Abstract:

Drawing on Marion Fourcade’s notion of ordinalization, we develop a conceptual grammar of comparison to explain a shift in the nature and outcomes of the governing capacity of the OECD over time. We argue that comparison as a mode of governance has been bound into the DNA of the OECD as a lever for advancing political liberalism since the inception of the organization. Moreover, we show that around 1990 the organization injected competitiveness into comparison by embracing ordinal modes of comparison revolving around the vertical ordering of things and people according to their relative positions on ranking scales. Yet, by analyzing the case of OECD statistics on teachers and in particular the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) program, we argue that the outcomes of the mechanism of ordinalization in the context of TALIS have thus far remained muted due to methodological constraints as well as the pluri-scalar politics involved.

Comparative Education Review, volume 64, no. 1 (February 2020): pages 21-45.

Abstract:

This paper presents and engages with Basil Bernstein’s rich conceptual grammar in order to generate a sociological account of the outcomes for teachers’ work, identity and social class, of strategic shifts in governance to the global scale. Our aim is to develop a two-way conversation between Bernstein’s conceptual grammar and how best to theorise the nature of the social regulation of teachers as a result of the dominance of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in setting the rules for pedagogic governance of teachers through its Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS). We show that important functions for symbolic agents have been relocated to the economic arena away from the state, as well as being rescaled to sit within the governing ambit of the OECD. We also reflect on the prominence of constructivism in TALIS as a preferred pedagogy and the eschewing of disciplinary knowledge as the basis of expertise. We ask what this new market identity means for teacher knowledge, consciousness, identity, the division of labour, and the social base.

European Educational Research Journal, August 2017

Abstract:

This paper examines the pivotal role of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) in orchestrating the framing of the problem of ‘teacher quality’ for global competitiveness, and the ongoing political work of the OECD and allied institutions in promoting this brand of Quality Teacher through its Teaching and Learning International Assessment (TALIS). We explore the wider politics at work and the implications of TALIS as a political construct, process, and global governing tool and show a dual dynamic at work involving the formation of institutions and processes at a global scale, to frame, measure and sell a particular brand of teacher; one who is flexible, privileges constructivism as a pedagogical approach, and who uses ‘evidence ‘to make teaching and learning decisions. Taken together, the OECD’s activities in framing, measuring and selling the Quality Teacher – whilst legitimated as creating the new professional teacher – paradoxically challenges teacher authority, relocates the governing of teachers to the global scale, and sells a slimmed down version of possibilities regarding teacher quality.

In International Handbook of Teacher Quality and Policy, edited by M. Akiba and G.K. LeTendre, 117-131. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.