This paper takes the vigorous political debate unleashed in Germany by the results of the PISA study as a stimulus to take a closer look at the strategic aims and effects of the current education reforms, of which the PISA study is only one example. It shows that the reform measures underpin a powerful process of normalisation. In this context, the PISA study, along with other reform measures, can be seen as a ‘power stabiliser’. The paper indicates how techniques of (...) political domination are linked with ‘technologies of the self’ and how the ‘discourse of self organization’ can be seen as the core of a governmental strategy to assimilate education more thoroughly than ever before into a network of disciplinary procedures and ‘voluntary self‐control’. (shrink)

This paper takes the vigorous political debate unleashed in Germany by the results of the PISA study as a stimulus to take a closer look at the strategic aims and effects of the current education reforms, of which the PISA study is only one example. It shows that the reform measures underpin a powerful process of normalisation. In this context, the PISA study, along with other reform measures, can be seen as a ‘power stabiliser’. The paper indicates how techniques of (...) political domination are linked with ‘technologies of the self’ and how the ‘discourse of self organization’ can be seen as the core of a governmental strategy to assimilate education more thoroughly than ever before into a network of disciplinary procedures and ‘voluntary self‐control’. (shrink)

Die Rede von dem Konstruktivismus legt auf den ersten Blick die Vermutung nahe, es handele sich dabei um ein konsistentes, klar umrissenes Theoriegebäude. Doch wird auf den zweiten Blick schnell deutlich, dass ein ganzes Bündel von Referenztheorien zum Verständnis des Konstruktivismus in Betracht gezogen werden muss: etwa Evolutionstheorie, Neurobiologie, Kognitionstheorie, Kybernetik und Systemtheorie, um nur einige zu nennen. Es liegt auf der Hand, dass es den Konstruktivismus so nicht gibt.