International comparisons have become the lifeblood of education governance in Europe and globally; however, they are not just a contemporary phenomenon. On the contrary, governing by comparison in education is historically as deep-rooted as the founding of the European nation-states themselves. Using Sweden as a case study, the aim of this paper is to explore and analyse the ways in which national systems and their innovations were influenced, constructed and traded through the use of education comparisons. By focusing on Sweden, a country considered to be one of the leading European education systems for most of the 19th and 20th centuries, we will examine the workings and effects of international education comparisons through an examination of the role and impact of representing the Swedish education system in two historical junctures: the first historical point in our analysis will be the late 19^th century World Fairs and the exhibition of Sweden as a model education system (through the literal use of models to represent schooling in the nation); the second historical moment is the one of Sweden being represented as a failed system, as this has been exemplified in the ‘killer’ charts and rankings of the OECD PISA results. Through both primary data collection and secondary analysis of qualitative data, we will explain the ways in which aesthetic governing and the use of comparison as a spectacle – either of glory or of fear- creates policy dispositions that may be far starker and effective than any detailed analysis and use of evidence in contemporary policy making. The case of Sweden will also be seen from the broader spectrum of European education governance and situated in this context and policy landscape.

The power of the spectacle of comparison, from the traditional World fairs all the way to PISA tables, is often related to the notion of accountability. Sobe and Boven describe the accountability of exhibitions  (and perhaps their contemporary equivalent of the rating and ranking of country tables) as the “’political’ work of establishing norms, constructing subjectivities and helping to establish what is and is not possible’ through ”rituals of verification” (2014). Exhibitions have often been considered as ways of standardising and creating uniformity via information on educational systems that in some ways is quantifiable.

Going beyond the notion of the comparative spectacle (which has been developed eloquently by the classic work of Novoa and Yariv-Mashal, 2003) when looking closer both at older exhibitions and at OECD reports like Education at a Glance, and in particular the media presentation of PISA results, we are able to discern efforts for an aesthetic representation  of educational comparisons (Ghertner 2010; 2011; for an example of international assessments as  aesthetic representation, see: C. Lundahl, The Beauty in PISA http://www.paristopisa.com/?p=66) ; these can be educational objects, such as schoolhouses, teaching materials, and pupils’ work at display at a World’s fair or even the colourful sloping diagram of a country’s PISA result in the morning news. Therefore we suggest that we distinguish between  numerical accountability and aesthetic governing, where the former is seen more as a panoptical power producing standards through statistical norms and calculations whilst the latter can be seen as a synoptical power, producing and displaying ideals effecting emotions, beliefs, hopes etc. The notion of aesthetic governing would then work as a complement to numerical accountability, allowing an understanding of how traditional exhibitions as well as modern comparative data can both relate to governing senses and thus selves. 

The paper is based on current research in the project ‘From Paris to Pisa: Governing Education by Comparison 1867-2015’, funded by the Swedish Research Council.

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