The article analyses the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) as a tool - knowledge-based and knowledge-generator - that participates in the coordination of public action in the field of education. The text is based on a previous research on the supranational fabrication of PISA, carried out within a large-scale European research project on the role of knowledge in Health and Education public policies - Knowandpol. The article examines PISA - and its multiple and related activities of inquiry, organization and publication - as a policy tool, and analyses its cognitive and normative features concerning tree issues: the definition of "educational reality"; the set up of appropriate forms of governing education, and the production of knowledge for policy.
Educational knowledge; International organizations; OECD; PISA; Education policy