Tracing the sub-national effect of the OECD PISA: Integration into Canada’s decentralized education system

Abstract

Although education scholars have examined the globalization effect of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and its impact in several countries, few have explored its effect at the sub-national level. Taking the Canadian federation as its case study, I argue that the PISA, as a universalizing project for education, is being uncritically replicated through the implementation of student assessments at the national level. By drawing on the policy studies and policy sociology literature, I find evidence of policy discursive practices and techniques, which led to the creation and replication of a PISA-modeled assessment sub-nationally in the form of the Pan-Canadian Assessment Program. Three key themes emerge that facilitate the modeling of universalizing educational projects such as the PISA by sub-national entities: (1) a preoccupation with the international benchmarking of student performance, (2) a shift away from a curriculum-based assessment to a competency-based one, and (3) the adoption of organizational systems and processes of assessment aligned with supranational assessment practices. I suggest that domestic conditions in the Canadian federation were conducive to the rapid integration of the PISA sub-nationally despite the decentralized structure of the Canadian elementary and secondary education system.