Data for Accountability in Education: Global Trends in School Reform

This timely book investigates the emergence of data-for-accountability as a governing tool in education. Five leading scholars explore its evolution over time and across regions, highlighting how datafication in education benefits some and disadvantages others.

The authors trace the origins of using data for accountability in education back to the 1990s, demonstrating how various actors have adapted and tailored this trend, thus diversifying its use as a governance tool. They examine the rise of student testing, performance-based evaluation and governance by numbers to reveal the political, economic and pedagogical uses and abuses of data. Drawing on a variety of methods, theories and disciplines, including a combination of macro-, meso-, and microlevel analyses, the authors illustrate how these instruments have taken root globally, why they persist and how their meanings and effects vary across policy contexts.

Data for Accountability in Education is a crucial resource for scholars, students and practitioners in comparative education and international education policy, as well as those engaged with the sociology of education. Policymakers working with educational data will also find the book a valuable reference point for understanding accountability in education.