Western Colonialism and World Society in National Education Systems: Global Trends in the Use of High-Stakes Exams at Early Ages,1960 to 2010

Abstract

National high-stakes exams are a fundamental structural feature of education systems around the world. Despite their importance in shaping educational stratification, little is known about the social processes that influence how and why national high-stakes exams are used at early ages on a global basis. I argue that global trends in the use of primary-level high-stakes exams during the postwar period are shaped by competing international and historical pressures. On one hand, Western colonialism instigated path-dependent processes that led former French and British colonies to continue to use high-stakes exams at the primary level, even after gaining independence. On the other hand, a worldwide cultural shift toward universalistic conceptions of education as a human right has led other countries to abandon high-stakes exams at early ages. Drawing on a newly constructed panel data set of 138 countries from 1960 to 2010, I show that national high-stakes exams have declined over time at early ages of schooling. Evidence from a series of panel regression models supports arguments about the importance of Western colonialism and universalistic conceptions of education in world society in shaping the use of high-stakes exams at the primary level.

Keywords

high-stakes exams world society institutional theory cross-national analysis Western colonialism comparative education

National high-stakes exams are a fundamental structural feature of education systems around the world. High-stakes exams are designed to sort, select, and certify students through formally “meritocratic” processes (in policy, rather than in practice) that allocate educational opportunities in an equitable manner (Heubert and Hauser 1999). At the national level, these exams are used at various age levels in nearly every country in the world. In Europe, for example, the French baccalaureat is the most notorious example of a meritocratic exam used to determine university admission, but almost every other country in the region uses a similar type of selective exam at this level. In East Asian countries, university entrance exams impose a well-documented “exam hell” on students, who often spend several hours after school and on weekends in cram schools to prepare for them (Rohlen 1983). In Africa, the majority of countries continue to use high-stakes exams at the primary level to determine who advances to lower-secondary education (Kellaghan and Greaney 1992).

These high-stakes exams, especially those used at early ages, have significant consequences for both individuals and nation-states. At the individual level, a long line of research emphasizes how educational stratification at early ages shapes social class reproduction (e.g., Bol and van de Werfhorst 2013; Turner 1960): Strong mechanisms of early selection are more likely to limit future educational opportunities and occupational choices among socioeconomically disadvantaged populations (Buchmann and Park 2009). In some developing countries, sizeable proportions of students fail the exam administered at the end of primary school.¹ As a result, many students in these countries are unable to continue their schooling at the secondary level. More generally, high-stakes exams at early ages have been shown to significantly restrict secondary enrollments; these constraining effects of high-stakes exams on educational expansion also have become stronger in more recent time periods, in spite of recent global pressures to increase educational access from the “Education for All” movement (Furuta, Schofer, and Wick forthcoming).

Despite the enormous influence of high-stakes exams on educational expansion and stratification, little is known about how commonly high-stakes exams are used around the world at early ages of schooling, how these trends have changed over the past several decades, and the macro-level factors that shape whether countries use high-stakes exams at early ages. Existing research on high-stakes exams tends to focus more narrowly on (1) ad hoc case studies of high-stakes exams in a given country, (2) the effects of high-stakes exams on individual- or national-level outcomes in a handful of developed countries, or (3) cross-sectional analyses.² Longer-term and global data on high-stakes exams have never been systematically collected. As a result, basic facts about global trends in one of the most central institutions of schooling around the world remain unknown, and more general sociological theories that explain why countries use high-stakes exams at early ages remain untested at a more global level.

To address this gap in existing knowledge, I utilize a new and originally constructed data set on high-stakes exams for 138 countries from 1960 to 2010. Drawing on historical institutionalist and world society theories, I argue that global trends in the use of primary-level high-stakes exams during the postwar period are shaped by competing historical and international pressures. On one hand, Western exam regimes like Great Britain’s Cambridge Overseas Exam and the French exam system diffused through colonial processes. These initial conditions instigated path-dependent processes that led former colonies to continue high-stakes exams at the primary level, even after they gained independence. On the other hand, egalitarian conceptions of education as a human right, expanded individual personhood, and a growing worldwide consensus on the normative importance of educational access and expansion that developed after World War II have led other countries to abandon high-stakes exams at lower levels of schooling. My argument thus emphasizes that primary-level high-stakes exams are shaped by global and historical processes rather than merely functional or idiosyncratic country-level characteristics.

In this article, high-stakes exams are defined as exams that all students in a given country or track take to determine (1) whether they are promoted to the next level in the educational process or (2) which sharply differentiated track they are sorted into (Heubert and Hauser 1999). As a form of selection, high-stakes exams can be contrasted with less standardized forms of evaluation (e.g., grades, school-based exams, or other types of “continuous assessment”) or student “personhood” characteristics in the U.S. college admissions process (Furuta 2017).

