The mundane governance of education through time
The case of national testing in Norway
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12906296 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ida Martinez Lunde (0000-0002-8504-2554, University of Oslo, corresponding author), Nelli Piattoeva (0000-0003-0963-1901, Tampere University) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 66 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 126-141 |
| Publication date | 2024-05-16 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Critical Studies in Education (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1750-8487 • E-ISSN: 1750-8495 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/17508487.2024.2350477 |
| OpenAlex | W4396978009 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 34 |
This article explores national testing in Norway by analyzing technical and bureaucratic documents steering the process of data production. By examining documents through sociological perspectives on time, as well as attuning to the form and genre of the documents, we identify bureaucratic, sociotechnical, and genrespecific ways in which data production is structured to ensure a smooth process of testing. We find that national tests govern (through) time and by ordering time: their time rules produce simultaneity and synchronicity that in turn gently nudge schools and municipalities into alignment. Thus, time rules and routines enable forms of mundane governance that mirror how contemporary education policy happens through short but more prescriptive (and increasingly digital) policy texts. This is how national authorities may make themselves less detectable, but ever more present and productive of national unity. While recent conversations on time and temporality focus on the emergence of complex, nonlinear (e.g. networked) time enabled by the digital transformation of society and education, our article attests to the persistence and significance of linear temporalities in and for education governance, and shows how quantification, assessment, bureaucracy and the affordances of digital technologies together play pivotal roles in upholding a linear time order
Corporate governance · Economics · Management · Political science · Sociology · Educational Theory and Curriculum Studies · Global Educational Policies and Reforms · Higher Education Learning Practices · Public Administration
The Global Transformation of Time
Introduction―Space-and time-making in education
Taming the time zone
Introduction
Infrastructures of Time
Mundane Governance
The timescape of school tasks
Multiple temporalities in critical policy sociology in education
The power of relation-making
Making policy with ‘good ideas’
Digital education governance
Education, governance and the tyranny of numbers
The worldly space
Doing time in the sociology of education
The Pisa calendar
Time and educational (re-)forms—Inquiring the temporal dimension of education
Time, Media and Modernity
Making the user friendly
Time
Documents
Becoming-topologies of education
The Territorial State as a Figured World of Power
The state of things
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |