Reclaiming Education in the Age of Pisa ─ Challenging OECD Educational Order

PISA’s Violence provides a critical analysis of the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Based on an analysis of the OECD’s public documents, including publications, webpages, and videos, d’Agnese argues that PISA is not just an assessment tool, but rather an all-encompassing framework that intends to govern education, schooling, living and society worldwide. This creation of what d’Agnese calls a life-brand, raises concerns that education and learning are becoming wares and that, consequently, we run the risk of transforming schools into providers and teachers into agents of preconceived learning packages.

In pursuing only one concept of education, and a very narrow one at that, d’Agnese argues that OECD not only puts democracy and social justice at risk, but that such an approach also erases the basic rules by which living develops and evolves. Without engagement and without challenging given forms of life, education is at risk of becoming the means to facilitate the progressive impoverishment of the living, and the perpetuation of injustice and inequality into the future. PISA’s Violence suggests a different educational logic, emphasizing that schooling is not just a place to produce the correct skills, but is also a matter of experimentation, hesitation and wait, one in which we attempt to dwell in pure potentiality for growth.

Providing a strong argument that a different way to conceive of schooling deserves our attention, this book will be essential reading for academics, researchers and postgraduates in the fields of educational philosophy and theory, inclusive education and social justice. It should also be of interest to policymakers and educational activists.

Vasco d’Agnese, PhD, is Associate Professor of Education in the Department of Psychology, University of Naples II, with interests in educational theory, Heidegger, Dewey and postmodernism.