Beyond Reporting Grades in Grade Talk: Narratives About Students’ Paths in Year Four

ABSTRACT

In this article, the assessment practice known as the “grade conference” is analysed using an interactionally oriented narrative approach. The aim is to explore the grade conference and what it entails for students when executed in their fourth year of compulsory school, as part of a trial of an educational reform where students receive grades from year four instead of year six. Two cases illustrate the way that students are positioned and ascribed different paths and prospects in and through stories located within the grade conference. Findings show that students are ascribed individual responsibilities and their positions as students are largely evaluated by individual characteristics in these stories. It is concluded that the grade conference is a practice that may influence the students’ views of their potential in school, as the narratives about their paths and prospects discursively make different routes more or less viable.

KEYWORDS:

• Narrative
• grade conference
• positioning
• assessment
• school reform
• Sweden
• intermediate grades

Introduction

This article concerns a specific assessment practice in school where teachers in direct communication inform students about their forthcoming grades. In Sweden, this practice is commonly referred to as “betygssamtal”, and will hereafter be called “grade conference”.

The essential notion of the grade conference is to inform students individually about their forthcoming grades in a face-to-face activity. It typically occurs when students are about to get their final grades for an assignment, course or subject (Meyer-Beining et al., 2018). The grade conference is a frequently employed practice in upper elementary and secondary school in Sweden, though it may be utilized earlier since students are awarded grades at an earlier stage of their educational career. Furthermore, it is a teacher-led assessment practice with distinctive asymmetry between teacher and student and represents a high-stakes event for students as well as the teachers involved (Meyer-Beining et al., 2018; Rinne, 2017).

Previous research concerning the grade conference mainly focusses on institutional and professional aspects of the practice in upper secondary school and higher education (Andersson, 2016; Meyer-Beining et al., 2018; Rinne, 2013, 2017). Less is known about what the grade conference entails for students in primary school. However, it may be associated with research on the significance of grades for students in primary school (c.f., Kärkkäinen et al., 2008; Klapp, 2015a; Löfgren et al., 2019; Räty et al., 2004) and how students are constructed in parent-teacher conferences (c.f., Hofvendahl, 2006; Howard, 2008; Pillet-Shore, 2016).

This article explores the grade conference as it is enacted in a school participating in a trial, where grades are introduced in year four instead of year six (SFS 2017:175). An interactionally oriented narrative approach is utilized, as it facilitates a detailed analysis of the socially situated actions the practice performs (Georgakopoulou, 2015; Mishler, 1999). The aim is to explore grade conferences and provide knowledge of what they entail for students in year four. The research questions answered in this article are:

• How are students narratively constructed in and through stories within the grade conference?

• What prospects are presented to students in their fourth year of compulsory school?

It is well known that most education systems include elements of categorizations intended for selection to higher education, which is one of the purposes of assessments and grading in school (Newton, 2007). By illustrating what is said in the first grade conferences that students attend, this study contributes to a discussion about how young students are given different prospective educational trajectories (cf. Kotthoff, 2015; Thomas & Oldfather, 1997), and how this may influence their views of themselves as more or less capable of dealing with the demands of school.

Grading

There is a prevalent discourse in western countries that stresses the importance of measuring and grading students’ results vis-a-vis predetermined goals and criteria (Ball et al., 2012; Löfgren et al., 2019; Smith, 2016). The results of standardized tests legitimize educational policies and serve as arguments for policies aiming to improve learning and equivalence (Löfgren et al., 2018). In Sweden, this is illustrated by the changes in the management and number of national tests, and by students getting grades earlier than in recent decades. Being graded earlier might affect students and their learning in intended as well as unintended ways. For example, the strong focus on tests and results has been criticized because there is no clear link between results on standardized tests and improved learning or equality in education (Black & Wiliam, 1998; Klenowski, 2014).

