Educational Concepts on the Move: Reflections on Studying Circulation Routes of Educational Knowledge within the Global Education Sector. The Example of India’s Participation in OECD’S PISA 2009 Plus Project

Titelangaben

Vollmer, Maria Theresa:
Educational Concepts on the Move: Reflections on Studying Circulation Routes of Educational Knowledge within the Global Education Sector. The Example of India’s Participation in OECD’S PISA 2009 Plus Project.
2023
Veranstaltung: SES Weekly Seminar of School of Education Studies with the General Theme: PISA in India , 20.12.2023 , Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD), New Delhi, India.
(Veranstaltungsbeitrag: Vortragsreihe , Vortrag )

Angaben zu Projekten

Abstract

The thesis explores global relationships of nodes of influence (human beings, organisations, things and others more) and semantics in the field of international educational assessment (PISA, TIMMS etc.) and the thereof resulting transformation processes in the global education sector that will be analysed at the local level. Based on the example of India’s participation in the PISA 2009 Plus project, the study investigates, how globally circulating concept offers – precisely the ideology of testing of the OECD – are taken up and processed. This example is suitable for the discussion of the above outlined processes, because due to the negative experience with PISA 2009 Plus the global concept offer has been opposed for a decade, even though therewith correlated transformation processes in the Indian education system can be observed (see Vollmer, 2019b). The recent decision of the Indian government to take part in PISA again, points out to the enormous dominance and power of the OECD-driven educational testing concepts. The spread and expansion of these and the therewith correlated transformation processes within local state education sectors through private actors (international organisations, philanthropists, companies and others more) is considered with high concern in this study. Finding out, how the OECD PISA study had been taken up and processed in India, has been one of the points of departure of the research at hand.
Scope of the study is the process of India’s participation in the OECD PISA 2009 Plus project. The relation of the Indian education policy towards OECD’s PISA will be described and the circulation routes of knowledge flows will be analysed. Particularly, the study aims to identify relevant nodes of influence or relata, and their arguments. It explores, how meaning emerges, and knowledge is transmitted or traded through the sharing of stories in and across networks (trading zones of knowledge, Galison, 1997). Manifold (sub-)networks will be visualised, including experts on education or other important nodes of influence, such as publications and events, to catch the dynamic of this process and to give justice to it in the research design. Goal of the project was to find answers to the following research questions: (1) How did it come that India participated in the PISA 2009 Plus project, what happened? When did OECD approach India for the first time? (2) Who was involved in the process? (3) Which stories are shared and expressed by whom? What kind of expectations and hopes, resp. what kind of constraints have been there?
My presentation starts by giving some examples of global knowledge flows and by elaborating on theoretical reflections of these processes. Then insights based on a conducted background analysis of education policies and programmes and the landscape of assessment in India are displayed. This leads to the statement of the problem of the thesis which is the perceived crisis of learning and the need for educational reform in India. This is followed by an overview of the study including the thesis and the core findings of the study. A summary of the circulation routes of knowledge flows that led to India’s participation in PISA will be given. The presentation concludes with a discussion of the findings and of recent post-PISA 2009 developments and closes with a reflection on the research process.