Against the backdrop of PISA 2015 results, the aim of this study is to review basic structures of German education system by exploring curriculum development process, key features of each educational level and teacher education in order to grasp how Germany has amended her poor performance after PISA 2000 and persistently improved the quality of…

PISA is an extremely influential large-scale assessment, and its "policy lessons" are being incorporated in a range of nations all over the world. In this paper I argue that not only is PISA influencing policies and practices, but also that "seeing like PISA" is becoming a widespread phenomenon. Globally, education…

Background/Context: Two key uses of international assessments of achievement have been (a) comparing country performances for identifying the countries with the best education systems and (2) generating insights about effective policy and practice strategies that are associated with higher learning outcomes. Do country rankings really reflect the…

This paper provides evidence on the sources of differences in inequality in educational scores and their evolution over time in four European countries. Using Programme for International Student Assessment data from the 2000 and the 2006 waves, the paper shows that inequality decreased in Germany and Spain (two "decentralised" schooling…

Beside interindividual social comparisons, intraindividual dimensional comparisons in which students compare their achievements in one subject with their achievements in other subjects have an impact on their academic self-concepts. The internal/external frame of reference (I/E) model by Marsh (1986) assumes that dimensional comparisons lead to…