Session Information
23 SES 11 A, Perception and Use of Evaluation and Assessment: Classroom Level
Paper Session
Contribution
This paper aims at contributing to the debate on the implications of educational evaluation by questioning the "subordination of the social dimensions of human action to the homo economicus [and], the subordination of sociology to economics as a matrix for the analysis of institutional and organizational issues ..." (Correia, 2010). The visibility of evaluation in the education political agenda emphasizes the tendency to the intertwining of “market” discourse and pedagogical discourse (Afonso, 1998, Santiago et al, 2004; Ball, 2008). The paper argues that managerialism, the market and performativity, while policy technologies (Ball, 2008), operate in the discourse of educational evaluation, making it a nodal discourse. The focus is on the blurring of boundaries between the pedagogical discourse and the discourse of performativity in educational evaluation in Portuguese basic education.
The paper discusses how educational evaluation contributes to a context where subtle shifts seem to move the axis of educational policy from social to market relevance. The implementation of policies and practices marked by the concern with performativity might represent an alignment of public education with the methods, culture and ethical system of the business area.
Educational evaluation is rooted in school work through repeated rituals of power. Formal evaluation events covering all subjects are repeated throughout the school year ensuring the regularity of the ritual. Evaluation takes on a performative character, driving and simultaneously controlling the manufacturing and dissemination of indicators and outcomes - the informative and argumentative dimension of accountability (Afonso, 2009). Economic development, linked by the hegemonic discourses to school training, and the commodification of education (Robertson, 2006) are emphasized in contemporary political discourse. One example is the emphasis on the transparency of school work by the periodic public publication of school’s league tables. Educational evaluation is being gradually dominated by an instrumental rationality, revealed in the use of market instruments, external to pedagogical discourse.
Performativity, understood as a mode of regulation (Ball, 2004), works by making school work depend on their results. This relationship strengthens the approximation of the pedagogical discourse to the market discourse diluting the specificity of educational field. Bernstein (1971) showed how the three message systems - curriculum, pedagogy and evaluation - work within education and how they assume a dialectical relationship in which a change in one system has implications on others. Presently, the system message “evaluation” has taken the discursive front stage, making it a global policy discourse on education (Rizvi, Lingard & 2010). In the discursive field of education several practices are being re-contextualized (Bernstein 1990, Fairclough 2005). The field includes other practices in its own practice, activating the evaluation discourse as a nodal discourse. This discourse organizes and structures the way the educational system, schools and professionals deal with education. It is by and through it that assumptions about students, teachers, the role of school are built, and identities and practices are redefined. It is a hegemonic discourse providing authority to the “speaker”, and a facilitator, allowing colonization by other discourses. In this double process, the nodal discourse naturalizes the characteristic features of the discourses in the competition.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Afonso, A. J. (1998). Política Educativa e Avaliação Educacional. Braga: Centro de Estudos em Educação e Psicologia, IEP. Afonso, A. J. (n.º 9 • mai/ago 09 de 2009). Políticas avaliativas e accountability em educação — subsídios para um debate iberoamericano. sísifo / revista de ciências da educação , pp. 57-70. Alves, M. P., & Machado, E. A. (2008). Para uma perspectiva dialógica de avaliação de escola. Ball, S. J. (2006). Education Policy and Social Class. The selected works of stephen J. Ball. Oxon: Routledge. Ball, S. J. (Set./Dez. de 2004). PERFORMATIVIDADE, PRIVATIZAÇÃO e o Pós- estado Previdência. Educ. Soc., Campinas, vol. 25 , pp. vol. 25, n. 89, p. 1105-1126. Ball, S. J. (2008). the education debate. Britol: The Policy Process. Ball, S. (1990). Politics and Policy Making in Education. London: Routledge. Bernstein, Basil (1971). On the Classification and framing of Educational Knowledge. In M.F.D. Young (Ed) Knowledge and Control. London: Collier-Macmillam Broadfoot, P. M. (1996). Education, Assessment and Society. Bristol: Open University Press. Correia, José A. (2010). Paradigmas e cognições no campo da administração educacional: das políticas de avaliação à avaliação como política. Manuscript Fairclough, N. (2003). Analysing Discourse - Textual analysis for social research. Oxon: Routledge. Fairclough, N. (2009). Discourse an Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press. Filer, A. (2000). Assessment: Social Practice and Social Product. London: Routledge Falmer. Rizvi, F., & Lingard, B. (2010). Globalizing Education Policy. London: Routledge. Robertson, S. (2006). ...Ao seu enquadramento na Economia/Sociedade do Conhecimento. In A. Santiago, R., Magalhães, A. M., & Cravalho, T. (2005). O Surgimento do mamagerialismo no sistema de ensino superior português. Coimbra: Fundação das Universidades Portuguesas.
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