There is widespread concern about declining literacy skills in recent young Japanese. The present study investigated how higher-level reading and writing proficiencies are underpinned by basic literacy skills in Japanese adolescents. From a large database of the most popular literacy exams in Japan, we retrospectively analyzed word- and text-level…

The Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA) has instigated domestic policy debate aimed at improving education systems' quality and efficiency. Its high performers are often described as knowledge-based legitimation tools that have become reference societies. This article analyses if and the extent to which PISA affects the choice of…