Some studies show that grades and high-stake testing might cause fear and test anxiety, and that young children sometimes have difficulty understanding complex systems for assessment (Harlen & Deakin Crick, 2003). Other studies indicate that grades may be connected to students’ perceptions of who they are and of their potential for improvement in school (Kärkkäinen et al., 2008; Räty et al., 2004; Thomas & Oldfather, 1997), including thoughts on how to get a good life in the future (Löfgren et al., 2019). Another study, concerning grades in year six in Sweden, describes how students who received low grades in year six had difficulty getting higher grades later on (Klapp, 2015a; Klapp et al., 2014). In addition, Thomas and Oldfather (1997) propose that grades and similar assessment practices “play a key role in determining the broader outcomes of education” (p. 108).

The Swedish Grading System and Policy

In the Swedish parliament, there has been some disagreement about the type of grading scale and when students first ought to receive grades. The Swedish grading system was reformed in 2011 as part of the implementation of a new national curriculum for compulsory school. Key aspects of the reform include grades being given from year six instead of from year eight, as well as revised syllabuses with new grading standards and the introduction of a new grading scale with six steps instead of three. Although some previous research (Goetz et al., 2018; Klapp, 2015b; Lipnevich & Smith, 2009) has shown negative consequences of grading, and the reform was criticized by teachers and politicians, the majority in the parliament argued that the revisions were an attempt to make the grading process more consistent and to provide students and parents with clearer information about the students’ achievement (DS 2008:13; Skolverket, 2016). After the reform, a majority in the parliament wanted to introduce grades earlier still. Therefore political decisions were taken in 2015 to allow schools to take part in a trial where students would receive grades from year four. The trial was in effect from April 2017 and was intended to be evaluated in June 2021 (SFS 2017:175). Besides awarding grades from year four instead of six, the trial corresponded with the national directives for grading and grades at the time (SFS 2010:800). The grades in years four and five were awarded in relation to the knowledge requirements for year six within the trial. There was a high degree of self-selection among schools in the trial, as only eleven schools enrolled at the start of the trial and a total of fifteen schools ended up participating, where a maximum of one hundred schools could have participated (Löfgren et al., 2021). The trial has since been extended with a proposition for schools to have the choice to award grades from year four (Prop. 2020/21:58). This proposition was passed in 2021 and made national policy (SFS 2010:800; SFS 2021:191). The empirical data in this article is based on grade conferences from a school that participated in the trial with grades from year four.

The grading system in Sweden includes a scale with grades from A to F. All grades but F are passing grades. A is the highest; F means Fail. For each subject, there are knowledge requirements which specify the standard a student must achieve to be awarded a particular grade. Knowledge requirements are specified for the grades E, C and A at the end of years six and nine in each subject in compulsory school. Grades are determined by teachers, who base their decision on classroom assessments and the national tests in years six and nine. Teachers in Sweden are required to regularly provide students with information about their progress in school and are expected to inform students about grades in an appropriate way (Skolverket, 2018). Some schools and teachers use grade conferences to meet these expectations, however, it is not specified by national directives—unlike the mandatory practice of parent-teacher-student conferences (cf. Andersson, 2016).

Institutional Talk in School

The grade conference is a face-to-face assessment practice between students and teachers in school (Meyer-Beining et al., 2018). It is institutional talk and concerns the teachers’ assessments and descriptions of how students are doing in school, with emphasis on the students’ grades. Thus, understanding of the Swedish grade conference can be informed by research on institutional talk that focusses on teachers’ assessment of students and on their performance (cf. Adelswärd et al., 1997; Cedersund & Svensson, 1996; Hofvendahl, 2006; Mazeland & Berenst, 2008; Pillet-Shore, 2003, 2016).

Institutional talk is formal activities that are socially recognized, have a specific purpose and usually a designation (Linell, 1990), for example, the grade conference or the parent-teacher conference (cf. Adelswärd et al., 1997; Hofvendahl, 2006; Howard, 2008; Meyer-Beining et al., 2018; Rinne, 2013, 2017). There are often procedures for conducting these institutional encounters, and predefined issues are discussed in a certain way. This is exemplified by the findings of Adelswärd et al. (1997) on the typical organization of parent-teacher conferences, and by Meyer-Beining et al. (2018) on communicative projects located in grade conferences.

