1. Introduction: What can we learn about global education from historical and global policy studies of the OECD? -- 2. Learning Productivity: The European Productivity Agency - An Educational Enterprise -- 3. The OECD, American power and the rise of the 'economics of education' in the 1960s -- 4. The birth of the OECD education policy area -- 5. Australian education joins the OECD: Federalism, regionalization, and the role of education in a time of transition -- 6. International cooperation from the perspective of INEP agents: The OECD and Brazilian public education, 1996-2006 -- 7. The impact of PISA studies on education policy in a democratic perspective: The implementation of national tests in Denmark -- 8. The OECD and educational policy in China -- 9. OECD, PISA and the educationalization of the world: The case of the Southern Cone countries -- 10. The OECD's campaign for distributed leadership: The risks of pushing for more accountability and teacher responsibility -- 11. Constructing school autonomy with accountability as a global policy model: a focus on OECD's governance mechanisms -- 12. How a European 'fear of falling behind' discourse co-produces global standards: Exploring the inbound and outbound performativity of the transnational turn in European education policy -- 13. Historicising new spaces and relations of the OECD's global educational governance: PISA for schools and PISA4U -- 14. Conclusion: The formation and workings of a global education governing complex.

This edited volume focuses on the historical role of the OECD (The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) in shaping global education policy. In this book, contributors shed light on the present-day perspective of Comparative Education as a logical addition to current scholarship on the history of international organizations in the field of education. Doing so, the book provides a deeper understanding of contemporary developments in education that will enable us to reflect critically on the trajectories and future developments of education worldwide.