Avaliação educacional na América do Sul: institucionalização e usos do questionário contextual do Pisa 2022 pelas escolas participantes

Abstract

This dissertation investigates how large-scale external assessment becomes institutionalized and translated into school practice in the South American countries participating in PISA 2022—Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Uruguay—highlighting the distinct political cultures of educational regulation that shape both the frequency of application and the purposes attributed to the use of standardized tests. Recognizing that the literature has predominantly focused on performance-centered analyses, this study shifts attention to the contextual questionnaires of the program, particularly those administered to schools, in order to understand how these instruments are mobilized within institutional daily practices. An exploratory quantitative approach was adopted, grounded in the evidential paradigm and the concept of political culture. The items concerning external assessment as a measure to guarantee educational quality (SC037Q02), the frequency with which students are subjected to this instrument (SC034), and the purposes (SC035) of the school questionnaire were analyzed using descriptive statistics, the Chi-Square Test of Independence, Cramér’s V coefficient, and Adjusted Standardized Residuals analysis. The findings reveal statistically significant differences among countries both in the regularity of application of assessment instruments and in the purposes attributed to standardized tests. The most pronounced distinctions were found in purposes related to institutional monitoring, curricular improvement, guidance of student learning, and performance comparison. These results indicate that regional variation does not lie in the mere existence of external assessment systems, but rather in the intensity and centrality they assume within school management practices. Based on the findings, countries were grouped into three institutionalization profiles: high use (Brazil, Chile, and Colombia), intermediate use (Argentina and Peru), and low use (Uruguay). The dissertation argues that the diffusion of evaluative models promoted by the OECD does not automatically produce uniformity of practices; instead, it triggers differentiated processes of appropriation, reinterpretation, and resistance. Thus, external assessment in South America emerges as a plural phenomenon, mediated by historical trajectories, institutional arrangements, and national political cultures, thereby challenging the center-periphery logic in global educational governance.