The assessments that are communicated and the teachers’ talk about students and their performance in institutional talk provide information about the norms and values of the school (cf. Cedersund & Svensson, 1996; Howard, 2008). In evaluating students and their progress, teachers employ different communicative resources to convey praise and criticism (Pillet-Shore, 2003, 2016), positioning themselves and others (cf. Bamberg, 1997; Howard, 2008; Markström & Simonsson, 2011) or routinizing student trouble (Pillet-Shore, 2016). For instance, research show that students may be: assigned to a type or category (Cedersund & Svensson, 1996; Mazeland & Berenst, 2008); characterized by the progress and state the student is in (Hofvendahl, 2006; Howard, 2008; Pillet-Shore, 2003); or ascribed individual characteristics and attitudes (Hofvendahl, 2004; Mazeland & Berenst, 2008). Teachers use a combination of these in the talk about the student, i.e., a combination of various types of descriptive practices (Markström & Simonsson, 2011), and often tell a story that supports that judgement (Mazeland & Berenst, 2008).

In institutional talk, participants often have complementary and asymmetric positions, often that of professional and citizen. Previous research in school settings confirms this asymmetry (Meyer-Beining et al., 2018), and shows that teachers often dominate the talk in such encounters (Hofvendahl, 2006). Teachers also have the authority to outline the situational contingencies of the talk, such as time and space. This addresses the question of power in institutional talk such as the grade conference, and the opportunities and limitations participants may have to negotiate or oppose attributed positions in situ.

A Narrative Approach

In this article, an interactionally oriented narrative approach has been taken to explore the grade conferences and what they entail for students in their fourth year of compulsory school. By taking this approach, the grade conferences are studied as a narrative activity in which stories about students and their grades are formed. The stories are considered to perform socially situated actions within specific contexts (Bamberg, 1997; Georgakopoulou, 2015; Mishler, 1999).

Identifying Stories in a Narrative Activity

The interactionally oriented narrative approach typically analyses stories that are formed in the flow of conversational interaction (De Fina, 2015; Deppermann, 2015), from contexts not prompted by research but rather occurring in their institutional or everyday contexts (Goodwin, 2015). As such, the approach acknowledges that stories may not only be completed retrospective and reflective narrations but may also include fragmented, prospective, imagined, hypothetical, and ongoing narrations (cf. Deppermann, 2015; Georgakopoulou, 2015). Thus the definitional criteria of what qualifies as a story within the approach is fluid, as it is achieved interactively in a particular context (Georgakopoulou, 2015). Within the approach, stories may be identified by dimensions of tellership, tellability, embeddedness, linearity, and moral stance (Ochs & Capps, 2009).

In this article, the tellership dimension involves multiple participants in the narrative activity who co-construct the stories (Georgakopoulou, 2015): two tellers and a recipient. The tellability dimension is enclosed by its situatedness in an institutional practice, the stories are both world-making and world-disruptive (ibid.) as they pertain to the ordinary events in the context, whilst they also regularly address significant complications or problems. As for the embeddedness dimension, the stories are produced in an institutional context, by institutional actors and designed with a specific purpose. The linearity dimension concerns the structural qualities of the stories, specifically regarding the sequencing of events in the storytelling (Ochs & Capps, 2009). The stories within this article are multilinear, where events are not only chronologically sequenced in past tense but arranged with various temporal orientations, consistently shifting among past, present and future tense, as well as different aspects and modalities. The dimension of moral stance is about the narrators’ attitudes as they are expressed in the stories, which may be definite or wavering (Ochs & Capps, 2009).

There is a co-existence of stories (Georgakopoulou, 2015) identified in multiple layers of the narrative activity presented in this article. There are various discrete stories, but also a linked and accumulated meaning of them as they unfold within the interaction, as well as a meaning embedded in the extensive narrative activity.

