Ann Filer - Böcker

Assessment has become one of the most significant areas of interest in educational policy development, as well as the focus of complex political, economic and cultural expectations for change. Increasingly, governments worldwide have become aware that curricula and teachers can be indirectly controlled through programmes of assessment. Opponents of centralized systems of mass assessment claim they are ill-suited to the diverse and changing needs of learners and users of assessment. In this text, the UK and US writers take the reader beyond the obvious functions of assessment, and focus upon the roles it performs in the social structuring of society. They examine the myths and assumptions that underpin assessment and testing and draw attention to its cultural context. This collection is devoted explicitly to socio-cultural studies of assessment and attempts to map the terrain of some 30 years of study in the field. Chapters are organized thematically, with background text providing comparative perspectives, key issues and further reading. The book provides a wide-ranging, structured and accessible approach to the study of socio-cultural origins and impacts of assessment.

Assessment has become one of the most significant areas of interest in educational policy development, as well as the focus of complex political, economic and cultural expectations for change. Increasingly, governments worldwide have become aware that curricula and teachers can be indirectly controlled through programmes of assessment. Opponents of centralized systems of mass assessment claim they are ill-suited to the diverse and changing needs of learners and users of assessment. In this text, the UK and US writers take the reader beyond the obvious functions of assessment, and focus upon the roles it performs in the social structuring of society. They examine the myths and assumptions that underpin assessment and testing and draw attention to its cultural context. This collection is devoted explicitly to socio-cultural studies of assessment and attempts to map the terrain of some 30 years of study in the field. Chapters are organized thematically, with background text providing comparative perspectives, key issues and further reading. The book provides a wide-ranging, structured and accessible approach to the study of socio-cultural origins and impacts of assessment.

First Published in 2004. This volume is a collection of papers from the participants and delegates at the Pupil Perspectives and the Curriculum symposium at the European Conference on Educational Research held at the University of Bath, UK in September 1995. One of the aims of the symposium, was to raise the profile of this under-researched area and for dissemination and exchange at an international level.

Defining assessment in the widest possible way, this work is a comprehensive ethnographic study of assessment. The case studies cover most of the important questions concerning assessment: who is being assessed and who is doing the assessing?; what is being assessed and when and where is the assessment taking place?; how does assessment function and how are assessment findings interpreted? The findings have major implications for education practice and policy. It shows how supposedly objective assessment procedures depend on their contexts and are vulnerable to both bias and distortion. The study provides the definitive examination of assessment in the 5-11 ranges.