The Dynamics of World Culture in Education : Emerging Patterns in the Discussion of PISA results in Germany and Sweden since 2000

Sammanfattning: The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has been running the Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA) for almost twenty years and is widely recognised as an influential actor in education policy internationally. Much research investigates the extent to which the OECD’s education policy recommendations are implemented. However, the parliamentary process that mediates the space between the PISA studies and consequent school reforms is less well understood. This thesis tracks the mention of ‘PISA’ in parliamentary debates in Sweden and Germany between 2000 and 2018 and applies content analysis to identify changes within and between the two countries over time. The data shows that in both parliaments, the PISA studies are received largely without questioning the underlying methodology or test design. Members of parliament mostly refer to PISA as an ‘objective piece of evidence’ that supposedly captures the current state of the education system. PISA is also mentioned to discredit political opponents by blaming them for poor results. Understanding how members of parliament discuss PISA is important to explaining PISA as a phenomenon and contributes to a growing body of research concerned with the influence of the OECD on national education policy borrowing and lending.