The Adaption and Resistance towards SAWA Reform in Iceland 1991-2015: The process of hollowing out high-stakes testing in Iceland

• In Event: Global Education Reforms Across Time and Space: Tendencies, Drivers, and Explanations In Comparative and Historical Perspective (Part 2)

Proposal

This presentation draws on a published paper (Steiner-Khamsi, Jóhannesdóttir, Magnúsdóttir, 2024) on SAWA’s mechanism in Iceland. Iceland ended up being an interesting case with one of the highest school autonomy in Europe and the lowest school accountability mechanism according to Eurydice. Our study draws on the existing Icelandic scholarship complementing a retrospective analysis of the reform as well as a retroactive interpretation of it. Three conceptual and methodological features of this study deserve special mention here: First, we conceive of the NPM reform, also known as the school-autonomy-with-accountability reform as a complex reform with its own (i) theory of change, (ii) a mix of school-autonomy-with-accountability (SAWA) policies, and own (iii) policy instrument to achieve and sustain change. Unbundling the reform package and dissecting its elements affords us to examine why some of the NPM policies resonated at the time with practitioners and policy makers, and others did not. We also show how the selectively borrowed NPM policies were subsequently translated and recontextualized in ways that would address the challenges of upper secondary schools. Second, the study introduces a novel method of inquiry for understanding the fundamental reform in upper secondary schools retroactively: We held several Meaning Making Meetings (MMM) with politicians, policy makers, education experts, and policy advisors in Iceland in which we presented our preliminary findings in order to solicit feedback and validation on factual information. Finally, we collectively look back at these MMM to assess which of the NPM/SAWA policies endured, which ones were suspended, and which ones were modified over time, and how and why. In other words, we apply the temporal dimension of policies to examine the lifespan of a policy, that is, we determine when a policy was conceived, when it died, and—not unimportantly—what life it had in between.

This presentation will especially delve into the process of abolishing standardized matriculation exams, which had been formalized through legislative measures, and the decision to discontinue the use of standardized testing at the end of compulsory education (15-year-old). These tests were historically employed to select students for admission to prestigious upper-secondary schools in Iceland. However, the question remains as to whether the elimination of high-stakes testing as a mechanism to promote meritocracy has indeed led to greater equity within the educational system. The final analysis demonstrates that while the SAWA reform in Iceland emphasized liberal policies, particularly in terms of increasing autonomy, it simultaneously neglected or diminished policies aimed at enhancing oversight and control.

Authors

• Berglind Ros Magnusdottir, University of Iceland

• Gita Steiner-Khamsi, Columbia University Teachers College & NORRAG