Nelli Piattoeva and Daniel Tröhler’s panel on “Nations and Numbers. The banal nationalism of education performance data” enjoyed great popularity at the latest ECER conference held in Bolzano in the beginning of September. The panel focused on the need to theorize the rise of large-scale assessments from the perspective of nationalism and nation-building, complementing the prevailing perspectives of globalization and neoliberalization.
After introducing the connection between education, nationalism and numerical data, three invited presenters engaged with the topic from different geographical perspectives and with a focus on both national and international large-scale assessments. The speakers were Margaret Arnott, Sam Sellar, and Joakim Landahl.