18-02-2025
17-08-2026
We currently live in a “metric society” (Mau, 2019). In this “age of measurement” (Biesta, 2009), a “numerocratic powerknowledge regime” emerges (Angermüller, 2010) in which society is interpreted, examined, and controlled via governmentaltechnological practices and ‘dispositifs’ (Foucault, 1994) that are increasingly based on measurement and quantification. This phenomenon, driven by an explosion of the audit culture, the intensification of the collection, production and analysis of numerical data, and the transformative capabilities of information technologies, has paved the way for a new form of panopticism that is non-spatial, multi-centered, and open-purpose (Hamman, 2020). This expanding measurement culture has had a deep impact on educational practices and processes: from rankings and the associated “terrors of performativity” (Ball, 2003) through to the role played by International Large-Scale Assessments in shaping educational policies, curriculum, and pedagogy.
By questioning the origins, production, and implications of numbers in education, this project seeks to illuminate the processes and power dynamics that shape them. The project’s relevance is attested both by the scarcity of scholarly attention to the social underpinnings of educational statistics and the need for a deeper understanding of how these numbers are generated and utilized within educational institutions and policies. Therefore, it asks of numbers: how were they produced? How did we get to those numbers (and not others)? Ultimately, it asks: how do statistics and society mutually constitute themselves? In this manner, this research project addresses a fundamental, yet understudied, often neglected, issue: the social construction of educational statistics.
Sifting through the abundance of available educational statistics, two key indicators (‘dropout and grade retention rate’, and ‘grade inflation’) were selected based on their conceptual and social relevance and on the research team’s expertise and commitments. The ‘dropout and grade retention rate’ is critical regarding the monitoring of educational performance, policy development and evaluation. In its turn, the ‘grade inflation’ indicator is decisive with regard to assessing educational equity and students’ future prospects.
Focused on these two indicators, the project develops in two sequential stages, which correspond to its two milestones: ‘Framing the research landscape’ and ‘Unveiling the dynamics of the social construction of educational statistics’. The main objective of the first stage is to provide a three-layered framing of the research field: 1) a conceptual mapping; 2) an identification of the past (10 years) and current situation in terms of the relevant statistical indicators; 3) an examination, based on interviews, of the narratives of opinion-makers in education that operate either in traditional (newspapers) or new media (blogs) and address the relevant research themes and statistical indicators. In its turn, the main objective of the second stage is to probe, via interviews, into the perceptions and understandings of various stakeholders involved in the production and dissemination of educational statistics, from teachers and head teachers to national-level educational and statistical agencies. It is expected that this second stage will highlight the tensional dynamics underlying the social construction of the ‘dropout and grade retention’ rate and of the ‘grade inflation’ indicator.
By challenging the prevailing narrative of numbers as neutral, purely descriptive tools, and instead highlighting their socially constructed nature and decisive role in shaping educational realities, this study can advance both academic understanding and practical governance. Furthermore, by examining both the methodological operations and the organizational dynamics underlying the production of statistics, the project adds a layer of critical analysis to the debates on the role of numbers in education. It is expected that the ambitious goal of expanding knowledge beyond the state of the art will involve exploring topics such as, but not restricted to, the role of official statistics, power dynamics in the definition of ‘number regimes’, institutional in(ter)dependence in statistics’ production, the methodologies in educational data collection and reporting, accountability and transparency, and statistics production, the methodologies in educational ‘gaming’ the system.
PCEP - Participation, Communities and Political Education
FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
(2023.14129.PEX)
CIIE/Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação da Universidade do Porto (FPCEUP), Portugal