ESRC Seminar Series

 The inaugural seminar series of the Laboratory of International Assessment Studies will explore the potentials, politics and practices of international assessments in education.

Funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council, this high profile, two year series will bring academic researchers, testing agencies and the end-users of international assessments together – including policy makers, teachers, journalists, and civil society organisations.

The aim of the series is to provide rigorous and in-depth debate on international assessment methodology and key policy issues surrounding international testing, to create new critical perspectives on their role in education practice and policy.

The objectives of the seminar series are – to act as a vehicle for academic enquiry into international educational assessments; – to develop an agenda for international assessment studies as a field of academic research and publication; and – to build an international network of researchers and practitioners around a set of common interests and concerns. The themes for the seminars are:

1. Education Governance and International assessments (Edinburgh University)
2. International Assessment and International Convergence of Educational Reforms (Columbia Teachers College)
3. The Challenges of Diversity (University of the Pacific, Lima)
4. The Production of Data in International Assessment (University of East Anglia)
5. The Politics of Reception – Media, Policy and Public Knowledge and Opinion. (Lancaster University)
6. The Futures and Promises of International Assessment (Berlin)

More information on the series will be posted in the coming month on www.international-assessments.org, and on twitter @Assessmentslab .

Photo credit: Wikepedia Commons:  DARPA_Big_Data.jpg