Notes on contributors; Series editors' preface; Foreword Gita Steiner-Khamsi; Introduction Mary Hamilton, Bryan Maddox, Camilla Addey; Part 1. Definitions and Conceptualisations: 1. Assembling a sociology of numbers Radhika Gorur; 2. New literacisation, curricular isomorphism and the OECD's PISA Sam Sellar, Bob Lingard; 3. Transnational education policy-making: international assessments and the formation of a new institutional order Sotiria Grek; 4. Interpreting international surveys of adult skills: methodological and policy-related issues Jeff Evans; Part 2. Processes, Effects and Practices: 5. Disentangling policy intentions, educational practice and the discourse of quantification: accounting for the policy of 'payment by results' in nineteenth-century England Gemma Moss; 6. Adding new numbers to the literacy narrative: using PIAAC data to focus on literacy practices JD Carpentieri; 7. How feasible is it to develop a culturally sensitive large-scale standardised assessment of literacy skills? César Guadalupe; 8. Inside the assessment machine: the life and times of a test item Bryan Maddox; 9. Participating in international literacy assessments in Lao PDR and Mongolia: a global ritual of belonging Camilla Addey; 10. Towards a global model in education? International student literacy assessments and their impact on policies and institutions Tonia Bieber, Kerstin Martens, Dennis Niemann, Janna Teltemann; 11. From an international adult literacy assessment to the classroom: how test development methods are transposed into the curriculum Christine Pinsent-Johnson; 12. Counting 'what you want them to want': psychometrics and social policy in Ontario Tannis Atkinson.