Governing Large-Scale Assessment Programmes in Mexico: A Multi- Scalar Account of Policy and Practice
type: CreativeWork
description: In 2004 Mexico managed to consolidate a highly complex and contradictory large-scale assessment (LSA) landscape comprised of three particular programmes run by different institutions, each with their own special interests and their own distinct scalar architecture (global, regional and national), yet mutually focused on seeking to shape education practice improvement and policy decisions through the production of data regarding student learning. Existing literature in the field of LSAs and governance tends to address this phenomenon through the lens of one or at best two programmes, and their effects on single cases. As a result we do not know enough about the origins, nature and problems generated by these sorts of arrangements and their implications for education. Adopting a critical theory stance, this thesis develops an empirically driven multi-scalar approach to explore large-scale assessments and governance in three layers of the Mexican context: local, sub-national and national. To this end, it makes use of a multi-scalar embedded case study research design, and a multi- phase mix-methods methodology which draws upon an original data set comprised of one survey applied to 319 educators; semi-structured interviews with Senators, Secretariat of Education authorities, Governing Board members from the National Institute for Education Evaluation, sub-national Education Authorities, educators and school leaders; and a set of LSA publications. Findings suggests that the assessment regime in Mexico came into being as the result of wider global efforts to improve education systems, at the same time that neoliberalism as a political project emerged as a way of rethinking state-society relations. The current arrangement is comprised of three LSAs namely PISA, ERCE and PLANEA, all of which operate at particular scales, and are underpinned by distinctive programme ontologies: respectively, human capital, human rights, and public accountability. There are significant varia…
abstract: In 2004 Mexico managed to consolidate a highly complex and contradictory large-scale assessment (LSA) landscape comprised of three particular programmes run by different institutions, each with their own special interests and their own distinct scalar architecture (global, regional and national), yet mutually focused on seeking to shape education practice improvement and policy decisions through the production of data regarding student learning. Existing literature in the field of LSAs and governance tends to address this phenomenon through the lens of one or at best two programmes, and their effects on single cases. As a result we do not know enough about the origins, nature and problems generated by these sorts of arrangements and their implications for education. Adopting a critical theory stance, this thesis develops an empirically driven multi-scalar approach to explore large-scale assessments and governance in three layers of the Mexican context: local, sub-national and national. To this end, it makes use of a multi-scalar embedded case study research design, and a multi- phase mix-methods methodology which draws upon an original data set comprised of one survey applied to 319 educators; semi-structured interviews with Senators, Secretariat of Education authorities, Governing Board members from the National Institute for Education Evaluation, sub-national Education Authorities, educators and school leaders; and a set of LSA publications. Findings suggests that the assessment regime in Mexico came into being as the result of wider global efforts to improve education systems, at the same time that neoliberalism as a political project emerged as a way of rethinking state-society relations. The current arrangement is comprised of three LSAs namely PISA, ERCE and PLANEA, all of which operate at particular scales, and are underpinned by distinctive programme ontologies: respectively, human capital, human rights, and public accountability. There are significant varia…
author: Moreno Salto , Israel
language: en
keywords: Governance, Mexico, Assessments, Large-scale assessments
license: https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/5f5e0cbd-a245-4261-aaf0-450f51ef854b/download
license: https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
date published: 2020-03-28
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:11Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.50742