Stories as Socially Situated Actions

In this article, the analysis is founded on the local level of interaction. The analysis rests on the notion that “narratives are fusions of form and content” (Mishler, 1999, p. 18). This means that the content of a story is analysed in conjunction with linguistic devices such as: reported speech, categorizations, indexicality and deixis of time and person (De Fina, 2015; Wortham & Rhodes, 2015). By studying the content in conjunction with the linguistic devices, the actions that the telling performs are elucidated. When utilizing reported speech, for example, a narrator represents the words of others in their own speech: such as quoting or reporting what another has said or by speaking as a recognizable other (Wortham & Rhodes, 2015). Thus, the use of reported speech may invoke or evaluate a particular social position within a story. The ways that people present and construct themselves and others are of particular interest in understanding stories as socially situated actions (Bamberg, 2011; De Fina, 2015; Georgakopoulou, 2015), commonly analysed by the anti-essentialist concept of positioning (Deppermann, 2015). Positioning informs the analysis of the ways that students are narratively constructed in and through stories at the local level of interaction, namely, how people become positioned, both temporally and spatially, as someone in the referential world of a story (Bamberg, 2011), as well as how they are evaluated and ascribed agency through a story (Bamberg, 2011; Deppermann, 2015).

The stories are embedded in previous and further narrative making and the extensive narrative activity by analysing what function the stories holds and how the form and content are associated throughout the narrative activity. Curiously, the extensive narrative activity corresponds with Labov and Waletzky’s (1997) model of oral narratives: with an abstract, orientation, complicating action, evaluation, resolution, and coda. Hence, the abstract and coda from the model inform the understanding of the extensive narrative activity, and the orientation informs the analysis of the functions of the first discrete story told within each grade conference.

Methodological Considerations

The empirical focus of this article is on grade conferences and on the stories about students and their grades that take form within them. The data originates from audio-recorded grade conferences with students in year four. This data was accumulated in 2018 within a project¹ about the trial to begin grading students in year four instead of six from a primary school in Sweden.

Setting, Participants and Ethical Considerations

The grade conferences took place at the end of the students’ second and final term in year four, were conducted by their two main teachers and concerned a focal student’s upcoming grades. The students got their very first grade report cards the previous term, because their school began participation in a trial to grade students from year four instead of six (SFS 2017:175). The grade conferences in this article are thus one of the first experiences the participating students and teachers have with grades in year four.

The participants are nineteen year-four students and two middle-school teachers from a school that has students up to year six. The two teachers shared responsibility for the year-four students and conducted the grade conferences in collaboration. The students who allowed their grade conferences to be recorded were ten to eleven years of age and represented a broad variation in their grades and performance.

The grade conferences were about seven to nine minutes long, with one focal student and two teachers participating in each conference. They were conducted successively in a room out of class. The recording of the grade conferences was administered by the teachers themselves. During the grade conferences, the two teachers talked about the subjects they teach and presented the grades the student was to receive in those subjects.

The grade conferences were audio recorded with informed consent of participating students and their guardians, as well as of the participating teachers. The audio recordings were accumulated via a research project about the trial. Necessary information about the project, and consequently this study, were provided on occasions prior to, during and after data collection. The study was conducted with attention to ethical principles (Swedish Research Council, 2011) and approval was obtained within the wider project by the local ethical review board.²

Analysis and Case Selection

The nineteen grade conferences were initially examined by notes and brief transcriptions with timestamps to chart the data, and to examine what they concerned and what the data indicated. All grade conferences were analysed. The analysis indicated that the grade conferences had strong structural similarities, internal coherence, and the students were repeatedly categorized in association with the grades and performance described. At this stage, an interactionally oriented narrative approach was used to explore what the grade conference entails for students, as the grade conferences had common features with Labov and Waletzky’s (1997) model of oral narratives and performed socially situated actions of relevance for the temporal construction of students. The analysis and interpretations take the point of departure from how the students are narratively constructed and what prospect are presented to them. The narrative analysis follows the social constructionist assumption that participants draw on discourses that are available to them and how these are reproduced and reconstructed. The authors have worked together with the data analysis and preliminary results have been presented and discussed at conferences before the final version, strengthening the credibility and accuracy of the results.

