This symposium enquires into the politics and practices of international literacy assessment programmes, exploring how the internationally comparable numbers increasingly relied upon in national policy and practice are produced and how they shape our understanding of the meanings and purposes of literacy. It looks at the interconnections between the European policy space (Novoa and Lawn, 2002) and other regional and international agencies in developing “common worlds” through comparative assessments (Dale and Robertson, 2009; Lawn and Lingard, 2002).

 The presenters aim to raise questions and trigger discussion on processes of quantification by examining the concepts of literacy competence that underpin international assessment data; the challenges of developing cross-culturally valid measurement programmes and how survey findings are used in policy and practice in diverse international settings. They show that issues debated in this area are matters of value as well as technical matters and that asymmetric power relations suffuse the field.

 This panel starts from an understanding of literacy as a set of diverse and broad practices embedded in wider modes of communication and implicated in learning in many social domains (Street and Lefstein,2007; Cope and Kalantzis,2000). It problematises the model of literacy constructed within international tests and explores the underpinning assumptions about the role and causal effects of literacy for individuals, economies and societies as well as the presumption of a global curriculum and pedagogy for literacy entailed by international comparisons.  Presenters address the institutional politics and geographies that frame literacy in assessment, as it transitions from diverse and plural everyday practices, via tests and test items, to measures on a common scale (Grek,2008; Hamilton 2012).

  Inspired by the tools and methodologies of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and the material semiotics of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) (Fenwick et al,2011; Latour, 2005), we advocate a move towards a sociology of measurement and commensuration in education (Espeland and Stevens, 2008). This involves conceptual discussions about how international literacy data is produced, for what purposes, and under what systems of transparency and accountability.

The amount of (often invisible) work that goes on behind the scenes in producing the tests and the resulting policies demands close up ethnographic, documentary and case study of these processes, especially insider accounts of the workings of  what Latour calls “centres of calculation”. Enquiring into these practices from the inside offers producers and users of the data a greater understanding of its validity and meaning, especially in regard to literacy conceived of as social practice. The panel presentations draw on recent examples of such enquiries.

 The themes we explore in this panel go beyond conventional issues of the validity of international assessment to speak to wider concerns with power, legitimacy, resource flows and accountability of the State and of transnational organisations in the global ordering of knowledge about literacy. Given the claims often made about the links between statistical knowledge,equity and the democratic process (see Rose 1991), we believe that discussion of these themes should be integrated routinely into the workings of democratic institutions and should be accessible to practitioners.

 Our aim is to create a platform from which to interrogate international assessments and to explore, through interdisciplinary discussion and scholarship, ways to improve such assessments and mitigate their adverse effects on policies. Our focus on confronting the challenges that diverse cultures, languages and literacies pose in relation to international assessments contributes directly to the themes of this SIG as we consider the ways in which these assessments contribute to the fabrication of a common European policy space. 

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