Conference Agenda

The influence of supranational organizations on the development of education systems and education policies can hardly be overstated (Daun, 2011). In fact, while this influence has grown in the last few years, as Román, Hallsén, Nordin & Ringarp (2015) point out, already in the late 1990’s, concerns of how standardisation and guidelines from such organizations had been raised in terms of an emerging “world education culture”. This can be seen, as a result of ideological paradigm shift, introducing neoliberal rationality and economical concepts into a wide array of societal institutions through economical organizations such as the World Bank and IMF and through the influence of the OECD (Jones, 2004). While this form of educational policy borrowing, or at least adaption of similar policies into varying contexts (Steiner-Khamsi, 2004), the “international argument” has gained importance – in particular in countries facing a sort of PISA-crises (Ringarp & Waldow, 2016). This is particularly visible in the Nordic context (e.g. Dovemark et al. 2018) where the “Nordic model” is increasingly seen as having been devalued.

In the Nordic context, recent research projects have illustrated how education policy making in the Nordic countries use different sources of information as evidence (knowledge claims backed up by information) to argue for or against different politics and policies (Karseth, Sivesind & Steiner-Khamsi. 2022; Steiner-Khamsi, Karseth & Baek, 2020). In some countries, it feeds into an “policy of suspiciousness” (Wahlström & Nordin, 2022) towards national researchers, government authorities and educational practitioners – giving increased weight to international references and more importantly supranational organizations, increasingly viewed as “objective” actors (Sivesind & Karseth, 2019).

This symposium aims to illustrate the effects of the OECD in educational policies in the Nordic context with four examples of analysis of OECD documents and their correspondence as regards national education policy documents from Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Iceland. The first paper is a Norwegian study which illustrates how OECD is issuing values and how data from the Nordic countries serve as policy examples.

The second paper is a Swedish study which illustrates an interdependent and legitimizing relationship between the nation-state and the OECD in legitimizing educational reforms albeit ambivalent and alterign over time, even showing that the OECD was perhaps not a driving factor in introducing NPM in Sweden in the 1990’s. The Icelandic study illustrates a clear referential relationship and dependence on OECD from the Icelandic authorities, with new large scale policy documents gaining high influence despite not being legislative or regulatory and despite limited reference or consideration of currently valid educational legislation or curricula. Lastly, we have a historical comparative study, examining the emergence of the OECD's influence in two Nordic countries, Finland and Norway, concentrating on the discursive preparation work behind the current policy practices and discussing the perennial problem of external policy advice in the field of a territorially organized education system.

This symposium thus illuminates the interplay between national authorities, political processes, and education policies and the OECD. Although the cases are all from the Nordic context, there are clear parallels and lessons to be drawn for European education research, with results of importance for researchers, policy-makers and practitioners alike.

Through the capacity to collect and utilize comparative country data, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has become a "powerhouse” (Grek, 2014) that advocates for education policy reforms worldwide. Although governments remain central in policymaking they are constantly under pressure to interact, negotiate and mediate between a multitude of policy actors (Steiner-Khamsi, 2022). Nordic education policy research has explored to a great extent how national policymakers borrow or reject transnational policy elements in national education policymaking. However, there is a lack of research on how the OECD constructs transnational policies through a selection of country data and research. To contribute to the research on the OECD this paper explores how OECD orchestrates the process of shaping a shared imaginary of the future curriculum with particular attention to how values are issued. The following two research questions are guiding our study: 1. How is the issue of values modified and positioned through the reports from OECD’s Curriculum (re)design project 2. How is data from the Nordic countries used in OECD’s storytelling on values and attitudes? To explore the processes of transnational policymaking through the utilization of comparative country data and research this paper leans on discursive institutionalism (DI) as a theoretical framework for exploring the formation, communication, and translation of transnational policy ideas. Additionally, Actor-network theory (ANT) inspires the exploration of the modifying work of constructing the narrative of the future curriculum with a particular interest in how values are issued. The selected documents that we analyze are the thematic reports produced within OECD’s Curriculum (re)design project and especially the report on values and attitudes (OECD 2021). Our analysis shows that values are issued in different ways throughout the documents. Hence, documents are texts that modify and transform issues rather than simply describe them. Furthermore, borrowing the concept of contexting by Asdal and Moser (2012), we argue that the report is contexting values in different ways within a document and between documents. Moreover, the presence of the Nordic countries varies in the reports. This is partly due to how the countries decide to participate. OECD orchestrating of the future curriculum is depended on how the individual country engages itself in policy issues and initiatives. This means that the effort and engagement must be related to “what’s in it for us”. This also goes for the issuing of values.