Global Colonial Processes and Path Dependence in the use of High-Stakes Exams

As a top-down global process that spanned several centuries, Western colonialism generated economic, political, and cultural changes that fundamentally shaped institutions around the world (Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson 2001; Bergesen and Schoenberg 1980; Fieldhouse 1966). As part of this process, colonial powers often established Western educational institutions to recruit and train a small handful of political elites (Coleman 1965:229–30), and the exam regimes of these colonial powers diffused around the world. Great Britain’s former colonies, for example, often use exams constructed by the Cambridge International Examinations Syndicate (created in 1858) to structure their school curricula (Raban 2008), and France’s former colonies often emulate the French exam system (e.g., centralized, competitive national exams for the certificat d’etudes primaires at the primary level) (Debeauvais 1965).³

During the postwar waves of decolonization (Strang 1990), many newly independent countries rapidly constructed and expanded their education systems, given the importance of modern educational institutions for staking claims to legitimate nation-statehood (Ramirez 2012). The initial historical conditions shaped by Western colonialism, however, created “path dependent” processes (Mahoney 2000) that led many of these newly independent countries to maintain Western European exam regimes at early ages of schooling. Existing literature and case studies (e.g., Benavot and Resnik 2006; Coleman 1965; Raban 2008; Vlaardingerbroek and Taylor 2009) suggest three structural pathways that shaped the continued use of high-stakes exams at early ages, even several decades after gaining independence.

First, during this period of rapid decolonization and educational expansion following World War II, newly independent countries faced strong external pressure from the international community to expand education and modernize their institutions. In this context, Western forms of education were often seen as more internationally legitimate models and standards,⁴ even if these models did not fit local conditions (Garnier and Schafer 2006; Meyer, Nagel, and Snyder 1993). As a result, many countries maintained the exam regimes of their former colonial powers, despite internal pressures to adopt more authentically national institutions (Benavot and Resnik 2006). Even former British colonies that did abandon the Cambridge exam regime (upon gaining independence) often developed regional exam boards that were closely modeled after the Cambridge system, which helped their institutions to be seen as legitimate by other countries (see Agbodeka 2002 on the West African Examinations Council and De Lisle 2014 on the Caribbean Examinations Council).

Second, in this context of intensifying pressures to expand education, Western high-stakes exam regimes were maintained at the primary level because they provided an efficient and formally (but not in practice) meritocratic mechanism for stratifying students (Kellaghan and Greaney 1992). As education became increasingly linked to an organized stratification system, higher-paying jobs and occupational status were increasingly tied to higher levels of educational attainment (van Noord et al. forthcoming). In this context, high-stakes exams were seen as instrumental for maintaining uniform academic standards in a country’s education system and structuring educational stratification along formally (but not in practice) meritocratic processes (Bol et al. 2014; Jackson and Buckner 2016).⁵ For example, a report from Malta’s Ministry of Education notes that the country abolished its secondary entrance exam, which it inherited from Great Britain’s “11+” system, in 1972; however, a high-stakes exam was quickly reinstated in 1978 because it was a “non-discriminatory way of admitting pupils to the limited number of places available as the number of pupils seeking admission kept increasing” (Grima et al. 2008:17).

Third, high-stakes exams are just one component of a more general institutional framework organizing the schooling process that former colonies inherited from their colonizers. In former French colonies, for example, high-stakes exams are part of a “statist” organization of schooling inherited from France (Garnier, Hage, and Fuller 1989). After independence, education in these nation-states continued to be organized around a centralized bureaucracy, a national curriculum, and a stringent set of norms of achievement that reinforce the use of high-stakes exams at early ages (Garnier and Schafer 2006:155–56). It may be difficult for newly independent countries to eliminate these high-stakes exams because they are embedded in an institutional framework that shapes a country’s overall approach to organizing the schooling process.

The foregoing discussion suggests Western colonialism created path-dependent processes that shape the ongoing use of primary-level high-stakes exams around the world. In particular, the British and French empires developed and implemented the most extensive exam regimes in their colonies and are therefore especially likely to have shaped the use of high-stakes exams in their former colonies. Former British and French colonies can be contrasted with former Spanish colonies, which gained independence much earlier in history (before modern institutions of mass education were developed in Europe) and developed formal education systems that were more oriented around Enlightenment rhetoric of equality and freedom (Weinberg 1983; cf. Rivera 2016). Other colonial powers (e.g., Belgium, Germany, Portugal) typically invested fewer resources in their colonies and instead focused mostly on extracting resources from them (Fieldhouse 1966).

Hypothesis 1a: Former French colonies are more likely to use high-stakes exams at lower levels of the educational process.

Hypothesis 1b: Former British colonies are more likely to use high-stakes exams at lower levels of the educational process.

