The general background of the DESI research project is the political and aca
demic debate that is going on in the Federal Republic of Gerrnany about the stan
dards in its system of education. Recent large-scale studies in education such as
TIMSS for mathematical literacy and PISA International and National for read
ing, mathematical and scientific literacy have shed light on the critical quality of education in all the schools and revealed that the reputation of an important sec
tion of German culture is at stake.
TIMSS showed clearly that the levels of mathematical and scientific literacy were not as high as expected and one of the major reasons was revealed to be the impact of the curricula and the prevailing methodology used in the classrooms.
As soon as the results became public, attempts were made to question the validity of the TIMSS results. However, it was pointed out clearly by the Max Planck In
stitute for Human Development that the validity of the tests was fairly high when taking into account that approximately 80 percent of the test items could be re
lated to the respective curricular requirements in Germany (Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung, 2001 ).
At this point it is of interest to see how other countries that did not do very weil in this study coped with the situation. In the U.S.A. the results were challenged on two grounds. One is related to ethnicity. lt has been pointed out that ifthe Ameri
can results are broken down by race, "Asian-Americans would likely score as high as Asians in their home countries, and Whites would rank near top of the European nations" (Hu, 2000, p. 8). Second, TIMSS has been challenged by pointing out that the test items measure mostly lower learning outcomes, not higher-order thinking or hands-on experiences that are typical of reform initia
tives in American schools (cf. Wang, 2001, p. 20).
In the U.S.A. there is also a debate going on about the significance of different learning cultures. On the one hand, it has been found that teachers face similar conditions and problems in the U.S., Japan, and Germany due to the fact that globally transmitted institutions play a key role in determining instructional prac
tice and teacher beliefs in many parts of the world (LeTendre, Baker, Akiba, Goesling & Wiseman, 2001, p. 11). However, it is also true to say that there are distinctive national differences.
"In Japan, lesson study is a collaborative, school-wide process, which means that improvement happens in more than one classroom, and teachers benefit from building on each other's knowledge and ideas. The process of learning through inquiry and discussion about classroom teaching helps teachers to build their sense of professional authority. Lesson study also increases teachers' access to different points of view rather than limiting their interactions to those colleagues who share similar perspectives (Lewis, 2000)." (Stepanek, 2001, p. 3).
370 Empirische Pädagogik 2003, 17 (3), 368-379 This is to underline the notion that national cultures can alter global institu
tional forms (LeTendre et al., 2001, p. 12). The sum total ofthis line ofthinking is that wise use of cross-national information can be very enlightening to policy discussions (ibid. 13).
The results of PISA International and especially those of the national PISA study have had an even greater impact on the public and academic debate about the system of education in Germany as a whole and in the 16 states ofthe Federal Republic. One of the most crucial findings is that in the three types of literacy -reading, mathematics, and science - Germany has the most heterogeneous student population of the whole industrial world at the age of 15 ( cf. Baumert et al., 2001, pp. 106-116, p. 174, p. 230). Furthermore, the reason for this can be traced down to the fact that the German school system does not really inspire very bright stu
dents and is incapable of taking care of students with language-related problems, especially the children of the immigrant population ( cf. Baumert et al., 2001, pp.
373-379).
Moreover, the national PISA study has raised the question why the more radi
cal curricular reforms that have been carried out - especially in the central and northern states of Germany - did not achieve the results that had been intended (cf. Baumert et al., 2002, p. 82ff, p. 104ff, p. 132ft). So it is somehow remarkable that the academic and cognitive heterogeneity of the student population in Bava
ria, a state with a very pronounced tripartite school system, is smaller than that in the northern states where policies against the tripartite system have been strong.
The debate in the aftermath of PISA and especially after the inner-German re
sults of the national PISA study were published underlines that an analysis of the curricular distinctions and of the specific nature of different learning cultures in the states of Germany can make a solid contribution to the political discussions and will certainly help to find more sophisticated answers to the questions raised by these studies. lt would certainly be inappropriate to import educational fea
tures of a country such as Finland (high results in PISA International) or a state such as Bavaria (high results in the inner-German comparison of PISA National, relatively high on the international scale) (cf. Baumert et al., 2001, p. 102ff and 2002, p. 64ft) without considering the total network of the variables of the learn
ing culture. Otherwise it would be more or less incomprehensible why the high or fairly high results should be connected with a comprehensive school system in the case of Finland and a tripartite system in the case of Bavaria.
In this context - and even before PISA - the ministers of education of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany decided to initiate and finance two
more large-scale national and international assessment studies: a follow-up study of PISA so as to assess and diagnose standards in mathematical and scientific lit
eracy still further and DESI in order to assess and diagnose literacy in German as the language of instruction and L1 (mother tongue) of most students and English as the first foreign language (in most cases) and as the most important lingua franca of the European Union (DESI, 2001). In the German educational system English now has the status of an indispensable component of literacy. The minis
ters expect that these projects will help them plan and carry out reforms in educa
tion, especially with regard to the curricula in the different states, the system of education more generally, and in teacher training so as to raise the standards of learning.
DESI is financed by a grant that the Ministers of Education of all the states of
fered to the German research comrnunity to compete for. The German Research Society (DFG) was responsible for the evaluation of the research proposals that were submitted. The results of the evaluation were made public in 2001. Based on this appraisal the DESI consortium was finally formed to plan and do the re
search.