Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book suggests three changes in the constitution of educational ‘expertism’. The first is a change in the dominating educational moral in relation to the three ‘experts’. The second is a changing epistemology of educational knowledge. The third is a change in the grounds for making educational claims. The book provides a renewed systematic research review of research using data from international large-scale assessments. It explains the establishment of a new national governmental broker agency – the Swedish Institute for Educational Research – is presented which is then compared with other international broker agencies. The book illustrates that when used for political reasons data always becomes ‘truth’ through social processes, which are not always guided by scientific principles. It focuses on the export of education as a ‘business strategy’ by some ‘successful’ countries based on the results of international large-scale assessments.