One of the most famous educational events of the last decades has been PISA. Rarely has educational information translated so fast into the word 'disaster' – and domestic political crisis. Rarely has educational information translated so fast into the word 'stardom' – and sudden international attention being given to countries which hitherto were un-noted and uncelebrated. PISA was not merely an educational event. It was also a media circus. It involved public rehearsal of the reasons for failure or success; and even, in some cases, public and political and academic explanations about why 'failure' was not really that, and why 'success' was not really that either.

So the first comparative puzzle which attaches to PISA is, why all the fuss – what are the politics and sociology and anthropology of the international testing movement as if 'educational results' were a sporting event?

The second comparative puzzle which attaches to PISA, is: in what sense is it 'comparative education'? At what point do numbers become or represent or stand for cultures, and what needs to be explained about the cultures/numbers symbiosis? What kind of comparative education does PISA signify?  A comparative education of measured outcomes? Outcomes of what and from what, in the broader social and historical context?

The third comparative puzzle which attaches to PISA is: in what sense is it good 'big sociology'? What is - sociologically, in the workings of schooling systems – being tested?

The fourth comparative puzzle which attaches to PISA is: in what ways is this good empirical work - which technical criteria do this kind of 'comparative work on an international scale has to satisfy and in what senses may we (technically) believe in the numbers?

And, noting the style and extent to which we 'believe' in those numbers, the fifth comparative puzzle is whether, by whom, and with what consequences may we deduce policy action from such research? Is this the 'robust and relevant research' of which politicians dream? Can we move from these research results to policy action quickly, cautiously, or not at all?

Thus - always in the frame of these large historical and comparative puzzles, some of which will be addressed by Plenary speakers – the sub-themes and the discussion groups of the Symposium will include:

(i) the implications of PISA for the reform of secondary education;

(ii) the implications of PISA for the reform of the transition from school to work;

(iii) the challenges of PISA to definitions of school knowledge and text books, and the relation of both PISA and school knowledge to learning theories;

(iv) improvements in theories of school performance and school achievement as a consequence of what has been learned within and from PISA;

(v) the implications of the PISA research for the school efficiency and effective movement;

(vi) the challenges of PISA to definitions of school knowledge, and definitions of competencies;

(vii) the 'quality' of the PISA results – notably an interpretation of the limits in statistical methodologies and what may not be deduced from 'the data';

(viii) the 'quality' of the PISA results – notably in terms of the implications for educational polices on social class, in-migrant students, gender and educational segregation;

(ix) the implications of PISA in the context of economic globalisation; and

(x) the implications of PISA as a form of international and transnational governance and as a disciplinary technology.