Beyond large-scale achievement testing – The 'psychological turn' in international organizations' work on educational assessment. In: Wiseman, A. et al. (ed) Cross-nationally Comparative, Evidence-based Educational Policymaking and Reform (International Perspectives on Education and Society) (original) (raw)

This article puts forward two claims. First, it argues that, historically, the rationale for education has shifted from religious and national indoctrination to, in the more recent neoliberal period, human capital and the related notion of individual empowerment. The article argues, secondly, that the recent shift towards individual empowerment is reflected in international organizations' changing emphases (IOs) in education. IOs' educational agenda has undergone various changes since their early work in the 1960s: from the structural expansion of national education systems to the measurement of individual educational achievement through a focus on competencies and, most recently, individual psychosocial development. Based on a content analysis of 60 documents from 38 IOs involved in international education networks between 1990–2015, this work identifies an expanding field of IOs directing attention to the mental capabilities of the learner. The proliferated model of individual actorhood reflected in these novel assessment designs will be presented and embedded in wider discussions about the cultural construction of the individual in contemporary world polity.