A case study design was utilized to enable a more detailed analysis of the socially situated actions the grade conference performed as it is enacted within a specific context. Two cases have been selected, both representing distinguished narratives, which illustrates the ways in which the students become narratively constructed in and through the grade conference and can give rise to various implications. The two cases have been chosen because they illustrate patterns that characterize the whole dataset while they are also the most coherent narratives that represent contrasting variations. In the other grade conferences, the students were narratively constructed in a way that configured their history, present and future in school, but these narratives were not quite as coherent and did not represent contrasting variations in the temporal orientations and evaluations of the students. The detailed analysis of the cases draws on the full audio recordings and verbatim transcripts of the grade conferences in their original language, Swedish. English translations were made for the excerpts presented in this article prior to submission.

The unit of analysis in each case was discrete stories located within the grade conference, though their embeddedness in the extensive narrative activity of the grade conference was also addressed. For this reason, the stories are presented in the same chronological order as the grade conference in each case. Departing from the aim and research questions, the evaluations and arguments that are used in each story are highlighted and analysed to nuance the functions and the positioning of the student in each story.

Results

In this section, the analysis of the way that students are narratively constructed and presented different prospects in and through stories formed within grade conferences are illustrated by two cases. The cases are two grade conferences which take place at the end of the last period of the students’ fourth year, concerning their upcoming grades in several subjects.

The opening and ending of the grade conference are significant for the interpretation of the narrative activity within each case. Both grade conferences open with an abstract (Labov & Waletzky, 1997) which signifies that grades are the presumed topic. The abstract in case 1 is: “Well then, then we’ll talk to Elin about her grades”, whereas the abstract in case 2 is: “I thought I’d give you some tips first, before you get the grades”. Each abstract clarifies that the students’ grades are the anticipated subject of the grade conference. However, the abstract in case 2 is less forthright, as it is conveyed more cautiously by the teacher, which suggests that it may be accompanied by a dispreferred action (cf. De Fina, 2009). In the coda (Labov & Waletzky, 1997) that ends the grade conference, the teachers invite the students to speak their mind by asking if they have any questions or thoughts about what they have been told. In case 2, however, this is followed by the teachers jokingly says: “So we don’t just sit and talk nonsense? […] We do that too”, which suggest that the teachers acknowledge that some of the content might be nonsense, and re-evaluate and mitigate the narrative.

Case 1—A Good Student and a Potential Role-Model

In case 1, the participants of the grade conference are the student Elin and the teachers Ludvig and Gustav. Through several stories, the student is positioned as a good student and a potential role model for her peers. The position involves: being capable and self-sufficient; compliance and responsiveness to expectations; and continuing development and performativity.

Development of a Positive Strength

After an abstract (Labov & Waletzky, 1997), the teacher tells a story about the student’s performance regarding oral presentations:

I thought I would highlight a positive strength which you have developed, and it is about those oral presentations. They have become, they are great. And the structure is very good too. […] And you are always, very often, well prepared when you are to present things […] In that regard, you have grown considerably from last year, for example.

In this story, the evaluation is that oral presentation is a “positive strength” that the student has developed. The arguments are that they are very well structured, and that the student is well prepared. Through the story, the student is positioned as responsible. It is the student, addressed with the pronoun “you”, that has developed a positive strength and thus has taken responsibility for her own improvement. When the teacher expresses that the student has grown a lot since last year, the focus of the story is shifted from being about the performance to the personal development of the student, and the student is positioned as responsive to expectations.

As this is the first story told in the grade conference, it may function as an orientation (Labov & Waletzky, 1997). Certainly, the way that this story is told shows that it functions as praise. The formulations used, for example, the words “highlight”, “positive” and “strength”, reinforce an affirmative and commending stance in the story. The way this story is told together with its content constructs development, responsibility, and responsiveness as positive values in year four.

Opportunities for Development

The first story is followed by a story about the student’s performance in the subject of Swedish, in turn followed by a story about mathematics. In both stories, the student is presented with an “opportunity for development”, and the performance is evaluated with reference to central skills within each subject. The following story about the performance in mathematics exemplifies these similarities and elaborates them:

When it comes to maths, you get the four arithmetic methods. For your own sake, you probably need to work a little with [the] multiplication [tables], so they become a little easier. You solve your routine assignments properly, that is, the ones in the book. You’re getting better at problem-solving too. […] An opportunity for development is, [to] come forward and show a bit more when we go through assignments on the board, and it’s also clearly about structure, that things are visible. Eh, maths, there you’ll get a … (the teacher leaf through documents) A grade called C.

