis, the method of discourse analysis is planned to be implemented with the help of the qualitative data analysis program MAXQDA.
Since my research is situated in the beginning phase, there are still plenty of uncertainties concerning the research questions, theoretical basis and methodical approaches. For the improvement of the research design, comments and suggestions from different points of view are of great value. So, I very much look forward to participating in the NSDMW.

Author

• Haiqin Ning, Humboldt University of Berlin