Asdal, K. (2015). What is the issue? The transformative capacity of documents. Distinktion (Aarhus), 16(1), 74–90. https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2015.1022194 Asdal, K., & Moser, I. (2012). Experiments in Context and Contexting. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 37(4), 291–306. https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243912449749 Grek, S. (2014). OECD as a site of coproduction: European education governance and the new politics of ‘policy mobilization.’ Critical Policy Studies, 8(3), 266–281. https://doi.org/10.1080/19460171.2013.862503 OECD 2021 Embedding Values and Attitudes in Curriculum: Shaping a Better Future, OECD (2021), OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/aee2adcd-en Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2022). What Is in a Reference? Theoretically Understanding the Uses of Evidence in Education Policy. In B. Karseth, K. Sivesind, & G. Steiner-Khamsi (Eds.), Evidence and Expertise in Nordic Education Policy: A Comparative Network Analysis (pp. 33–57). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91959-7_2

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the role of the organization is to ‘work on establishing evidence-based international standards’ in education by providing ‘a unique forum and knowledge hub for data and analysis, exchange of experiences, best-practice sharing, and advice on public policies’ (OECD, 2022). Simultaneously, nation-states participate in the work of setting up international standards and serve as places for the negotiation of transnational policies and national adaptations, leading to an increased interdependence between transnational and national arenas (Steiner-Khamsi, 2004). The purpose of this paper is to explore the national government and the OECD as two arenas depending on each other for their exercise of power and legitimization of education reforms. The research question is “How do the government and the political parties in Sweden use the OECD to legitimize their policy, and how does the OECD use Swedish education policy to promote its policy ideals”? The study draws on discursive institutionalism for a theoretical conceptualization (Carstensen & Schmidt, 2016), which argues that ideas, discourses, and human agency are central for understanding how social institutions both can be maintained and change. Ideas are here seen as represented through discourse that is the interactive process by which ideas are processed, changed, and conveyed. The data consists of Swedish policy documents and reports from the OECD between the years from 1992 to 2021. The analytical approach to the policy texts is critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2010). Critical discourse analysis distinguishes between three steps in the analysis: the descriptive, interpretive and explanatory phases (Fairclough, 2001). The result reveals that the market-based school reform in Sweden 1991 raised many critical questions from the OECD (OECD, 1992). In particular, the OECD questioned policy instruments such as ‘school choice’ and ‘competition’ as governance methods for national school systems, which indicates that the OECD was not at the time a strong proponent of New Public Management (NPM). In the succeeding decades, the conformity between Sweden and the OECD regarding education policy has alternated over time, from occasions of close cooperation between the Swedish government and the OECD regarding evaluation of the school system (Wahlström & Nordin, 2020) to mistrust between the Swedish Parliament and the OECD concerning the application of rules in conducting the 2018 international knowledge test of PISA (NAO, 2021).

Carstensen, M. B. & Schmidt, V. A. (2016). Power through, over and in ideas: Conceptualizing ideational power in discursive institutionalism. Journal of European Public Policy, 23(3), 318–337. Fairclough, N. (2001). Language and Power. Pearson. Fairclough, N. (2010). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. Pearson. NAO. (2021). Pisa-undersökningen 2018 – arbetet med att säkerställa ett tillförlitligt elevdeltagande. Riksrevisionens granskning [The 2018 Pisa survey: The work to ensure reliable student participation. The National Audit Office’s review]. The Swedish National Audit Office. OECD (2022). The OECD website https://www.oecd.org/about/ Received 2022-11-11 Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2004). The global politics of educational borrowing and lending. Teachers College Press. Wahlström; N. & Nordin, A. (2020). Policy of suspiciousness – mobilization of educational reforms in Sweden. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 43(2), 251-265. DOI: 10.1080/01596306.2020.1822294

In recent decades, the OECD has grown into a significant educational policy influencer, whose recommendations have been followed by countries around the world. Many of the practices supported by the OECD, such as the PISA assessments, have been adopted as a central and integral part of the national education policy (Waldow & Steiner-Khamsi, 2019). This article examines the emergence of the OECD's influence in two Nordic countries, Finland and Norway, in the light of a historical comparison. We focus especially on OECD country visits and country reviews in the 1980s. The reason for focusing on 1980s is that it seems to constitute an important transformation period after which the OECD turned from the external actor to an author which views and recommendations began to be followed and referenced quite enthusiastically both in Finland and Norway (Rinne et al, 2004; Imsen & Volckmar, 2014). By analyzing key documents published either by OECD or local authorities (OECD, 1982; OECD, 1988), our research focuses on the rhetorical means (ethos, logos and pathos) through which the OECD's country-specific recommendations for Finland and Norway begin to look not only attractive, but also necessary. By doing so, our paper aims to remind of the discursive preparation work behind the current policy practices. In addition, we also discuss the perennial problem of external policy advice in the field of a territorially organized education system.

