TITLE:
Problem-Solving as a Governing Knowledge: “Skills”-Testing in PISA and PIAAC
AUTHORS:
Carol Bacchi
KEYWORDS:
Problem-Solving, Poststructuralism, Problematizations, “Skills”-Testing, Cognitive Abilities, Genealogy
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Political Science,
Vol.10 No.1,
December
31,
2019
ABSTRACT: This article scrutinizes critically a pervasive knowledge shaping
contemporary sociopolitical relations and spaces—“problem-solving
knowledge”. It develops the argument that, as a governing knowledge, “problem-solving”
is increasing in intensity and scope, with a range of negative and potentially
dangerous effects. As a case study, the article examines how problem-solving
knowledge operates in the OECD “skills” assessment programs PISA and PIAAC,
with a particularly worrying connection between so-called “cognitive abilities” and labour market performance. It
considers how this “turn to cognition”, with its associated moralism, divides “citizens”
into those who either can or who cannot solve “problems”, producing “more
productive” and “less productive” categories of people. More broadly, these
programs illustrate how treating “problems”
as self-evident referents is deeply depoliticizing, highlighting the
importance of examining how governing takes place through problematization.
Through tracing the emergence and functioning of “problem-solving” as a
knowledge practice, the article encourages reflection on how problem-solving
knowledge has come to be taken-for-granted as “truth” and on how it operates to
limit political debate and to regulate political subjects.