The focus of the proposed symposium is to present empirical research on the interplay of a diversity of actors, institutions and artefacts in the production of data for education governance. Empirically, given the rise of cross-organisational collaborations and new coalitions, this is an opportune moment to examine a major shift in the production of quantification through the collaboration of these actors, ranging from International Organisations, to NGOs, national statistical offices and commercial actors. The encoding of data processes (often through the means of visualisation and image-making) and organisational cultures that these collaborations require in order for data to be shared and co-developed, allows for the first time an in-depth debate on the politics of the production of education metrics.

In fact, statistical collaboration has always been central to the operation of many research organisations, as they have traditionally needed to work closely with governments, NGOs and the private sector. Yet, ‘donor duplication’ (Ringel- Bickelmeier and Ringel 2012), resource-pooling and data overload have become some of the most common reasons that statistical agencies and actors are increasingly compelled to work together. Indeed, most major global strategies, such as the Millennium Development Goals, the post-2015 Development Agenda or major education testing regimes, such as the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), are collaborative endeavours, dependent on the pooling of resources and expertise.  How do these actors learn from one another? In the making of numbers, how do they negotiate financial resources and knowledge controversies? How do they actively produce collective sense-making (Weick 1995) and issue-framing strategies (Baumgartner and Jones 1993)? How much do we know about their expert networks? Ultimately, if rating and ranking practices are a ‘zero-sum’ game for the assessed, how much do we know about the rules of the game for the assessors?

Theoretically, the concept of organizational interplay is not entirely new. Organisational Sociology has given attention to the ways organisations may become interdependent in their quest for legitimation and survival: starting with Weber’s ‘ideal-type’ of organisations as highly politicised, seeking not only efficiency but also legitimacy, March and Simon (1958) suggested the notion of ‘bounded rationality’ to reflect the uncertainties facing organisations due to limited information and cognitive barriers. In Resource Dependency Theory, Pfeffer and Salancik (1978) argued that organisations were highly dependent on their external environment. Rational choice theorists in management and economics saw organisations as a nexus of contracts (Fama 1980), seeking to maximise efficiency gains, while Marxists suggested that organisational dependencies represented none else other than the rise of the global capitalist class (Useem, 1984; Mizruchi and Schwartz, 1988). 

Although research on global monitoring tools is abundant, there is less analysis in education research of those venues, actors, material artefacts and instances when metrics for education governance are co-produced. Thus, the proposed symposium will present a set of papers that will address some of the following questions:

1. What types of new interdependencies can we observe and how do these play out in the field of education?
2. How can the interconnectedness of IOs and other actors in the production of quantification deepen our knowledge of the processes of making numbers for transnational education governance? 
3. What kinds of processes of ‘sense-making’ and ‘issue-framing’ do research organisations employ in order to collectively decide upon statistical projects?
4. Ultimately, how do these new collaborations and interdependencies shape the field of education governance?

Baumgartner, F. R. and Jones, B. D. (1993) Agendas and Instability in American Politics, Chicago: University of Illinois Press Fama, E. (1980) ‘Agency Problems and the Theory of the Firm’, Journal of Political Economy, 88, 288-307 March, J. and Simon, H. (1958) Organizations, New York: Wiley Mizruchi, M. and Schwartz, M. (1988) Intercorporate Relations: The Structural Analysis of Business, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Pfeffer, J. and G. Salancik (1978) The External Control of Organizations, New York: Harper and Row Ringel-Bickelmeier C. and Ringel M. (2010) ‘Knowledge Management in International Organisations’, Journal of Knowledge Management, 14, 4, 524-539 Useem, M. (1984) The Inner Circle, New York: Oxford University Press Weick, K.E. (1995) Sensemaking in Organisations, Thousand Oaks: SAGE