PISA lends legitimacy: A study of education policy changes in Germany and Sweden after 2000

Abstract

School issues have become increasingly important in public elections and political debates, leading to increased focus on the results students achieve in international large-scale assessments and in the rankings of the involved countries. One of the most important studies of scholastic performance is the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which has gained a good deal of attention since the first study was published in 2000. This article analyses to what extent examples from international assessments and other countries’ results have been used as arguments for school policy change in Germany and Sweden. The conclusion is that both countries, after undergoing a “PISA shock”, found justification for changes in their education policy by referring to other countries. Their views of how to solve the problem (i.e., the drop in results) were also similar: increased management and control of parts of the education system, albeit by different means.

Keywords

Programme for International Student Assessment educational policy large-scale assessment Germany Sweden legitimacy reference society

Introduction

Scholastic performance assessments, both international and domestic, have over the past few years become more and more common as reference points in education policy (see, e.g., Lundahl and Pettersson, 2010; Martens and Jakobi, 2010; Sellar and Lingard, 2014). When it comes to international scholastic assessments, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) study, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), is one of the most frequently referred to, and the attention it receives has steadily increased since the first study, published in 2000. Also, as a result of the decentralization and internationalization of the educational system, the significance of ranking lists and comparative international scholastic tests has risen over the past few decades, prompting researchers to refer to them as “league tables or a horse race between nations” (Pettersson, 2008: 108f; cf. Steiner-Khamsi, 2004). Previous research has also shown that the results of scholastic assessments lead to arguments in the political debate and comprehensive reforms of the educational structure, in favour of adapting the knowledge that is tested in, for example, the PISA (Grek, 2009; Niemann, 2009).

Homogenization of educational systems through internationalization has received criticism as well, but it is nonetheless possible to claim from a neoliberal point of view that this is exactly the priority of organizations like the OECD (Pettersson, 2008). Even if the OECD has no formal power over national educational policy, Martens and Niemann (2010) refer to its influence on the national level for “the power of ratings and rankings”. The same phenomenon is termed “governing by numbers” in an article by Grek (2009). Benveniste (2002: 89), however, feels scholastic assessments should not only be viewed as a technically rational instrument that affect national educational systems, but even more as “a political phenomenon that reflects the agendas, tensions, and nature of power relations between political actors”. That is, national actors use the international assessments to justify educational policy reforms. The conclusion of such reasoning is that it is up to the actors themselves to decide to what degree the international governs national reform efforts (Lundahl and Pettersson, 2010).

This article explores to what extent examples from the PISA or other countries have been used as justifications for policy change in Germany and Sweden based on the following questions: What changes are (political) actors in Germany and Sweden striving to justify by referring to PISA assessments or the results in other countries? When do international large-scale assessments become an argument in reform efforts and how are the results used? What causes and needs are the subjects of discussion? Therefore, the focus in the article is on the consequences of measurements on the national level; what PISA measures or its content will not be discussed.

Theoretical and methodological starting points

The debate on the significance of international and global processes for national education reforms is extensive, and many researchers have studied the influence of international organizations on the national level. For the OECD, see, for example, Dobbins and Martens (2012), Grek (2009) and Hartong (2012). For the European Union (EU), see Grek and Lawn (2009), Grek and Ozga (2010) and Lawn and Lingard (2002), among others. For international influences in Sweden, see Forsberg and Pettersson (2014), Lundahl and Waldow (2009), Nordin (2012, 2014) and Pettersson (2008), among others. For the German context from the point of view of the past 10 years of research, see, for example, Kneuper (2010), Martens and Niemann (2010), Niemann (2009) and Tillmann et al. (2008).

Most of the above-mentioned studies examine the policy process in just one country, but there are examples of comparative studies as well (see, e.g., Ringarp and Rothland, 2008, 2010; Sellar and Lingard, 2013; Waldow et al., 2014).

According to Forsberg and Román (2014), the debate can be divided into two camps, one claiming that standardization and internationally harmonized systems for assessment and control lead to conformity of the countries’ curricula and school structure, while the other feels that international processes and policy transference always need to be adapted to suit a particular nation. But does one view automatically exclude the other? In my view, this is not necessarily the case, and therefore I include both approaches in my analysis.

