Literacy as Numbers Researching the Politics and Practices of International Literary Assessment

This book enquires into the politics and practices of international literacy assessment programmes, exploring how the internationally comparable numbers, now so heavily relied on in national policy are produced, and how they are shaping our understanding of the meanings and purposes of literacy. The collection brings together leading international academics in this field and representatives from key policy and literacy assessment institutions to identify a future research agenda for the field of International Assessment Studies. It illuminates the amount of (often invisible) work that goes on behind the scenes in producing the tests and the policies.

Notes on contributors; Series editors' preface; Foreword Gita Steiner-Khamsi; Introduction Mary Hamilton, Bryan Maddox, Camilla Addey; Part 1. Definitions and Conceptualisations: 1. Assembling a sociology of numbers Radhika Gorur; 2. New literacisation, curricular isomorphism and the OECD's PISA Sam Sellar, Bob Lingard; 3. Transnational education policy-making: international assessments and the formation of a new institutional order Sotiria Grek; 4. Interpreting international surveys of adult skills: methodological and policy-related issues Jeff Evans; Part 2. Processes, Effects and Practices: 5. Disentangling policy intentions, educational practice and the discourse of quantification: accounting for the policy of 'payment by results' in nineteenth-century England Gemma Moss; 6. Adding new numbers to the literacy narrative: using PIAAC data to focus on literacy practices JD Carpentieri; 7. How feasible is it to develop a culturally sensitive large-scale standardised assessment of literacy skills? César Guadalupe; 8. Inside the assessment machine: the life and times of a test item Bryan Maddox; 9. Participating in international literacy assessments in Lao PDR and Mongolia: a global ritual of belonging Camilla Addey; 10. Towards a global model in education? International student literacy assessments and their impact on policies and institutions Tonia Bieber, Kerstin Martens, Dennis Niemann, Janna Teltemann; 11. From an international adult literacy assessment to the classroom: how test development methods are transposed into the curriculum Christine Pinsent-Johnson; 12. Counting 'what you want them to want': psychometrics and social policy in Ontario Tannis Atkinson.