The Global Governance of Education through the OECD’S PISA and TALIS Programme: The Case of England

This thesis explores the interactions between global governance mechanisms and national policy by examining the impacts of one international body, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), on education policy in England. The OECD’s comparative statistics have established the organisation as a key international actor in education governance, its Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) collecting data from teachers and students that are then published for use in a variety of policy environments. The decontextualised, ordinalised nature of this data provides seemingly generic, ‘universal’ standards that can facilitate easy uptake by international policymakers, yet raises questions as to the data’s rigour and use. These questions are particularly evident in the case of England, where OECD data have been used to strengthen the nation’s already robust array of educational accountability structures. England’s reticence to fully adopt the OECD’s recommended educational ‘best practices’, despite the UK being a founding member of the organisation, is just one way that England is an ‘outlier’ within the overall global governance landscape. Nevertheless, few studies have examined the concrete impacts of OECD data on classroom practices in England, particularly on teachers, who are arguably the stakeholders most directly affected by education system reforms. This study therefore addresses this gap by analysing OECD publications and conducting semi-structured interviews with secondary school teachers to explore how PISA and TALIS shape teachers’ work and professional experience. Document analyses show that data in OECD publications are presented in ways that encourage progress through sustainability and self-regulation, rather than political participation, on the part of teachers. This is especially true in the case of the TALIS report, which highlights teachers’ care towards students and multicultural sensitivity, as well as classroom ICT use, rather than teachers’ more direct concerns such as workload and burnout. Teacher interviews, meanwhile, reveal little-to-no knowledge of PISA or TALIS, despite their use by English policymaking bodies on tightening teacher accountability measures and, perhaps more significantly, creating ‘common-sense’ media discourses around England’s education system. Overall, the OECD exerts significant but largely indirect influence on England’s education policy, one that is mediated by the Department for Education’s authority in England, government’s more direct influence, yet nevertheless contributes to the dominant discourses structuring teacher expectations with minimal awareness of teachers themselves. This disparity calls for further investigation prior to future educational policy changes. Keywords: OECD, PISA, TALIS, England, Global governance ,Teachers

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Tai, Li

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Robertson, Susan

• England
• Global governance
• OECD
• PISA
• TALIS
• Teachers

Licence

• https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/68983c12-7a1c-4927-840c-50cb40c7a8c6/download
• http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved

Language dc:language

eng

Author Identifier

0000-0002-4936-7706

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/394836