The main focus of this article is the changing educational policy due to large-scale assessments in Germany and Sweden. Theoretically, I proceed from the concept of the reference society (Schriewer, 1990) and legitimacy. Reference society (see also the concept of externalization in Luhmann and Schorr, 1988) means the countries or international organizations that policymakers in a country refer to when they are looking for arguments for implementing reforms at home (see, e.g., Grek, 2009; Steiner-Khamsi, 2003). Who it is who is being referred to may change over time, as pointed out by Schriewer and Martinez (2004), but it is often a question of seeking legitimacy for (political) change by referring to other countries or international organizations. Pettersson (2008: 174) has described this as the increased internationalization of society, leading to “the international being perceived as having greater legitimacy and therefore used as reference”. National actors thus give reforms legitimacy by referring to foreign countries, making them an argument in the change process (cf. Zymek, 1975).

The material in the study consists mainly of newsletters and policy texts from Kultusministerkonferenz (KMK) in Germany, along with records and policy texts from the Swedish National Agency for Education (NAE) and the Department of Education in Sweden, during the period from 2000 to 2014. Other published reports and policy documents from the two countries were also examined. For the Swedish interim study, background interviews with actors at the public authority level at the time were carried out using the Oral History method (Thompson, 1980).

Education policy in Sweden and Germany

Even though Germany and Sweden differ in many ways in terms of form of government, control and educational system, both countries experienced a “PISA shock” during the period of the study. Both countries have a self-image of being model countries in the field of education. For Sweden’s part, this meant that the country’s decision to implement “a school for all” (comprehensive school) in the 1950s prompted it to regard itself as a forerunner in the field of modern social welfare (Richardson, 2004). In addition, Sweden has been active since the 1960s in helping design international scholastic tests (Pettersson, 2008), despite few references before 2000 to international research in educational policy (Waldow, 2008). A similar picture of being a forerunner existed for a long time in Germany as well, which even meant that the country previously saw no reason to take part in scholastic assessments (Ringarp and Rothland, 2008). However, since 1995, Germany, like Sweden and most of the other EU and OECD countries, has participated in several forms of knowledge assessments within the education sector. This background makes it interesting to study the significance of international large-scale assessments on these countries’ political considerations. In the next section the educational systems in Germany and Sweden will be viewed.

Educational systems in Germany and Sweden

Germany: A multifaceted educational system

In the year 1945, the German education system was made a matter for each of the constituent states. In practice, this means that there are now 16 different educational systems in Germany. One of the differences between the states involves how the school system is structured, that is, when differentiation to the parallel school system begins, what subjects are studied and how the upper secondary school is organized. Another difference is what laws and curricula govern the education system and how teacher training is designed. This can make it difficult for a student to move from one state to another and also for teachers to get work in a state other than the one where they received their education. This decentralization of the educational system in German was an effect of World War II and the decision to give the constituent states as much self-determination as possible. To enable a certain degree of coordination of the different systems – from kindergarten to higher education and research – it was decided in February 1948 that the Ministers of Education of all the states would meet for a joint conference, called Die Ständige Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Shortly thereafter, the ministers from the Soviet zone of occupation discontinued theirs participation, but the ministers from the allies’ occupation zone decided that the KMK should be a recurrent event. After the reunification of Germany in October 1990, the former constituent states of East Germany joined in the work of the KMK. The idea behind the KMK meetings is for the German Ministers of Education – despite the sovereignty of the states – to agree on binding decisions that will then apply throughout the country (KMK, 2016a). Part of the KMK assignment includes coordinating and advising the states when they have to take stands on matters such as the PISA (KMK, 2016b).

Sweden: From a centralized to a decentralized educational system

The Swedish educational system is both centralized and decentralized. Up until the mid-1950s, there were different forms of schools in Sweden, some of which were municipal and some central. The establishment of the comprehensive school led to an initial increase in centralization, but by the 1970s, this was being questioned on both sides of the political spectrum, and a number of reforms aimed at increasing responsibility for local actors and citizens alike were drawn up and implemented in the 1980s (Ringarp, 2011). One reason for the change was a pent-up need in society at large for increased civic responsibility. Another reason was the prevailing idea that responsibility for welfare issues should be closer to those who were affected, that is, decentralized, but the decade of the 1980s brought with it market principles in the form of New Public Management, which took increasing control of the process (Ringarp, 2011). Since the independent school reform of the early 1990s, there are both municipal and private bodies operating schools financed by public funding. The overall responsibility of seeing that all school boards and the like are familiar with the decisions and laws that apply lies with the NAE. Another responsibility of the NAE is Sweden’s participation in international scholastic assessments.

From Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study to the Programme for International Student Assessment

Germany: A first awakening

In 1995, Germany took part in an international large-scale assessment for the first time since the 1970s, Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 1995. The country’s previous attitude had, according to Bos and Postlethwaite (2002), been that “what is important about education cannot be measured” (quoted from Waldow, 2009: 476). For a long time, as mentioned above, the country had considered its educational system to lead the world, and thus there was no reason to be measured against others. However, the results of TIMSS 1995, which were made public in 1997, revealed a completely different reality. One out of five German students who had participated in the assessments, according to TIMSS 1995, did not have basic knowledge of mathematics and science, and their learning was not cumulative. The study also showed that too few girls were interested in the subject of physics, which in turn meant that only a small number chose to study science subjects in upper secondary school. To remedy the situation, politicians involved in German education decided to reform the way teachers were trained to teach mathematics and science, and to strengthen the subject-didactic and pedagogical-psychological research carried out in higher education. In 1997, the KMK also decided that students at both the federal and state level would participate in knowledge assessments. This decision was the starting point for the establishment of an evaluation system in the field of education (system monitoring) (Baumert and Klieme, 2001).

Nine years later, in 2006, the KMK adopted a common strategy for system monitoring, which included participation in both international and national large-scale assessments, comparative studies of students’ knowledge in grades 3 and 8 (VERA3 and VERA8) and the adoption of common educational standards and knowledge goals for certain grades.¹ In the foundation quality work and the education reports that have been published since 2003, the KMK frequently refers to both the PISA and particular OECD countries, including Sweden and Finland (see, e.g., Autorengruppe Bildungsberichterstattung, 2008; KMK, 2003). Developments in these other countries are thus used as arguments to legitimize the reform.

PISA shock and action plan

TIMSS 1995 was a first wake-up call, but an even larger national shock was the results of PISA 2000. Not only did the achievements of German students in all subjects lie below the OECD average, but “it also became obvious that Germany [was] among those OECD countries with the highest level of performance variation across students” (Niemann, 2009: 10).

The results of PISA 2000 were made public in Paris on 4 December 2001, but the KMK had already begun, during the fall of the same year, to discuss how to react (see KMK Niederschriften, 2001–2012: NS295). On the same day that PISA 2000 was presented, the KMK put forth a seven-point plan of action to improve Germany’s results. The points involved improving language skills in kindergarten, improving students’ reading skills and understanding of math and science, supporting children and youth of immigrant backgrounds and/or from families unaccustomed to study, further developing and quality-assuring education in regard to standards and evaluations, improving teacher professionalism and making it possible to offer all-day school programmes like the afterschool programmes that are common in, for instance, Sweden (KMK Niederschriften, 2001–2012: NS296; cf. KMK Niederschriften, 2001–2012: NS298). Through the KMK, the Ministers of Education of the constituent states thus decided to strive for common goals. One might wonder how the KMK could unite so quickly and present a common plan of action at this time, when it had had such a hard time arriving at common solutions for the educational sector earlier. The question, however, is how much impact the action plan actually had.

If we begin with the question of the impact of the action plan, previous research has shown that this was not so much a matter of constituent states having to slavishly follow each point in the programme, but more about their having agreed, through the KMK, on common areas that needed to be worked on to improve the German educational system (cf. Tillman et al., 2008). That level of ambition no doubt made it easier to come to agreement. Another reason why the constituent states could agree had to do with the fact that several of the proposals in the action plan were already education policy targets that the states – albeit to varying degrees – had already carried out. The groundwork was already laid so to speak (Tillman et al., 2008). The weak PISA results provided politicians and other actors with the motives and legitimacy they needed to implement the reform work already in progress. Some points of the action plan, however, involved reforms in the lower grades, that is, grades lower than those assessed by the PISA. One might see these developments as a sign that, by referring to the success of other countries in the assessments, the OECD has been able to put forward (indirect) recommendations of changes in education policy in Germany (Martens and Niemann, 2010).