The summative evaluation is summarized with the grade C in each subject. The arguments are that the student knows the four arithmetic methods, solves routine tasks well, and is getting better at problem-solving. While evaluating the student’s performance, the teacher suggests that the student may benefit from practicing multiplication, and presents the student with an “opportunity for development”: to show a little more when reviewing tasks together in class. This positions the student as responsible for her own development and as self-sufficient. The positioning of the student as self-sufficient and responsible is most evident in the advice to practice multiplication for her “own sake”, appealing to the student’s own will and ambition.

The delivery of the student’s grade in mathematics is slightly delayed and mitigated, which suggests a dispreferred action. The use of indefinite non-possessive form (a grade) and stressing the grade as a label (called C) further mitigate the grade in the story. This suggests that the story predominantly functions to support and guide the student for the future rather than justification for the grade. Taken together, self-sufficiency, continuous development, and performativity are constructed as positive values in and through the stories.

Being Very Good

Although told by different teachers, the following story about the student’s performance in social science subjects along with the story about the science subjects and technology share a pronounced emphasis on the student being good. The story about the social science subject illustrates this emphasis on being good:

When it comes to you and these social science subjects, you are very good (duktig) at these basic, like, basic facts. You know the facts, you grasp them easily. You have good knowledge of many of these concepts that we use in the social science subjects and you will be able to utilitize these concepts and these facts and start reasoning and explaining and motivating more. Then you will be able to raise these grades even more. But in history, you were very good (duktig) there, had a very good grasp. There you will get a B from me. In religion you will get a C and in civics you will get the grade D.

The student’s performance is summarized with varying grades. Apart from the student being positioned as very good, the arguments are that the student has knowledge and understanding of the facts and concepts of relevance to each subject.

In the story, the teacher talks as if the student will inevitably advance and raise her grades by utilizing the facts and concepts to further reason, explain and debate. Through the stories, the student is positioned as very good, with traits such as: knowledgeable and capable; someone who learns easily and is able to raise her grades and achieve the expected development. The student is portrayed as someone who grasps what she is supposed to do and executes it in compliance with the expectations. Fundamental for the values elucidated in the stories is the recurring use of the word good, in Swedish “duktig”, to characterize and position the student, since the word is contextual and often used to highlight that someone performs well given what is expected of the situational role.

Inspiring Others

The final story told at the grade conference is about the student’s prospects and future in the science subject and school more generally:

[…] and I think you will at least keep these grades, and probably raise them a little more. When I get an even better idea of what you actually know and such. So, keep being interested, do your homework, practice for exams. What you can think about is being a little more active in class, wave your hand more “I want to participate and talk too” and show. It’s great for your friends too, to see: “oh, Elin is good (duktig), I’d like to be like that too” so you inspire the others.

Though the story is primarily about the student’s prospects and hypothetical future in general terms, it also relates to the student’s past and current performance in the science subjects. Apart from reinforcing that the student is good as it adheres to the previous stories, the summative evaluation in this story is more like a prediction than a judgment of the student’s performance in a particular subject. The prediction is that the student will maintain and most likely raise her grades. The arguments are that the student is interested, does her homework and studies for exams. On the condition that she continues to do so, her grades will improve. This positions the student as someone who performs what they are supposed to and is expected to sustain it. The story also positions the student as someone who possesses more capabilities than have currently been identified by the teacher.

In the last part of the story, the teacher advises the student to become more active during lessons by raising her hand and make herself more visible. Through reported speech, the attitude of a more active student is modelled as someone who is keen to talk and show their knowledge. As this advice is elaborated, it is described as not only favourable for the student but also of value to her peers. Through reported speech of her peers, the student is positioned as someone who will be recognized as good and who her peers would desire to be like. It positions the student as a potential role model.

The story primarily functions as a prediction of the student’s prospects in school. Specifically, it functions to affirm that the student is good and to encourage the student to continue being good and asserting this to others, as well as setting expectations for the future. In and through and the story, being good and exhibiting performativity, in other words asserting being good, is constructed as positive values and norms.

