The symposium gathers research that studies changes in educational governance and policy by focusing explicitly on the use of policy instruments and tools that rely on "information" (e.g. benchmarks, magazines, media, data-sets, rankings, examples of best practice, etc.). The point of departure is that an increasing number of activities in educational policy making are directed towards ‘informing’ and ‘getting informed’ (as school, teachers, student …) (Simons, 2007). Additionally, ‘information management’ seems to become an essential part of what policy making and governing in education is about. As a consequence, the selection, concentration and distribution of information have clearly become an important challenge for governmental agencies. This seems to be the case at all levels of educational policy making: the international level (e.g. the PISA and TIMSS assessment studies), the national level (e.g. international benchmarking), the school level (e.g. school rankings), and even at the level of the individual teachers and pupils (e.g. performance assessment). In Flanders (Belgium) for example, the minister of education stresses the importance of an ‘information-rich-environment’ for policy makers and schools (e.g. Vandenbroucke, 2004). The assumption is that policy makers at state level and school leaders should be able to have at any moment up-to-date information at their disposal to evaluate what is actually going on and to develop adequate policies (e.g. Schuller, Jochems, Moos & Van Zanten, 2006). Media and school magazines come to play a strategic role in the new ‘information rich’ policy environment (see e.g. Lingard & Rawolle, 2004). The distribution of information at all levels is regarded indeed as a crucial strategy to keep education, schools and teachers governable (e.g. Rose & Miller, 2008). Clearly, ‘governing through information’ is not only a new policy strategy; people in education are regarded as being in need of this information in order to optimize their performance. Information here functions as a kind of feedback; based on the ongoing stream of information, it is suggested that one is able to know where one stands, and often also where one is standing in comparison to others (Simons, 2007). The underlying assumption of the new policy context is clearly expressed in the following quote of Andreas Schleicher, head of the OECD: “Without data you are just another person with an opinion”. Subscribing to this assumption, many policy makers actually see it as their task to produce, collect and distribute information (Grek, 2008).

The studies in this symposium address the following questions: 1)How do policy instruments relying on information actually work, and what kind of information is produced, collected, distributed? 2)What are the implications of the use of these instruments for the position of government(s), the actors in the field of education, and for the the relationship between policy and the educational field?; The studies do not take the current exchange of information for granted. They question critically the opportunities and limits of the use of information in education policy. The symposium includes different research/theoretical perspectives (studies of governmentality, field theory, state theory), ‘cases’ (role of media, effect of PISA, information rich environment, educational journal) and geographical and cultural contexts. Different kinds of data sets are used, related to different methodological choices: critical discourse analysis, policy document analysis and newspaper analysis. National and international educational policy making initiatives are covered.

The heterogeneity in theoretical perspectives, methodological frameworks and data used will help to get a more detailed understanding of how current information-rich policy contexts actually work. As a result, it will offer plenty of opportunities for a discussion that is at once rather focused and differentiated. In revealing the strategies of ‘governing through information’ in local, national and international policy fields, the symposium will contribute to a critical understanding of changes in the present educational policy and governance.