Globalization and the Growth of International Educational Testing and National Assessment
Globalization and the Growth of International Educational Testing and National Assessment
复制标题
全球化以及国际教育考试和国家评估的发展
DOI：
--
复制
发表时间：
2009
影响因子：
1.8
通讯作者：
C. McNeely
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
David H. Kamens;C. McNeely
长期以来，教育一直被视为当今世界国家经济发展和政治民主化的核心要求。此外，国际基准已被确定为“改进的基础……只有通过这样的基准，各国才能了解其教育系统的相对优势和劣势，并确定最佳实践和前进道路”（OECD 2006，18）。像这个例子这样的陈述标志着国际社会（至少在“发达国家”之间）已经形成了关于国际测试和国家评估的合法性，甚至必要性的共识。正如 David P. Baker 和 Gerald K. LeTendre (2005) 所观察到的，国际考试和国家评估都与改革教育体系的努力相关，而且它们本身往往是进一步改革周期的刺激因素。他们指出，国际测试的结果将进一步激发人们对国家评估的兴趣。在这里，我们对导致国家教育评估和国际测试爆炸性增长的全球力量进行了论证。我们特别认为，国际上对测试的接受来自世界政体中的主要意识形态力量，这些力量与国家和国际文化、经济和政治结构的加速全球化有关。在我们阐述和论证这一论点的同时，我们还指出，各国对这一更大的世界文化的适应可能会有所不同，这取决于国际组织和区域协会的存在和能力，这些组织和区域协会负责调解这些变化并使其适应各个国家的情况。此外，我们还考虑了地方运动在引入变革压力方面的影响，这可能有利于更多的国家评估。
Education has long been characterized as a central requirement for national economic development and political democratization in the contemporary world. Moreover, international benchmarking has been identified as the “basis for improvement. . . . It is only through such benchmarking that countries can understand relative strengths and weaknesses of their education systems and identify best practices and ways forward” (OECD 2006, 18). Statements such as this example signal an international consensus that has emerged— at least among “developed” countries—about the legitimacy and, even more so, the necessity of international testing and national assessment. As David P. Baker and Gerald K. LeTendre (2005) observe, both international testing and national assessment are linked to efforts to reform educational systems and are often themselves stimuli for further cycles of reform. The results of international testing, they note, will fuel further interest in national assessment. Here we develop an argument about the global forces that have led to the explosive growth of national educational assessment and international testing. In particular, we argue that the international acceptance of testing comes from key ideological forces in the world polity that are associated with the accelerating globalization of national and international cultural, economic, and political structures. As we develop and warrant this argument, we also qualify it by pointing out that national adaptations to this larger world culture may vary depending on the presence and capacities of international organizations and regional associations that act to mediate and adapt these changes to conditions in individual countries. In addition, we consider the effects of subnational movements in introducing pressures for change that may favor more national assessment.