Nordic countries as an argument

The action plan that the constituent states united around was a start, but it did not put an end to the problems. One reason was the wide discrepancy between states that became clear in the analysis of the PISA results, the so-called PISA-Erweiterung (PISA-E),² made after PISA 2000. The purpose of the PISA-E was to assure school quality throughout Germany (AK Nidederschriften, 2000–2012: NS 169). The first PISA-E study showed that the states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg were far above the OECD average, while Bremen and Berlin were under the average even for Germany (Baumert et al., 2002), which was a tendency that persisted in coming assessments. When it came to the previous East German states, it turned out that there were winners and losers there, too (Baumert et al., 2002). One consequence of this was that states with good results on the PISA claimed that their educational system did well in international comparisons and therefore was not in need of reform (c.f. Niemann, 2009).³

One point of the action plan that prompted debate was the issue of Ganztagsschule, that is, letting students go to school in the afternoon as well, as is done in Scandinavia, for instance. The reason for the KMK recommendation was above all to increase the quality of school education (KMK, 2002; KMK Niederschriften, 2001–2012: NS 299). To obtain inspiration, understanding and arguments for change in that direction, German teachers and politicians involved in education visited Sweden several times during the period from 2001 to 2004. Study tours to the north were undertaken largely due to Sweden’s long tradition as a forerunner in the field of education, especially in areas like inclusion and all-day schooling. A further reason had to do with good, long-standing connections between the countries (Ringarp and Rothland, 2008). However, after the results of PISA 2003 were presented and it turned out that the Swedish results had taken a turn for the worse, the trips went more frequently to Finland instead. Finland had stood out as best in class as early as 2000, and has continued ever since to be among the top nations in the assessments (OECD, 2013; Waldow, 2010).

What interested the Germans especially was the Nordic countries’ notions of equality and the opportunity for everyone to receive equal education. The high degree of school autonomy, deregulation and the barely visible bureaucracy were also objects of admiration. Decentralization and deregulation were something the Germans felt was positive, both for the school as an organization and for the pedagogical work of the school (Ringarp and Rothland, 2008). Apart from study tours, Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung published a report in 2007 in which the German educational system was compared to other countries as “those in the PISA study that in comparison to Germany demonstrate better school performance”.⁴ Both Sweden and Finland were among the six countries referred to in the study,⁵ which described the differences between countries in student composition and the number of students with an immigrant background, etc. The similarities, however, were more interesting:

What is remarkable, however, is the similarities in the processes in the six countries: the schools all have greater responsibility [and] carry out more central tests than in Germany. The school starting age is earlier than in Germany (except for in Finland and Sweden) and differentiation takes place later than in Germany. Students in these countries describe having more support from their teachers and needing less remedial instruction than young German people (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, 2007⁶)

Thus, there are arguments to be had from other countries, both when it comes to legitimizing the introduction of the all-day school (or rather, Ganztagsbetreuung⁷) and stronger control in the form of national tests. As for the issue of Ganztagschule, however, some researchers claim that the need to let children be cared for over a long period in the morning was not merely connected to the PISA results but had other motives as well (Der Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2002). Germany has a growing elderly population, while many women of working age do not work or only work part time. Extending school and childcare time over a longer period of the day would make it possible for more women to work full time (Marcus et al., 2013), and it would also improve the schools’ chances of planning their education differently than when the students are only there for half the day (Stecher et al., 2007).

Was the action plan a success story?

The shock that Germany talked about so much after PISA 2000 has led, as shown in earlier studies, to an increased harmonization of the German educational system to those of other OECD countries. There was some criticism, however, against the OECD influence on the educational sector (see, e.g., Meyer and Zahedi, 2014). This criticism may have abated somewhat as a result of Germany’s improved results in the latest measurements.

PISA 2012 showed that the German students’ results were now above the OECD average in all subjects (OECD, 2013). After this news, German politicians began to talk in positive terms about the reform process that had taken place. Both the action plan and the international recommendations appear to be reasons behind the recovery. After the results of PISA 2012 had been made public, the success was described as PISA 2000 having mobilized Germany into finding a strategy to improve the quality of education throughout the country (see, e.g., Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2013). The results of PISA 2012 thereby showed that the intentions of the action plan to support students from families that were unaccustomed to study, for example, was a fruitful strategy (Die Bundesregierung, 2013). Another successful component is considered to be the introduction of educational standards (Die Bundesregierung, 2013). Still other analysts emphasize the harmonization of common knowledge goals in the various German educational systems, which meant it no longer made any difference what form of school the students went to or which constituent state they lived in (Tagesschau, 2013).

