Luís Miguel Carvalho

Bio: Luís Miguel Carvalho is an academic researcher from University of Lisbon. The author has contributed to research in topics: Education policy & Knowledge policy. The author has an hindex of 9, co-authored 75 publications receiving 428 citations. Previous affiliations of Luís Miguel Carvalho include Technical University of Lisbon.

The Fabrications and Travels of a Knowledge-Policy Instrument

Abstract: This article sets forth the main elements of the conceptual framework for the overall approach to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) taken in this special issue. PISA is here examined as a (knowledge for policy) regulatory instrument made by intertwined cognitive and social practices, and involving multidirectional flows of knowledge and policy elements. Additionally - and using materials from a study on the fabrication of PISA - the article gives closer attention to the process of gathering and coordinating the social worlds involved in the making of the instrument, to the plasticity of knowledge for policy and to the fictions - which the instrument carries - regarding education and its governing practices. As a whole, the article relates to the ubiquity of PISA - that is, its conspicuous albeit not similar presence in various geopolitical territories and discursive spaces. Fabricated under the auspices of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, by bringing together individuals and organisations from various social spaces, its materials and texts generated often reach national and local policy and knowledge contexts, where different social groups have interests in them and are using them differently, though attached to PISA's dicta on regulatory processes.

Seeing education with one's own eyes and through PISA lenses: considerations of the reception of PISA in European countries

Abstract: The paper addresses the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) as a public policy instrument, whose worldwide circulation is mediated by processes of reinterpretation, negotiation, and re-contextualization, where national, local, and international agencies intertwine. It is focused on the active reception of PISA in six European spaces (Francophone Belgium, France, Hungary, Portugal, Romania, and Scotland) along its first three cycles. The paper identifies two contrasting developments: the Program's divergent uses and its attractiveness in different social worlds. The paper gives particular attention to what is called the ‘update of reference societies’ in the context of national receptions of PISA. These ‘updates’ are analyzed as part of a composite process that involves domestic reasons, either related to current agendas for education or to deep historical factors, and injunctions related to PISA's rationale and PISA objects.

Governando a educação pelo espelho do perito: uma análise do pisa como instrumento de regulação

Abstract: Este artigo analisa o Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), desenvolvido sob a egide da OCDE, como um instrumento baseado e gerador de conhecimento que participa na coordenacao da accao publica no sector educativo. O texto retoma as analises desenvolvidas numa pesquisa sobre a fabricacao supranacional do Programa PISA, realizada no âmbito de um projecto de investigacao europeu acerca do papel do conhecimento nas politicas publicas de educacao e saude na Europa - Knowandpol. Equacionando o PISA - em suas actividades de inquiricao, organizacao e publicacao - como um complexo processo de construcao de um espaco de regulacao politica transnacional, o artigo analisa os elementos cognitivos e normativos do instrumento relacionados com a definicao da "realidade educacional", com a determinacao das formas "apropriadas" ao seu governo, e com a producao de conhecimento para a politica.

Fifteen Years Looking at the Mirror: On the Presence of PISA in Education Policy Processes (Portugal, 2000-2016).

Abstract: This article describes and discusses what happens when knowledge for policy generated within PISA is received by its target audience: what have the Portuguese policy actors been doing with PISA data and analysis when they consider, express and justify their choices? Drawing on previous and current studies, using interview materials and formal and informal policy documents, as well as texts published in the written press, the article analyses two main phenomena related to the reception of PISA and how this has evolved between 2001 and 2012 in Portugal: the consolidation of PISA's credibility as a source for policy processes and texts; the emergence of new actors and modes of intervention in the production of knowledge for national policy, drawing on PISA. Finally, it presents an analysis of the reception of PISA 2015 in the Portuguese media, focusing on the interventions by political actors in the Portuguese daily and weekly written press. Two main elements emerge from our content analysis as the main common elements of that reception: the consecration of PISA's credibility; and the practices of qualification and disqualification of educational policies and perspectives. The article concludes by emphasising the regulatory role of PISA in Portuguese policy processes and the relevant contribution played by the politics of reception in legitimising this role.

PISA : un instrument de régulation pour relier des mondes

Abstract: PISA comme instrument de regulation PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) est l’un des principaux instruments d’action de l’OCDE dans le domaine educatif. En tant que dispositif de comparaison, PISA ne constitue pas une nouveaute dans le cadre du travail de l’OCDE, mais il se distingue des interventions anterieures par le fait qu’il « genere ses propres donnees », c’est-a-dire qu’il ne depend pas de donnees deja creees par les systemes nationaux, mais determine le cadre de que...

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

Abstract: What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

Digital education governance: data visualization, predictive analytics, and ‘real-time’ policy instruments

Abstract: Educational institutions and governing practices are increasingly augmented with digital database technologies that function as new kinds of policy instruments. This article surveys and maps the landscape of digital policy instrumentation in education and provides two detailed case studies of new digital data systems. The Learning Curve is a massive online data bank, produced by Pearson Education, which deploys highly sophisticated digital interactive data visualizations to construct knowledge about education systems. The second case considers ‘learning analytics’ platforms that enable the tracking and predicting of students’ performances through their digital data traces. These digital policy instruments are evidence of how digital database instruments and infrastructures are now at the centre of efforts to know, govern and manage education both nationally and globally. The governing of education, augmented by techniques of digital education governance, is being distributed and displaced to new digitized...

Strategies for improving phosphorus acquisition efficiency of crop plants [Approved article]

Abstract: Abstract In many low input agricultural systems, phosphorus (P) is one of the most limiting mineral nutrients for plant production. Although applying P fertilizer, if available, is the most performing practice, this should be accompanied by other measures. The use of genetically enhanced plants with improved P acquisition efficiency may represent a sustainable solution to increase crop yields in these systems. This review is intended to provide a summary on adaptation mechanisms of crop plants facing P deficiency as the starting point to develop a research approach for improving P acquisition efficiency. P acquisition efficiency in this review refers to external P efficiency. The suggested research approach includes three strategies: molecular assisted plant breeding, deployment of transgenic plants and the use of agricultural practices. The natural source for improving P nutrition of plants is the existing large genetic variation for plant traits that are associated with P acquisition efficiency and will therefore be emphasized in this review.