The Development of Universalized Conceptions of Education in World Society

World society theories of educational institutions emphasize that nation-states are embedded in a global institutional environment composed of norms, scripts, and abstract cultural models of education. A long line of research emphasizes that nation-states have shaped their educational institutions around this increasingly global cultural framework during the postwar period in order to enact an identity of legitimate nation-statehood (e.g., Meyer et al. 1997). During the postwar period, education at the lower-secondary level came to be seen as an increasingly universal entitlement, rather than an elite privilege, in this global institutional environment (Furuta 2020). On a worldwide basis, education became increasingly conceived of as an individual and collective good, access to education became a matter of human rights, and all individuals came to be seen as educable (Schofer and Meyer 2005). These cultural changes in the global institutional environment suggest that high-stakes exams, which had been used to stratify and limit students’ opportunities in the education system (see Kandel 1930), have become increasingly delegitimated at lower levels of schooling.

Several related institutional channels reflect how these cultural changes in the global institutional environment, toward more universalistic conceptions of education, have increasingly delegitimated the use of primary-level high-stakes exams. First, the enormous growth of international assessment tests (e.g., Trends in International Mathematical and Science Study [TIMSS], Progress in International Reading Literacy Study [PIRLS], Programme for International Student Assessment) and national assessments during this period reflects a growing cultural assumption that all children are capable of learning the same curricula and obtaining the same academic skills as well as the belief that all children should have access to the same education at early ages (Kamens and McNeely 2010). International assessment tests, in particular, reflect a proactive commitment to global ideals of educational equality in world society (Baker and LeTendre 2005). At the national level, since 1990 and the rise of global norms of Education for All, use of assessment tests has grown rapidly: These tests are primarily administered at early stages of the educational process to measure access to education and assess educational quality across different schools or regions within a given country (Kamens and Benavot 2011).⁶

The formal goal of international and national assessments is thus to improve access and equality in the provision of education, rather than to certify, stratify, or remove students from the school system as high-stakes exams do (Furuta et al. forthcoming). Unlike high-stakes exams, national and international assessments are low-stakes tests that do not directly determine an individual student’s educational opportunities; instead, assessment tests hold schools and countries accountable for student outcomes, and test scores are rarely reported at the individual level (Ramirez, Schofer, and Meyer 2018). Both types of assessments are negatively correlated with the use of high-stakes exams (see Appendix A3 in the online supplemental material). Countries that implement more of these assessment tests are therefore expected to be less likely to use high-stakes exams at the primary level, given that they reflect this cultural assumption of extending and expanding equal educational opportunities.

Hypothesis 2a: Participation in international assessment tests is negatively associated with use of high-stakes exams at lower levels of the educational process.

Hypothesis 2b: Use of national assessment tests is negatively associated with use of high-stakes exams at lower levels of the educational process.

Second, universalistic conceptions of education in world society have diffused through global associational processes that draw on globally legitimate cultural models of education and the nation-state (Meyer and Ramirez 2000). These models emphasize “open” and comprehensive models of education (Schofer and Meyer 2005) and the contributions of education to several dimensions of economic and societal development (e.g., as human capital). As a substantial literature on world society demonstrates, international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) play an important role in shaping and disseminating these conceptions of education and the individual on a global level (Mundy and Murphy 2001). Nations that are more closely tied to the “core” of world societal ideology through social pressures from INGOs are more likely to adopt policies aligned with these models in order to reinforce their identity as legitimate nation-states in the international community (Meyer et al. 1997). These global social pressures have delegitimated the use of strong selection mechanisms like high-stakes exams at lower levels of schooling.

Hypothesis 3: Countries with higher memberships in INGOs are less likely to use high-stakes exams at lower levels of the educational process.

Third, the massive growth of international human rights instruments since World War II reflects expanded conceptions of general individual rights and freedoms in world culture (Elliott 2007), which are closely tied to advocacy for more universal access to higher levels of schooling. Education is seen as a crucial mechanism for advancing human rights through its role in empowering individuals as actors, expanding their capabilities, and equalizing social conditions among various subgroups (e.g., race/ethnicity or gender groups) (Nussbaum 2013). High-stakes exams at early ages are diametrically opposed to this ideal, given that they routinely restrict substantial proportions of the student population from pursuing secondary education (Furuta et al. forthcoming). A country’s commitment to individual rights also has been shown to delegitimate educational institutions like between-school tracking, which similarly restrict educational opportunities at higher levels (Furuta 2020).

Hypothesis 4: Countries that have formally ratified more international human rights instruments are less likely to use primary-level high-stakes exams.

Fourth, the World Bank’s growing involvement in the Education for All movement may influence countries that receive funding from the World Bank to eliminate primary-level high-stakes exams, given that funding for education-related projects increasingly supports universalizing access to education at higher levels (Mundy and Verger 2016). In contrast to more cultural and neoinstitutional processes, World Bank funding presents a more coercive set of economic pressures on countries to adopt certain policies. Prior studies show that use of national assessment tests is strongly shaped by World Bank funding (e.g., Lockheed 1995); it is therefore possible that some of the mechanisms specified earlier (e.g., national or international assessment tests) merely reflect these more coercive pressures from international institutions to adopt certain policies. In the analyses below, this independent variable is included in all models to differentiate between the economic and cultural global processes that may shape national education systems.