All of the goals of the action plan are far from being implemented, however; therefore, not everything can be said to have been legitimized through the PISA. Whether or not the German parallel school system should still exist is still a question of debate, for instance. There are still strong advocates throughout the country for differentiation in the educational system, especially in the states led by the Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands (CDU) or their sister party the Christlich-Soziale Union (CSU).

Change work per se can be seen as a reason for the road to PISA success, but in what way and for what purpose PISA 2000 was a wake-up call in Germany is still being discussed. My interpretation is that we are dealing with politicians who adopted the OECD framework while using international comparisons as legitimate grounds for implementing certain policies. By referring to international standards, it was possible to carry out changes, even those that were not solely called for in the name of the PISA. When it gradually turned out that students’ achievements improved with each analysis, the voices of the critics grew weaker and weaker.

Besides direct references to the PISA in the debate, references to other countries’ educational systems – such as Finland’s and Sweden’s – have also been made.

Sweden: Collapse of an educational system?

The PISA assessments of 2000 did not evoke the same shock for Sweden as for Germany, partly because the results were relatively good and partly because they were more in harmony with the self-image the country had regarding its level of education. There was little discussion in the publications specialized in education, or even descriptions of the PISA study in general or the Swedish results in particular. As shown in earlier studies, no articles between the years of 2000 and 2004 in the periodical Pedagogisk forskning i Sverige (Pedagogical Research in Sweden) mentioned the PISA results, whether in comparative or national terms (see Ringarp and Rothland, 2008, 2010). However, after the PISA 2003 report published in December 2004, the NAE finally woke up. The reason was that both PISA 2003 and TIMSS 2003, as well as a large national study (NU-03), presented a picture of a drastic loss of knowledge among Swedish students in just 10 years’ time (Skolverket [NAE], 2004c).

The discussion that followed came mainly to deal with what should, or could, be done to stop the trend. The NAE wrote in its annual status report to the central government in the fall of 2004 that, “… two areas are particularly important from the perspective of pupils and equality: access to teachers, teachers’ skills and competent school administration, and standardization in judging and grading” (Skolverket [NAE], 2004a: 12). Similarly, the NAE described the goal-related grade system that had been introduced in 1994 as difficult to interpret and how there was no common knowledge base among teachers or principals for how to give grades (Skolverket [NAE], 2004a). In a report from the same year, the NAE once again referred to the number of unqualified teachers, teachers’ unawareness of school curricula and grade criteria and the fact that some schools gave their students higher grades than they deserved as some of the reasons behind the failure of the grade system (Skolverket [NAE], 2004b). All taken, the NAE felt, these things had led to a situation where “knowledge development in several areas has stood still and in some areas even regressed since 1992” (Skolverket [NAE], 2004a: 18).

The reason for the decline that left students graduating from Grade 9 in 2004 with the same level of knowledge as those who left Grade 8 in 1996, according to the NAE’s then managing director Per Thullberg, was not easy to explain (Thullberg, 2012). As the responsible public authority, the NAE proposed in its status report to the Department of Education that, “the state, the school boards, and the school managers should monitor and analyse the reasons for the lack of goal achievement regarding knowledge as well as norms and values” (Skolverket [NAE], 2004a: 19).

An action plan takes form

The debate continued within the NAE as well, and by early 2005, NAE management decided to appoint a group to tackle the issue of the Swedish school and its decline. The NAE’s then managing director described the situation as the agency wanting to gather together whatever the state still had a certain amount of control of, after the extensive decentralization that took place in the 1990s, such as teacher training, further training, training of school managers, grade criteria and the curricula (Thullberg, 2012). The NAE study led back to the reforms that had been carried out since the end of the 1980s in Sweden: municipalization of teacher positions in 1989, changes in who was responsible for organizing the school in 1990, the independent school reform in 1992, the marketization of the school sector and the introduction of a school driven by goals and results. The effects of the reforms were not immediately noticeable, but after 2004, the assessments clearly showed that a shift had taken place (Ringarp, 2014). Increased school segregation and segregation of knowledge had taken the place of the compensatory school (Jakobsson, 2013). That is to say, what international observers had viewed as unique in the Swedish educational system, “a school for all”, had either disappeared or was in rapid decline (Ringarp, 2014).

