ABSTRACT
In some ways Scotland might be perceived to be an outlier in the world of global educational reform. Although education in Scotland has undoubtedly been infl uenced by world agencies, in particular by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and although there are enduring echoes of international debates around standardization, choice, competition, and data-driven accountability in educational discourse (Arnott, 2005; Croxford & Raff e, 2007; Peters & Besley, 2014), the power of what Grek (2012) describes as tradition and history has had a mediating infl uence on the impact of these powerful international drivers on Scottish education. This chapter explores that hypothesis. The fi rst section provides an overview of the structure of public schooling and the administrative processes used to determine curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment at national and regional levels. The second section explores the genesis and evolution of international achievement testing in Scotland, focusing on PISA, which is now the only testing program in which Scotland takes part. The third section refl ects on the impact of PISA on Scottish education, illustrates actions and reactions, and identifi es ways in which policy communities appear to have used general PISA performance as a trigger for further investigation rather than reacting to evidence from the survey. Finally, the chapter concludes by considering the current context in Scotland and the potential for the country to be drawn more deeply into use of comparative evidence as a basis for improvement, an aspect of the global educational reform movement which it has so far viewed with some kind of critical perspective.