Hypothesis 5: Countries that receive funding for education-related projects from the World Bank are less likely to administer high-stakes exams at the primary level.

Domestic/Functional Explanations

An additional set of factors, which are often discussed in the case study literature on high-stakes exams, emphasizes how more domestic and functional processes shape why countries administer high-stakes exams at early ages. My argument does not suggest these factors are unimportant; instead, my hypotheses emphasize the importance of international processes, either historical or part of an institutional environment external to nation-states, in shaping global trends in the use of primary-level high-stakes exams. Thus, my hypotheses should hold even after the following distinctively national characteristics are held constant.

First, more economically developed countries may be less likely to use primary-level high-stakes exams. Less developed countries have fewer resources to invest in the organizational infrastructure, teaching staff, and basic materials that enable schooling to take place. These countries must therefore create stronger selection mechanisms to efficiently allocate students into a limited number of opportunities at the secondary level (Kellaghan and Greaney 1992).

Second, more democratic countries may be less likely to use primary-level high-stakes exams. In democracies, schools are perceived as a crucial space for creating free and open societies of individual citizens who are capable of making informed political decisions (Diamond 2008). In this context, severe selection mechanisms like high-stakes exams may be perceived as illegitimate because they restrict individuals from pursuing further levels of schooling.

Third, countries with higher primary enrollment ratios may be less likely to use primary-level high-stakes exams. As primary enrollments expand in a given country, education at this level confers fewer social advantages, and national governments may face stronger domestic and mechanical pressures to allow all students to continue pursuing further educational opportunities (see Furuta 2020). These domestic pressures may compel countries to eliminate high-stakes exams at this level as a mechanism that restricts enrollment expansion at the secondary level.

Fourth, countries with older ministries of education may be more likely to use high-stakes exams at the primary level. High-stakes exams require a formidable organizational infrastructure to produce a standard national curriculum, monitor academic standards, and implement the test (Eckstein and Noah 1992; Kellaghan and Greaney 1992). Older, more established ministries of education have greater organizational capacities to conduct high-stakes exams at early ages.

Data

High-Stakes Exams Data Set

To empirically test the argument, I draw on a unique data set of 138 countries from 1960 to 2010 that was constructed to identify the use of high-stakes exams at the primary, lower-secondary, and upper-secondary levels (including university entrance exams) as well as the grade level at which a given country first administers a high-stakes exam.

To code and compile this data set, I drew on several primary sources (e.g., United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization [UNESCO] surveys, international conference reports, comprehensive encyclopedia articles) that contain detailed descriptions of national education systems during a given year for each wave of data collected. For example, the UNESCO World Survey of Education comprises four volumes (published between 1955 and 1966) on primary, secondary, and tertiary education systems for more than 130 countries and territories each year, with specific sections and diagrams describing the types of schools at each level of education, the number of years in each level, promotion and selection policies at each level, and the names of exams and curricular streams. Similar information is provided in other sources used, such as The International Encyclopedia of Education (Husen and Postlethwaite 1985, 1994) and UNESCO’s (2006, 2010) World Data on Education reports. A full list of primary sources, with their corresponding waves of data, is provided in Appendix A1 in the online supplemental material.

Every effort was made to identify as many comprehensive sources on national education systems as possible for each wave of data. Where multiple reports for a country were available in a given decade, I cross-checked data across all available sources to verify the validity and consistency of the sources. For example, for the 1980s, descriptions of national education systems were available from Husen and Postlethwaite’s (1985)International Encyclopedia of Education, Kurian’s (1988)World Education Encyclopedia, and 123 country reports for UNESCO’s (1960–2000) International Conference on Education; I compared and coded each country’s descriptions based on information from these multiple sources.

I coded high-stakes exams using the definition provided in the first section; these exams are taken by everyone (or have few exceptions) in a given country’s public education system. To code this variable, I scoured the histories of every national education system in the data set (using the primary sources described earlier and as many additional secondary sources as necessary) to identify, wherever possible, the exact year in which a country changed whether it used high-stakes exams at different levels. For example, South Korea administered two high-stakes exams in 1960: a middle school entrance exam (at the end of the primary school cycle) and a university entrance exam (at the end of the senior-secondary cycle). In 1969, the middle school entrance exam was abolished by Park Chung Hee’s ministry of education and replaced with a randomized lottery process through which students were assigned to schools within a given district (Seth 2002:152–55). South Korea is therefore coded as having two high-stakes exams in 1960 to 1969: one at the primary level, and one at the senior-secondary level; the first grade-level high-stakes exam administered during this time is coded as grade 6. From 1969 to 2010, South Korea is coded as having one high-stakes exam at the senior-secondary level, and the first grade-level high-stakes exam is coded as grade 12.⁷

Dependent Variables

The existence of a primary-level high-stakes exam in country i at time t is coded as a dichotomous variable, where 1 indicates an exam is administered at the end of the first level of the educational process, and 0 indicates that no exam is administered.