What was the reason for the decline in scholastic results? In the spring of 2005, the NAE made a decision to draw up an action programme to respond to these questions (Skolverket [NAE], 2005c). In it, the NAE recommended clearer goals in education and evaluations of student results. In addition, they advocated clearer curricula and higher competence among teachers (Skolverket [NAE], 2005a). They also felt that, in addition to improving teacher training, certification should be considered (Skolverket [NAE], 2005a). Other comments from the NAE involved the question of discipline and orderliness in school. The difference was described in the action programme thus:

(C)ompared to other countries, Swedish students often come too late and disturb their classes. Absence without a reason and vandalism are more common in Swedish schools and Swedish classrooms are more unruly compared to other countries. The picture that emerges is one of tardiness, noise, and general unease. (Skolverket [NAE], 2005a: 11)

However, the countries with which the Swedish school situation is being compared are not mentioned explicitly in either the action programme or the status reports. Rather, the arguments proceed from a vague discussion of the need to compare Swedish students’ level of knowledge with other countries that have higher PISA results in the assessments (see, e.g., Skolverket [NAE], 2005b).

The content of the NAE internal action programme, together with the status accounts from 2004 and 2005, however, made the public debate on Swedish pupils’ school results begin in earnest. The fact that the political parties were arming themselves for an election in 2006 contributed, no doubt, to the fact that the issues received an enormous amount of attention in the media and among informed voters. The action plan and the PISA results made it legitimate for those involved to make a thrust for change based on their own political objectives. This was especially notable in the Liberal Party, where the head of the party, Jan Björklund, seized the opportunity to use parts of the NAE action plan as arguments for the party’s political proposals. The Swedish election in the fall of 2006 led, in fact, to a change in government, and Björklund became the new Minister for Schools, profiling himself on issues like those in the NAE action plan. Several investigations and reforms implemented during the centre-right government’s two terms of office can be traced to items in the action programme: teacher certification (2008), a new teacher training programme (2008) and a new curriculum and new grading criteria (2011).

In the drafting documents for these reforms, Swedish results were often compared to other European countries, especially developments in other Nordic countries, since their educational systems are considered to be most similar to the Swedish one. Two other often-cited countries were Canada and South Korea (see SOU, 2008a, among others).

Canada and Finland were highlighted in positive terms when the new teacher training programme was about to be introduced, and to learn more about their successes, study tours were made to both countries in 2007 and 2008. In the analysis that followed, the teachers’ own room for action and the opportunities offered to them to take part in forming the curriculum, as well as practice-oriented research and the interplay between teacher training and placement training that existed in both Finland and Canada, were held up as good examples. All of these components, the study claimed, helped give teacher training and with it the teaching profession higher status, which in turn instigated a higher number of applicants to the countries’ teacher training programmes (SOU, 2008b).

Was the action plan impeded?

When the Swedish self-image of being “a model for the world” (SOU, 2008b: 102) cracked due to the results of both international and national scholastic assessments in the mid-2000s, Swedish investigative committees thus looked outside the country’s borders to find education policy role models and legitimacy for the implementation of policy changes. Their eyes were especially turned towards the Nordic countries, above all Finland, but some delegations also visited South Korea and Canada. What was discussed above all was the status of the teaching profession and the need to get more high-achieving students to become teachers. The skills of the teaching profession and the need to raise the level of knowledge in the profession were also points taken up in the NAE action programme, where the idea of teacher certification was also presented (2005). An investigation of this was then carried out and, in the School Act from 2010, a new regulation regarding teacher certification was included.

Swedish results, however, have continued to fall, while Finland continues to stay at the top (OECD, 2013). This has led to an even deeper intensification of the discussion of what needs to be done to improve Swedish education. As a certain degree of response, the Department of Education set up two government commissions of inquiry in which, even at the directive stage, references and comparisons of the Swedish situation were made with international assessments and other Nordic countries (see SOU, 2013, 2014a). The subsequent inquiries depicted a picture of the Swedish school as experiencing a crisis of identity and legitimacy due to the knowledge loss (SOU, 2013, 2014a, 2014b) and indicated that it will take time before the reforms of recent years will have any effect (SOU, 2013). To reverse the trend, the state must take back greater responsibility for the educational system from the local level (SOU, 2014a). This way of legitimizing increased national control might be explained based on Olsen’s (2005) argument that the national level, now that the age of decentralization has been in place for a few years, is trying to regain a stronger hold on the educational system. One way of doing this is to use international assessments to legitimize a return to such control.

