Book Launch - Data for Accountability in Education: Global Trends in School Reform
Wednesday15 April 2026
15:00 to 16:30 CET
Online
Five leading scholars and prolific authors have joined forces to explore a set of urgent and complex questions: When did data-for-accountability emerge as a governing tool in education? How has it evolved over time and across regions? Who benefits from the datafication of education—and who loses out? This co-authored book traces the rise of student testing, performance-based evaluation, and governance by numbers. Drawing on a variety of methods, theories, and disciplines, the co-authors demonstrate how these instruments have taken root globally, why they persist, and how their meanings and effects vary across policy contexts. This book is essential reading for scholars and practitioners in comparative education, sociology of education, policy studies, and international relations.
About Authors
Patricia Bromley is Associate Professor of Education, Environmental Social Science and (by courtesy) Sociology at Stanford University. Her research spans a range of fields, including comparative education, organisation theory, sociology of education, and public administration and policy. Her work focuses on the historical rise and globalisation of liberal culture emphasising rational, scientific thinking and expansive forms of rights as well as contemporary attacks on this culture. Much of her research empirically focuses on two settings – education systems and organisations. Her recent publications examine pushbacks against liberal culture in the form of growing restrictions on civil society and declining emphases on education reform.
Rie Kijima is Assistant Professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto, where she serves as the inaugural director of the Initiative for Education Policy and Innovation. Rie Kijima’s research addresses topics such as the politics of international assessments, the impact of education reforms, and STEAM education. Her recent articles have appeared in journals such as The Review of International Organization, Review of International Political Economy, Sociology of Education and International Journal of STEM Education. Her research project on education reform is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She received her PhD and MA from Stanford University and her BA from the ICU in Tokyo, Japan.
Kerstin Martens is Professor of International Relations at the University of Bremen, Germany. She is head of research project A05, “The Global Development of Coverage and Generosity in Public Education,” at the Collaborative Research Center 1342 “Global Dynamics of Social Policy,” also based at the University of Bremen. She has published widely on international organisations in education policy (particularly on the OECD and the UN), international large-scale assessments in education, such as the PISA study, and on global public policies, particularly those focusing on education, health and social policy. She holds a PhD from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.
Gita Steiner-Khamsi is the William H. Kilpatrick Professor of Comparative Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York. She also holds the Honorary UNESCO Chair in Comparative Education Policy at the Geneva Graduate Institute. A former president of the Comparative and International Education Society (2009/2010), editor of the World Yearbook of Education (2008–2021) and academic director of NORRAG (2017–2022), she has published widely on topics such as policy transfer, qualitative comparative analyses and school reform from an international comparative perspective. Her most recent book, Time in Education Policy Transfer. The Seven Temporalities in Global School Reform, was published with open access in English (Palgrave/Springer Nature), Chinese (Hong Kong University Press) and Spanish (Prometeo).
Antoni Verger is Professor of Sociology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and an ICREA research fellow. His research focuses on the relationship between governance institutions and education policy, using comparative policy analysis to examine the adoption, trajectory and impact of key education reforms, including public-private partnerships, accountability mechanisms and school governance models. He has secured multiple research grants on these topics, including two from the European Research Council (ERC) for the REFORMED and ACCOUNTED projects. He also holds editorial leadership roles with the World Yearbook of Education and the Journal of Education Policy. He also directs the Erasmus+ joint master’s programme Education Policies for Global Development (GLOBED), which has received three awards from the European Commission for its excellence in international education.