Independent Variables

A country’s colonial history is measured as a series of time-invariant dichotomous variables that identify the colonial power “that was most responsible for shaping the development of the entity (or entities) that became this modern state” (Hensel n.d.). Data for this variable are drawn from the Colonial History Data through the International Correlates of War Project (Hensel 2014). Former French, British, and Spanish colonies are identified through a set of dichotomous variables; countries colonized by all other colonial powers (e.g., Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium) are combined as a separate dichotomous variable. The reference category for this series of variables is the set of countries that were never colonized (e.g., Thailand, Ethiopia, most of Western Europe).

Commitments to universalistic conceptions of education in world society are measured in several ways. First, a country’s linkages to world society are measured as a time-varying variable that identifies the number of individual memberships in INGOs for country i in time t (using the natural log to reduce positive skewness) (Boli and Thomas 1999). This measure draws on data from the UIA Yearbook of Organizations (Union of International Associations various years).

Second, I include a time-varying measure that identifies the cumulative number of international assessment tests (e.g., TIMSS, PIRLS, or other tests administered by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement) administered in country i up to time t, since 1960 (compiled by Kijima 2013). In addition, the cumulative number of national assessment tests captures the total number of national assessment tests administered in a given country up to a given year (logged to reduce positive skewness); these tests are typically administered by national ministries of education (e.g., the Evaluaciones Nacionales in Peru), and data were compiled and made publicly available through UNESCO (2015). Given that increasing implementation of these assessments over time reflects stronger commitments to universalistic conceptions of education, both variables are coded as cumulative measures.

Third, a country’s commitment to human rights is coded as the number of “core” international human rights instruments ratified by country i at time t. The United Nations categorizes eight instruments as “core” (and “non-optional”) during the time period of this study. Ratification years for each instrument, by country, were collected from publicly available sources (United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner 2019). The total number of human rights instruments ratified for country i by year t is coded as a single variable ranging from 0 to 8.

In the analyses presented here, I created an index that reflects a country’s commitments to more universalistic conceptions of education in world society by standardizing and summing the four aforementioned variables (α = .80). Taken together, this index reflects how abstract models and conceptions of education in the global institutional environment shape a country’s use of high-stakes exams at the primary level (for a similar discussion, see Furuta 2020).

Fourth, a country’s cumulative funding from World Bank projects is measured as the cumulative number of education-related World Bank projects country i received funding for by time t (from 1947 to 2010) (logged). Using the complete list of 13,108 World Bank projects funded from 1947 to 2017 (according to its “Projects and Operations” website), I manually coded whether a project’s topic was education related based on projects’ titles. For example, Guatemala received funding from the World Bank for seven projects from 1968 to 2007, including one titled “Education Project” in 1967, another titled “Basic Education Project” in 1983, and another titled “Universalization of Basic Education Project” in 2001. Following standard practices, I add a small number to this variable before taking the natural log to account for the large number of zero values.

A country’s gross domestic product per 10,000 capita captures its level of economic development in a given year and is logged to reduce the positive skewness of the measure. Data for this variable are taken from the Penn World Tables (Feenstra, Inklaar, and Timmer 2015).

A country’s level of democratization is measured as a time-varying interval variable for country i in time t, using a standard measure taken from the Polity IV data set (Marshall, Gurr, and Jaggers 2014), which rates a country’s level of democracy on a scale from −10 (fully autocratic) to +10 (fully democratic).

A country’s primary enrollment is measured as its gross primary enrollment ratio. This variable draws on data from the World Development Indicators (World Bank 2013) and other sources described by Meyer, Ramirez, and Soysal (1992) and Benavot and Riddle (1988). The variable is capped at 100 percent to account for overage students enrolled at the primary level and to reduce the measurement errors this potentially contributes to the analyses.

The age of a country’s ministry of education is coded as the total number of years since a ministry of education was founded in country i at time t. This variable is coded using data from the Statesman’s Yearbook, which identifies the founding dates of several government ministries in every country (Drori and Meyer 2018). The variable is logged to reduce the positive skewness of the distribution of values.

Appendix A2 in the online supplemental material provides descriptive statistics of the variables, and Appendix A3 reports a correlation matrix.

Methods

I use random-effects panel regression models to estimate the effects of the aforementioned independent variables on use of primary-level high-stakes exams (Wooldridge 2009). These models take the following general form:

y_{it} = μ_{t} + β x_{it} + γ z_{i} + α_{i} + ε_{it} .

