The discussion of empirical data on international education assessments presented in this paper seeks to provide insights into the changing global education policy landscape (Verger et al 2012; Rizvi and Lingard 2010; Meyer and Benavot 2013).

This paper is guided by two main research questions: how are international education assessments changing education policy processes? And, how are global policy actors reframing themselves as they enter new contexts? These questions have been developed by analysing and observing the development of PISA into a policy instrument for lower and middle income countries, called PISA for Development. With the OECD broadening its coverage to become a global organization (OECD 2012), the OECD’s contracting of private companies to respond to new educational policy challenges (OECD 2014), and the increased participation of lower and middle income countries in international education assessments (Bloem 2013), it is of critical importance to study how global policy actors are changing their identities and education policy processes.

After a brief discussion of the rationales supporting the enhancement of the PISA instruments for lower and middle income contexts, the development of the PISA for Development (PISA-D) policy agenda and activities, and the role of the consortium of PISA-D contracted private companies, this paper offers an Actor-Network Theory analysis (Latour 2005, Callon 1986, Latour and Woolgar 1986) of the actors enrolled in the PISA-D assemblage, its workings, and its folding in of multiple interests. The ANT theoretical lens highlight how the identities of global policy actors are translated, adapted and changed; how shared understandings are constructed; how the PISA-D non-human actors strengthen the PISA-D assemblage and temporarily freeze truths; and how centres of calculation become dispersed and co-inhabited centres in the PISA-D assemblage. 

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