The research project analyses all cycles of Portugal’s participation in PISA - Programme for International Student Assessment - (and, secondarily, in other international studies in which the country participated), comparing the processes adopted in data collection. Still, the core problem very directly formulated is: what are the implicit and explicit implications of Portugal’s participation in PISA; or, put differently, how have the different national players (policy-makers, school administrators, teachers and their unions, parents’ associations, media) appropriated the process and included the results of that participation in discourses, public policies and professional practices?

Argument

Major international studies, such as TIMSS, PISA, PIRLS or TALIS, have become these days one of the main governance technologies in the fields of education and training. In this set of studies, PISA is, surely, the one which exerts the greatest influence on political decision-makers, school administrators or the media. There is a vast international critical literature (e.g. Carnoy 2015; Komatsu & Rappleye 2017; Meyer & Benavot 2013; Pereyra, Kottoff & Cohen 2011) that has questioned this dimension of ‘global governance’. The works on Portugal’s participation in these studies, in particular PISA, are few and very restrict in their approaches (e.g. KNOWNandPOL project; CNE 2010, 2013).

Portugal has participated in PISA since its first cycle in 2000. This being a country of the European (semi)periphery which made a very belated expansion of mass schooling (Teodoro 2001), Portugal presented in all the cycles it participated up to 2012 results that fell below OECD average. In 2015, the results surpassed this average in the three domains analysed (Science, Mathematics and Reading) and Portugal is then presented by the OECD as a ‘success case’ in the context of the European (and developed) countries, with a consistent rise since 2006 (OECD 2016).

The research project analyses all cycles of Portugal’s participation in PISA (and, secondarily, in other international studies in which the country participated), comparing the processes adopted in data collection. Still, the core problem very directly formulated is: what are the implicit and explicit implications of Portugal’s participation in PISA; or, put differently, how have the different national players (policy-makers, school administrators, teachers and their unions, parents’ associations, media) appropriated the process and included the results of that participation in discourses, public policies and professional practices?

The Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Education and Development (CeiED) will promote, throughout the year, a cycle of webinars (via Zoom), framed in the activities of the research project financed by FCT, the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (PTDC / CED -EDG / 30084/2017): A success story? Portugal and the PISA (2000-2015).

Programme

April 19 16h00-17h30 (CET)

Link, meeting ID: 810 7167 1858, pass: 328440

• António Teodoro (CeiED), Teresa Teixeira Lopo (CeiED) and Camilla Addey (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; to confirm) «Participation in PISA and political decision: the case of Portugal»

May 3 16h00-17h30 (CET)

Link, meeting ID: 876 2753 8982,pass: 730220

• Vítor Teodoro (CeiED) and Jonathan Osborne (Stanford-Graduate School of Education) «Testing PISA tests»

May 17 16h00-17h30 (CET)

Link,  meeting ID: 860 2149 2156, pass: 75909

• Ana Carita (CeiED), Rosa Serradas Duarte (CeiED) and Maria Manuel Calvet Ricardo (CeiED) « Media agenda and the discourse of the stakeholders about the PISA» (webinar only in Portuguese)

May 31 16h00-17h30 (CET)

Link, meeting ID: 810 8153 7705, pass: 840368

• João Luiz Horta Neto (INEP - Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira) and Romuald Normand (Université de Strasbourg) «Readings on PISA: a comparative analysis Brazil – France»

June 16 16h00-17h30 (CET)

Link, meeting ID: 896 7480 2231, pass: 887093

• Elsa Estrela (CeiED) and Diana Sousa (Institute of Education, University College London) «PISA implications for official knowledge»

June 28 16h00-17h30 (CET)

Link, meeting ID: 838 9021 8581, pass: 851284

• Ana Benavente (Former Secretary of State for Education in the XIII and XIV Constitutional Governments) and António Teodoro (CeiED) « PISA: a success story? Some conclusions and new research questions» (webinar only in Portuguese)

Organization and contacts

Teresa Teixeira Lopo, teresa.lopo@ulusofona.pt e Vítor Rosa, vitor.rosa@ulusofona.pt