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The increased use of quantitative education data is often regarded by scholars as evidence of the emergence of'governing by numbers'. These scholars ascribe major stakeholders such as the OECD and nation states agency as they produce, distribute and consume data, and respond to these with policy and management initiatives. This paper argues that metrics themselves have a configurative agency that affects education in terms of educational ideas and designs. The paper illustrates this point by analysing two cases of graduate employability metrics, each of which configures education differently, and discusses how the configurative agency of metrics can become the focal point of a different research agenda using distinct analytical concepts drawn from the sociology of quantification and new materialism. The paper concludes that such a research agenda can enable actors involved in the design and development of education to enter into a professional dialogue and engagement with education data, rather than merely dismissing it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Test-based accountability or 'TBA,' as a core element of the pervasive Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), has become a central characteristic of education systems around the world. TBA often comes in conjunction with greater school autonomy, enabling governments to assess 'school quality' (i.e. test results) from a distance. Often, quality improvement is further encouraged through the publication of these results. Research has investigated this phenomenon and its effects, much of it focusing on Anglo-Saxon cases. This paper, drawing on expert interviews and key policy documents, couples a policy borrowing with a policy instruments approach to critically examine how and why TBA has developed in the highly autonomous Dutch system. It finds that TBA evolved incrementally, advancing towards higher stakes for schools and boards. Further, it argues that school autonomy has been central to the development of TBA in two ways. Firstly, following a period of decentralisation that increased school(board) autonomy, the Dutch government saw a need to strengthen accountability to ensure education quality. This was influenced by international discourse and accelerated by a (politically exploited) national 'quality crisis' in education. Secondly, the traditionally autonomous Dutch system, shaped by 'Freedom of Education', has at times conflicted with TBA, and has played a significant role in (re)shaping global policy and in mitigating the GERM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a response to an earlier article in the Journal of Education Policy, which calls for 'new ideas and constructive principles and practices for the provision of socially-just education'. We first discuss how an economistic approach to education entrenches socioeconomic disadvantage and argue that, in the light of evidence that inequalities are increasing both nationally and internationally, it has become increasingly important that we understand models of social justice in schools in deprived locations. Reporting on original longitudinal research with schools in disadvantaged coastal areas in England, and drawing on the notion of the insistent affirmation of possibility, we then discuss three dimensions of active social justice undertaken by participating school leaders. By examining practical examples of social justice, we aim to shift the debate into more positive territory, in which there can be more appreciation of the efforts and outcomes of some leaders in highly disadvantaged areas and more leaders can take heart in following their example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Student performance data is increasingly used to monitor and evaluate teachers. This study examines whether the turnover intentions – if teachers would change schools given the chance – of teachers in socioeconomically disadvantaged classrooms are moderated by teacher appraisal practices based on student academic performance data at the school system-level. Three-level hierarchical modelling in 46 education systems is conducted based on the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) from 2018. Results show that the effect of classroom socioeconomic composition on teacher turnover intentions increases as a function of performance-based teacher appraisal. However, this is only true when the appraisal is conducted by external authorities, and not so when conducted by the school management team. The models are then re-run by school consequences of appraisal such as dismissal, financial bonuses, or sanctions, and then by teacher characteristics, including gender, experience, and teaching subject. Experienced teachers in socioeconomically disadvantaged classrooms are more likely to change schools in school systems with more performance data-based teacher appraisal. These results underscore the potential pitfalls of performance data-based accountability systems for students in socioeconomically disadvantaged educational settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The massification of national systems of higher education in recent decades and the rapid increase in the number of students have raised widening participation for students from underrepresented groups as a central policy agenda. In this study I focus on an overlooked group in the research literature – student support practitioners, who provide advising and counseling services to students – and explore how these practitioners negotiate and shape widening participation policies as part of their ongoing work. The study is based on interviews with 43 support practitioners working in 17 Israeli higher education institutions. It draws on the policy-as-practice approach and the theoretical construct of category work to explore how these practitioners interpret, adapt, and modify widening participation policies. The analysis reveals three practices of category work: creation, transformation, and disruption of policy categories: Practitioners create a new category of flexible and part-time studies, transform the category of students eligible for support by expanding its boundaries to include low socioeconomic status, and disrupt a target group's category by dissolving its boundaries, modifying its homogenous nature, and eliminating problematic support tools. This study contributes to our understanding of the gaps between WP policies and their appropriation, and of the processes in which local actors shape policy categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education reforms that entail increased emphasis on high-stakes testing, assessment and grading have spread across education systems in recent decades. Critics have argued that these policies could have consequences for stress, identity, self-esteem and the overall health of pupils. However, these potentially negative consequences have rarely been investigated in a systematic and rigorous way. In this study we use a major education reform in Sweden, which introduced grades and increased the use of testing for pupils in the 6th and 7th school year (aged 12 to 13 years), to study the consequences of grading and assessment for health outcomes. Using data from the Health Behaviours of School-Aged Children Survey, we find that the reform increased school-related stress and reduced the academic self-esteem of pupils in the 7th school year. This, in turn, had an indirect effect on psychosomatic symptoms and life satisfaction for these pupils. Moreover, the negative effects of the reform were generally stronger for girls, thereby widening the already troubling gender differences in health. We conclude that accountability reforms aimed at increased use of testing, assessment and grading can potentially have negative side effects on pupils' health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychology and economics are powerful sources of expert knowledge in contemporary governance. Social and emotional learning (SEL) is becoming a priority in education policy in many parts of the world. Based on the enumeration of students' 'noncognitive' skills, SEL consists of a 'psycho-economic' combination of psychometrics with economic analysis, and is producing novel forms of statistical 'psychodata' about students. Constituted by an expanding infrastructure of technologies, metrics, people, money and policies, SEL has travelled transnationally through the advocacy of psychologists, economists, and behavioural scientists, with support from think tank coalitions, philanthropies, software companies, investment schemes, and international organizations. The article examines the emerging SEL infrastructure, identifying how psychological and economics experts are producing policy-relevant scientific knowledge and statistical psychodata to influence the direction of SEL policies. It examines how the OECD Study on Social and Emotional Skills, a large-scale computer-based assessment, makes 'personality' an international focus for policy intervention and 'human capital' formation, thereby translating measurable socio-emotional indicators into predicted socio-economic outcomes. The SEL measurement infrastructure instantiates psychological governance within education, one underpinned by a political rationality in which society is measured effectively through scientific fact-finding and subjects are managed affectively through psychological intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Opportunities for social mobility are generated by education systems designed to alleviate the effects of social origin by providing equality of opportunities and resources. The persistence of the strong association between socioeconomic status (SES) and child's educational achievement and attainment suggests that social origin continues to play an integral role in the educational outcomes of successive generations of Australians. Sociologists draw on a range of theoretical perspectives to explain this association including Bourdieu's cultural and social capital theories. Using data collected by the Longitudinal Survey of Australian Youth 2009 (LSAY09) project, I examine the associations between student SES, school SES and two outcome variables: Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) score and university enrolment. The results indicate that low SES students attending high SES schools perform better on PISA tests than low SES students attending low SES schools. After controlling for PISA score, low SES students were less likely than their high SES peers to enrol at university. Furthermore, students attending low SES schools were less likely than their peers attending high SES schools to enrol at university, net of their individual SES and their PISA scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]