(1)

For country i and time t, y_it is the dependent variable, μ_t is a time-varying intercept, x_it is a vector of time-varying independent and control variables, z_i is a vector of time-invariant independent and control variables, α_i is a time-invariant error term, and ε_it is a time-varying error term (Allison 2009). The models estimated here rely on a sample of 138 countries, from 1960 to 2010.

My argument relies on testing the effects of several crucial time-invariant variables (e.g., a country’s colonial history) on the use of high-stakes exams at the primary level; given this, fixed-effects models cannot be used because they are estimated by relying exclusively on within-subject variation (Allison 2009). Given that the structural features of education systems do not change drastically over time, an additional problem is that many countries do not change their use of high-stakes exams at the primary level during the study’s time period. Random-effects models allow me to overcome both of these problems by exploiting between-countries variation, given that random-effects models do not treat α_i as fixed (Allison 2009).

In the models estimated in Table 1, I use logistic regression models for panel data, given that the dependent variable follows a binomial distribution (see Long 1997:chap. 3). In this series of models, a country’s probability of using a high-stakes primary exam is transformed using a logit link function, where y_it = $\log (\frac{P_{it}}{1 - P_{it}})$ (Long 1997:49). All independent and control variables are lagged by five years to ensure the values of these variables precede the dependent variable in time; results are consistent when several alternative lags are used.

Table 1.

Random-Effects Panel Regression Logit Models of Primary Exams on Independent Variables, 1960 to 2010 (All Years Pooled).

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)
Colonial history ^a
Former French colony	19.37***	18.69***	18.08***	19.77***	18.22***	17.59***
	(1.95)	(1.69)	(1.62)	(1.97)	(1.00)	(1.07)
Former British colony	10.78***	10.85***	10.41***	11.07***	10.18***	10.15***
	(1.56)	(1.61)	(1.53)	(1.55)	(0.93)	(0.97)
Former Spanish colony	−4.95**	−6.41***	−5.93***	−4.79*	−5.51***	−6.00***
	(1.89)	(1.67)	(1.64)	(1.92)	(1.16)	(1.20)
Former Other colony	3.12^†	3.25^†	3.57**	3.39*	4.10	2.38*
	(1.60)	(1.66)	(1.37)	(1.55)	(4.34)	(1.10)
World society linkages
International nongovernmental organization memberships (log)		−1.89***
		(0.22)
Cumulative international tests			−0.51***
			(0.07)
Cumulative national assessments (log)				−0.61***
				(0.14)
Human rights instrument ratification					−0.50***
					(0.06)
Universalistic conceptions of education index^b						−0.58***
						(0.07)
Cumulative World Bank project funding (log)	−0.40***	−0.02	−0.44***	−0.37***	−0.12	−0.20*
	(0.09)	(0.10)	(0.08)	(0.08)	(0.09)	(0.09)
Domestic/functional processes
Gross domestic product per 10,000 capita (log)	−2.09***	−1.26***	−1.30***	−1.75***	−1.23***	−0.97***
	(0.20)	(0.23)	(0.22)	(0.21)	(0.22)	(0.21)
Democracy score	−0.00	0.04*	0.01	0.00	0.04^†	0.04*
	(0.02)	(0.02)	(0.02)	(0.02)	(0.02)	(0.02)
Primary enrollment^c	−0.04***	−0.02*	−0.04***	−0.04***	−0.03**	−0.03**
	(0.01)	(0.01)	(0.01)	(0.01)	(0.01)	(0.01)
Years since education ministry founded (log)	1.27***	2.19***	1.66***	1.33***	1.93***	1.87***
	(0.19)	(0.21)	(0.19)	(0.19)	(0.18)	(0.17)
Constant	−0.43	4.03*	−3.58*	−1.98	−4.75**	−6.64***
	(1.83)	(1.92)	(1.79)	(1.84)	(1.46)	(1.42)
$\ln (σ_{v}^{2})$	4.53***	4.66***	4.56***	4.52***	4.55***	4.57***
	(0.22)	(0.23)	(0.23)	(0.23)	(0.28)	(0.23)
N	4,884	4,884	4,884	4,884	4,884	4,884
Countries	138	138	138	138	138	138
λ²	458.55	790.55	525.71	402.08	1129.23	888.04
Log likelihood	−775.29	−741.00	−729.75	−763.74	−735.11	−725.34
df	9.00	10.00	10.00	10.00	10.00	10.00

Note: Standard errors are in parentheses. All independent and control variables are lagged five years.

Reference category = countries never colonized.

Universalistic conceptions of education index is a composite variable of four standardized variables that identify a country’s cumulative number of national assessment tests (log), cumulative number of international assessment tests participated in, international nongovernmental organization memberships (log), and number of human rights instruments ratified (α = .80).

Variable capped at 100 percent enrollment ratio.

