The Impact of PISA Studies on Education Policy in a Democratic Perspective: The Implementation of National Tests in Denmark

Educational assessments always reflect the values and power of those with access to influence educational tools and strongly affect the practices to which they belong. Depending on their form and use, assessments can also influence teachers’ pedagogy and activities in classroom settings. As analyzed by sociologists such as Bourdieu, such an influence occurs in implicit ways. Assessments thus largely form a practice by which power can be expressed and exercised, but in ways that are mostly invisible, and which could therefore compromise democratic principles. This chapter considers how the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) can strongly affect local national educational policy and practice. Since these processes largely occur without being explicitly expressed or addressed by politicians, one can ask whether PISA and its corresponding practice can be considered a challenge to democracy and democratic processes. Denmark is an interesting context for investigating this problem and is used as a case and example. The insights from the Danish case are discussed more generally in relation to other countries and education systems.