International assessments as grounds for legitimacy

The results of the international large-scale assessments have triggered reform processes in both Germany and Sweden in recent years, even if the reforms have been of different kinds and at different times. The shock after PISA 2000, followed by a nearly inexhaustible stream of articles and reports about the German school, prompted the debate earlier in Germany than in Sweden, and the effects there had a greater impact within the research community as well (Ringarp and Rothland, 2008). Despite criticism of what PISA can measure and whether scholastic tests are beneficial to the educational system, German politicians, through the KMK, immediately began to draw up an action plan of seven items in 2001, to try to reverse the trend. All of the items have not yet been considered, for various reasons, including the fact that the different needs of each constituent state and their varying inclination towards change have worked against it. There are signs, however, that indicate that some part of Germany is on its way towards a common single school form, like that in Scandinavia (see, e.g., Merkelbach, 2008), despite the fact that education is supposed to be the business of the individual states. Tillmann et al. (2008) have elucidated recent developments in a study of four German states. They put forth that one reason for the German recovery was the fact that the Minister of Education promptly understood the importance of finding common solutions – in the form of increased system monitoring – to show outward consensus when the crisis was a fact. This increase in system monitoring has also brought about increased conformity of the German educational system. The work of raising German students’ results has continued, with the efforts of the KMK as a driving force. The increasingly better PISA results have probably contributed to continued harmonization of the educational system and the silencing of a certain amount of criticism. “Ratings and rankings”, as demonstrated by Martens and Niemann (2010), have thus influenced national education policy in Germany. References to the OECD measurements and other countries’ educational systems have also been prominent when reforms of the education system have been discussed and implemented.

In Sweden, the results of PISA 2003, along with national studies and the domestic political situation, have led to a situation where issues of education quality have stood in the spotlight since 2004. Unlike Germany, it was not ruling politicians who first put forward concrete measures for reforms, but the school authority NAE that triggered an internal inquiry. This may have to do both with the fact that there was an initial political resistance to discussing change, possibly due to the self-image ruling Social Democrats had of Sweden as a model for the world, which did not need to change, and with the fact that the educational system is administrated differently in Sweden than in Germany. After the change of government in 2006, however, a number of reforms took place in the field of education in Sweden, with the Department of Education as the driving force. In addition, in the preparatory work leading up to the reforms of recent years, references have often been made to the OECD measurements and to other countries, especially Finland (see, e.g., SOU, 2013, 2014a, 2014b).

PISA lends legitimacy

Foreign countries as an argument (Zymek, 1975) or reference (Schriewer, 1990) for initiating reforms have been used to legitimize educational policy reform processes in both Germany and Sweden. This becomes especially clear after the countries underwent the “PISA shock” that led to close scrutiny of the educational system. The formulation of the problem, that is, why low PISA results are a problem, emerges as fairly similar in both countries. Germany emphasized the disparities between the constituent states and the low results of students with immigrant backgrounds, while the greatest focus in Sweden was on increasing segregation in the school system and how this could lead to a decline in economic competitiveness in a small country. The solutions for how to solve the problem – the fall in results – were also similar: increased governance and control of various elements of the educational system, albeit of different kinds.

For Germany’s part, the need to find solutions meant using Finland, Sweden and Canada as reference societies. The discussion revolved above all around these countries’ efforts to focus on results and standard-based criteria. Another area in which Germany often referred to the above-mentioned countries was early help to children from families that were unaccustomed to study and the age at which children should begin school. A further subject of discussion was the question of introducing the all-day school, with the Nordic countries as a model. This, however, is a process that involves major social change and therefore is still in its infancy.

In Sweden, the need to come to terms with the loss of knowledge has primarily involved raising the status of teachers through higher pay and the introduction of teacher certification. The need to recruit higher-achieving students to train to be teachers is another solution that has been discussed. In this debate, the focus has been on Finland and Canada, both viewed as good examples. Still another theme involves more discipline and orderliness in the Swedish schools, with countries with high PISA results as models.

Arguing that the proposed reforms will strengthen your country’s position in the ranking lists lends legitimacy to the changes advocated by the actors. The outcomes of the changes – which do not strictly lie within the framework of this study – have been diametrically different, however. Germany has improved its position in the ranking list while Sweden has continued to fall. References to the PISA are thus used as an argument even when there is no true causal connection between reforms and improvements in results.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interest

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Funding

This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet).

Notes

Author biography

Johanna Ringarp is Doctor of Philosophy in the department of Education at Uppsala University, Sweden. Her research specialties include educational policy, teacher profession and post-Second world war German history.

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