†

p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Results

Figure 1 depicts global trends in the proportion of countries that use high-stakes exams at the primary, junior-secondary, and senior-secondary levels during the time period of this study. The clearest finding from this figure is that almost every country in the sample uses high-stakes exams at the senior-secondary level of the educational process (this includes university entrance exams); their use declines slightly over time, but almost 90 percent of countries continued to administer a high-stakes exam at this level in 2010. The stability of this trend, however, can be contrasted with use of high-stakes exams at the primary level, which decreased from around 63 percent of countries in 1960 to 43 percent in 2010. These trends indicate that high-stakes exams became partially delegitimated over time at early ages of the schooling process. Their persistence at upper levels of schooling, however, suggests they continue to be an important mechanism for allocating individuals into unequal opportunities later in life.

Figure 2 illustrates more detailed trends in the use of high-stakes exams at the primary level, by region. One of the most dramatic changes in the descriptive trends presented here is the decline in the use of primary exams by Western countries. In 1960, more than half of Western countries in the sample used high-stakes exams at the primary level; this decreased sharply by 1970 and declined to nearly zero by 2010. The decline in use of primary exams also occurred across other regions. Schooling in sub-Saharan Africa, however, remained extremely exam based for the entire time period: This region had the highest proportion of countries that administered primary-level high-stakes exams during the entire 50-year time span (83 percent of countries in 2010). Given that countries in this region tend to be less economically developed and many were former French and British colonies, it is not surprising that this area is the most exam-dependent region in the world.⁸

Figure 3 shows how the global average grade level at which a high-stakes exam is first administered changed over time. Given that a growing number of countries have eliminated high-stakes exams at the primary level, one would expect the average grade level in which students first take a high-stakes exam to increase over time. As Figure 3 shows, this is in fact the case: The global average grade level when a high-stakes exam is first administered increased by a little more than one grade, from 7.8 in 1960 to 9.1 in 2010.

Table 1 presents logged odds coefficients from a series of random-effects panel regression logit models that estimate the effects of several independent variables on the use of high-stakes exams at the primary level. As hypotheses 1a and 1b predict about the importance of a country’s colonial history, use of high-stakes exams at this level is especially common among former British and French colonies when compared to countries that were never colonized, net of all other factors (p < .001 in all models). Former Spanish colonies are much less likely to use high-stakes exams at the primary level (p < .05 in all models), whereas countries colonized by other imperial powers are typically more likely to use primary-level high-stakes exams, although this effect is not consistently significant. Taken together, these results suggest French and British colonialism instigated path-dependent processes that led to the continued use of high-stakes exams at the primary level.

As hypotheses 2, 3, and 4 predict, countries that are more strongly committed to universalistic conceptions of education are much less likely to use high-stakes exams at the primary level (p < .001 in models 2 to 5, for independent variables that identify a country’s memberships in INGOs, participation in international assessment tests, implementation of national assessment tests, and ratification of international human rights instruments). These effects are consistent and significant, net of several other country-level characteristics. In model 6, the index that reflects a country’s commitments to these more universalistic conceptions of education and individual rights is also negative and significantly associated with use of high-stakes exams at the primary level (p < .001). As hypothesis 5 expects, a country’s receipt of funding from the World Bank is negatively associated with its use of primary-level exams, although this effect is not consistently significant. Taken together, these results support the argument that changes in conceptions of education in the global institutional environment shape how countries construct their educational institutions.⁹

Figure 4 presents the predicted probabilities that a country will administer a high-stakes exam at the primary level, over two key independent variables of interest: (1) the index that captures a country’s commitments to universalistic conceptions of education in world society and (2) whether a country is a former French colony. These probabilities are calculated from the logged odds coefficients presented in Table 1, model 6, wherein all control variables are held at their means. Countries with higher values on the index capturing commitments to universalistic conceptions of education have a much lower predicted probability of administering a high-stakes exam at this level (predicted probability = .53 for countries with a value of −6 on this variable versus predicted probability = .16 for countries with a value of 16). These differences also are stark when former French colonies are compared with countries that were never colonized (predicted probability of administering a high-stakes exam at the primary level = .84 for former French colonies versus .26 predicted probability for countries never colonized).

