Does culture matter? Education reforms in East Asia

Introduction PISA 2009 started a global movement of cross-national learning about policies and practices in basic education. It all started with Shanghai coming top in the international comparison, the first time China was ever represented in PISA. Basic education has traditionally been a national undertaking that seldom crossed borders. Indeed, teachers of basic education seldom know what is going on in other education systems. Policies on basic education are often determined by domestic nee...