Imsen, G. & Volckmar, N. (2014). The Norwegian School for All: Historical Emergence and Neoliberal Confrontation. In U. Blossing, G. Imsen, & L. Moos (Eds.). The Nordic education model: "A school for all" encounters neo-liberal policy (pp. 35–55). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands OECD (1982). Reviews of national policies for education: Finland. Paris: Department of the Examiners. OECD (1988). OECD-vurdering av norsk utdanningspolitikk [OECD-assessment of Norwegian education policy]. Oslo: Kirke-og undervisningsdepartementet. Rinne, R., Kallo, J. & Hokka, S. (2004). Too Eager to Comply? OECD Education Policies and the Finnish Response. European Educational Research Journal, 3(2), 454–485. Waldow, F. & Steiner-Khamsi, G. (Eds.). (2019). Understanding PISA’s Attractiveness: Critical Analyses in Comparative Policy Studies. London, UK.: Bloomsbury.

The OECD is an inevitable force in contemporary education, and informs political decision-making and policy-making in education, although several researchers have questioned whether the OECD is an objective, politically neutral organisation (Steiner-Khamsi, 2019; Ydesen, Kaukko & Magnúsdóttir, 2022). Still, the organisation’s reputation sustains and politicians are under pressure to move education systems up the OECD rankings of education systems. In this paper, policies are seen as “intended to bring about idealised solutions to diagnosed problems” (Ball 1990, 26) and are contested and interpreted by policy-makers, practitioners and external actors. Compared to other countries, Icelandic Ministers have been independent and the role of the position loosely defined (Kristinsson, 2009, Magnúsdóttir & Jónasson, 2022). However, the governmental aim has been to strengthen professionalism and democratic practices (Árnason & Henryson, 2018). This paper illustrates how the OECD affects recent education policy-making in Iceland and how governmental procedure has developed from one visionary policy document to another, utilizing the OECD. We analyse the most recent large-scale education policy-package from Iceland and compare it to the process on the White Paper 2014 (Magnúsdóttir & Jónasson; Ydesen, Kauko & Magnúsdóttir, 2022). The documents chosen include Education Policy to 2030 (Icelandic Parliament 2020), an action plan (2020-2024), and two green papers (2017; 2019). The introduction to Education Policy to 2030 announces that OECD was the main provider of consultancy throughout the policy making process and that report (OECD, 2021) is therefore included in the analysis. Theoretical concepts from Popkewitz (2008) and Bacchis WPR-method (Bacchi, 1999) structures the analysis. Interestingly, neither the Education Policy to 2030 nor the report from the OECD frame it in relation to either current educational legislation or curricula. The national curriculum is mentioned only when adaptions of it to the new policy are suggested. The White Paper (2014) was not supported by green papers, however, Education Policy to 2030 was supported by two green papers, both concerning inclusive education. The OECD report is heavily self-referential mostly referring to other OECD reports and the two supporting green papers are not mentioned Our preliminary conclusions are that the OECD is of great influence in these two education policies studied here, and in the Education Policy to 2030, they are not only a referential point and a tool to legitimate particular policies, but also a post-hoc policy-implementation adviser. It seems that OECD has become the solution to the perceived lack of professional procedure in Icelandic governance.

Bacchi, C. 1999. Women, Policy and Politics. The Construction of Policy Problems. London: Sage Publications. Ball, S. J. 1990. Disciplin and Chaos. The new Right and Discourses of Derision. Politics and Policy Making in Education. London: Routledge Jóhannesson, I. Á. & Gunnþórsdóttir, H. (2022). Óreiðukennd fyrsta aðgerðaáætlun í menntamálum. Skólaþræðir 4 november 2022. Kristinsson, G. H. (2009). More safe than sound? Cabinet ministers in Iceland. In K. Dowding & P. Dumont (Eds.), The selection of ministers in Europe. Hiring and firing (pp. 194–203). Routledge. Magnúsdóttir, B. R., & Jónasson, J. T. (2022). The Irregular Formation of State Policy Documents in the Icelandic Field of Education 2013–2017. In B. Karseth, K. Sivesind, & G. Steiner-Khamsi (Eds.), Evidence and Expertise in Nordic Education Policy: A Comparative Network Analysis (pp. 149-182). Springer International Publishing. Mennta- og menningarmálaráðuneyti. (2014). Hvítbók um umbætur í menntun. Mennta- og menningarmálaráðuneyti. (2021). Menntastefna 2030. Fyrsta aðgerðaáætlun 2021–2024 Ydesen, C., Kauko, J., & Magnúsdóttir, B. R. (2022). The OECD and the Field of Knowledge Brokers in Danish, Finnish, and Icelandic Education Policy. In B. Karseth, K. Sivesind, & G. Steiner-Khamsi (Eds.), Evidence and Expertise in Nordic Education Policy: A Comparative Network Analysis (pp. 321-348). Springer International Publishing.