Project title:

The Rise of an Educationalized World: A Global Analysis of OECD’s Educational Recommendations, Programmes, and Impact

Presentation:

The world of today is an educationalized world. It means that societal challenges are to be solved by education. In fact, every challenge facing contemporary society – e.g. social cohesion, economic growth, and sustainability – has an unmistakable educational component. For decades, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has promoted a global vision of education as one of providing human capital to deal with social challenges and improve the economies of nation-states.

Beginning as the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) in 1948, the OECD gradually took the leading role in shaping a global education space from other international organisations culminating with the launch of the programme for international student assessment (PISA) in 2000. Today the OECD is widely recognised as the global trend-setter in education – and promoter of an educationalized world - because of its educational measurement indicators, its production of norms, and its role in governance by comparison (e.g. PISA).

The OECD’s educational recommendations and programmes carry an enormous global impact because 1) they frame and shape the public discourse and the ways decision-makers think about and deal with social and economic challenges; 2) they affect educational access, performance and benefits of different people groups; and 3) they impact the conditions under which education may be realized in different national contexts.

It is the aim of this research project to throw light on the following research questions:

• Background: Which networks and connections of agents, organizations, governments, institutions, and which funding flows influence and mediate OECD educational recommendations and programmes?
  
  
• Impact: How do OECD educational recommendations and programmes impact Member States and non-Member States in terms of dealing with societal challenges?
  
  
• Comparison: What are the differences and similarities across time and place in the OECD’s educational recommendations and programmes and how are they reflected in terms of promoting and shaping an educationalized world?