Finally, in terms of the domestic/functional processes identified earlier, it is unsurprising that the effect of a country’s gross domestic product per 10,000 capita is significantly and negatively associated with use of high-stakes exams at the primary level (p < .001 in all models). Less developed countries are more likely to use high-stakes exams at this stage, given that high-stakes exams provide them with a way to efficiently select a proportionately small number of students to move on to the secondary level. Surprisingly, more democratic countries are not significantly less likely to use high-stakes exams at this level. This indicator is somewhat related to the argument advanced earlier (at a domestic, rather than global, level), however, and it is moderately correlated with some of the independent and control variables included in the models (see Appendix A3). Countries with more expanded primary enrollments are less likely to use high-stakes exams at the primary level, as expected (p < .05 in all models). Finally, countries with more established ministries of education are much more likely to use high-stakes exams at early ages (p < .001), given that they have much stronger organizational capacities to implement these exams.¹⁰

Discussion

In this article, I emphasized a set of global and historical factors that have shaped global trends in the use of national high-stakes exams at early ages: (1) French and British exam regimes diffused through colonialism, which instigated path-dependent processes that led former colonies to continue using high-stakes exams at the primary level, even after gaining independence. At the same time, (2) the development of global conceptions of education as a human right and universal entitlement delegitimated the use of high-stakes exams at early ages. Results from a series of panel regression models indicate that former French and British colonies continue to use these exams at early ages of schooling; former Spanish colonies, by contrast, which achieved independence earlier in history, developed formal education institutions that were more influenced by liberal ideals and eventually invested more heavily in low-stakes tests for assessment purposes instead of high-stakes exams for selection purposes (Kamens and Benavot 2011). Countries that are more strongly committed to universalistic conceptions of education in world society, as reflected in their linkages to INGOs, implementation of more assessment tests at the national and international levels, and ratification of international human rights treaties, are less likely to use primary-level high-stakes exams.

It is important to emphasize that although high-stakes exams at early ages have declined over time, they have not been abandoned at upper levels of schooling. Formal standardized measures of merit continue to be important in shaping educational stratification at this level in most countries, but these selection mechanisms are delayed in the schooling process because they conflict with norms of inclusivity, egalitarianism, and access to education as a human right that shape conceptions of schooling at earlier ages. This trend is consistent with studies showing that between-school tracking has declined dramatically in different regions of the world at the junior-secondary level, even though most countries continue to track students at the senior-secondary level (Furuta 2020). These trends reflect a more general internal tension in globalizing conceptions of education that developed after World War II. As education became an increasingly central component of social stratification, countries faced pressures to create fair and meritocratic selection processes based on a standard academic curriculum; at the same time, education also came to be seen as a fundamental human right and universal entitlement (Furuta et al. forthcoming).

These conflicting conceptions of education reflect an underlying tension in notions of individual equality that shape liberal institutions (Lerch, Bromley, and Meyer 2020). The Hobbesian Leviathan, for example, develops from a social contract between free and equal individuals in the state of nature who also are free and equal in their capacities to brutally kill each other. Education reflects a more benign situation: In a world increasingly shaped by an underlying assumption of individual personhood, nation-states develop educational institutions that aim to both expand individual equality and allocate individuals into an unequal role structure in society (cf. Furuta 2017). In this context, the increasing importance of education in social stratification after World War II structures and legitimates this inherent tension in liberal notions of individual equality (Lerch et al. 2020). The case of high-stakes exams provides an important example of this more general phenomenon in a world increasingly shaped by liberal institutions (Ikenberry 2011).

Finally, the cross-national and historical perspective in this article highlights the distinctiveness of educational institutions in the United States when compared with those of other countries. Unlike most countries, the United States does not administer national high-stakes educational exams at any level of schooling (cf. Warren and Kulick 2007). Instead, social promotion policies were common in many districts and states during the twentieth century (Labaree 1984), and college admissions tests like the SAT and ACT have never been a mandatory admission requirement for all students (Furuta 2017). Similarly, the United States is distinct as one of few countries in the world that does not track students into sharply differentiated types of schools at any level of the educational process (Furuta 2020). Scholars of educational stratification should therefore be somewhat cautious in making theoretical generalizations using empirical evidence that draws on only the United States, given the relatively “exceptional” quality of institutionalized educational stratification in this country in this broader comparative perspective.

Supplemental Material

JFuruta_HSEs_Appendices_copyedited – Supplemental material for Western Colonialism and World Society in National Education Systems: Global Trends in the Use of High-Stakes Exams at Early Ages, 1960 to 2010

Supplemental material, JFuruta_HSEs_Appendices_copyedited for Western Colonialism and World Society in National Education Systems: Global Trends in the Use of High-Stakes Exams at Early Ages, 1960 to 2010 by Jared Furuta in Sociology of Education

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author thanks John Meyer, Evan Schofer, Michelle Jackson, Francisco Ramirez, Patricia Bromley, members of the Stanford Comparative workshop, and several anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on the article.

Research Ethics

This study analyzes country-level data that are publicly available from primary and secondary sources, and it did not require review from the institutional review board.

ORCID iD

Jared Furuta

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material is available in the online version of this journal.

Notes

Author Biography

Jared Furuta is a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, where he studies how nation-level educational institutions like high-stakes exams, tracking, and assessment testing have been shaped by a postwar vision of an international liberal order. In other work, he has studied the rise of test-optional college admission policies in the United States. His prior research has appeared in Sociology of Education and Social Forces.

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