Case 2—An Unfocussed E-Lad and Becoming a School-Lad

In the second case, the participants are the student Erik and the teachers Ludvig and Gustav. The student is positioned as an unfocussed E-lad and an unlikely school-lad in the grade conference. The position involves: lack of focus, perseverance, and commitment; being sloppy and having merely sufficient performances.

Initiating Student Trouble

The first story told within the grade conference is introduced as advice in the abstract (Labov & Waletzky, 1997), and concerns student trouble:

What I notice a bit in school generally, right now, or what has been, is that you give up quite quickly when you encounter problems, that is, when you are not quite proficient. Then you withdraw and put off your work and the like. And there I think you need to work at fighting on, anyways, frankly. You can also consider how you make use of lessons, so they don’t disappear into discussions with other friends. That is, you talk about other things, because then you lose lesson time too.

The story is about the student giving up when he faces problems, and focussing on other things than the schoolwork. The arguments are that when the student encounters problems he gives up and stops working and that he talks about other things than school, making lessons “disappear” in discussions with friends.

Although the student is urged to be more responsible in school through the story, the use of words indicates that the student is passive; he gives up when faced with resistance, and thus “lose”, “disappear” and “withdraw”, which portrays the student as passive regarding the acts of misbehaviour. However, the use of the pronoun “you” and the active construction hold the student accountable for these passive acts of misbehaviour. The student is also made responsible for resolving this, by becoming more attentive and staying on task. In the story, the student is positioned as someone who lacks perseverance, and who is neglectful of school by not paying attention.

Even though the story is introduced to function as advice in the abstract, the student is only explicitly advised by the teacher’s instruction to “fight on” when facing problems, and take better care of lessons through the story. However, a considerable portion of the story functions as describing the student’s difficulties at school. In describing these difficulties, a function of the story is to initiate talk on student trouble and may be to admonish the student’s behaviour. As the first story told within the grade conference, it may function as an orientation. Through the story, effort, perseverance, responsibility, and attentiveness are indirectly encouraged and given positive values. The lack thereof is admonished and thus given negative values.

Try to Not Give Up

The second and third stories of the grade conference are about the student’s grade in Swedish and mathematics, respectively. The stories within this case are more descriptive in relation to the student’s past and current performance than case 1, with little to no talk about the future opportunities of the student. Here is an excerpt from the story that illustrates the focus on the student’s past and current performance in mathematics:

The easier routine assignments, that is, the ones you do in the maths book, they go rather well. But when it comes to the little more difficult assignments, problem-solving, then you encounter problems. And that’s where I also feel, that’s where you usually give up sometimes and then you just have to try like this “Now I try this method, now I’ll do it this way. Argh, that did not work. Argh! I don’t know, it’s not possible. Oh! I’ll try this method instead or try this calculation”. And in mathematics you’ll get a grade which is … where do we have you … (searches documents). You’ll get an E, there in mathematics.

The student’s performance is summarized with the grade E in Mathematics and D in Swedish. The performance is evaluated as rather good, but generally followed by a remark which implies some kind of difficulty, using expressions such as “rather well” or “decent” to describe the student’s performance. The arguments in mathematics are related to the student’s performance in arithmetic methods and problem-solving, and are portrayed as sufficient but not altogether satisfactory.

Through reported speech, the teacher models what the student should do instead of giving up when having trouble: trying different methods and making new attempts even if the first ones do not work and it feels overwhelming. This positions the student as someone who lacks perseverance and as someone who is not making adequate effort to resolve the problem. In Swedish, the student is described as sloppy with a capital letter and a full stop, with the teacher saying: “You're sloppy. With a capital letter and a full stop. Still. And we’ve been struggling with that for a very, very long time. So, you really have to try to get it”. This is contextualized with the description of it as a long-term struggle shared by both teacher and student, by using the pronoun “we”. With these accounts in mathematics and Swedish the student is portrayed as someone with long-lasting difficulties, and as someone who is not determined enough to make the necessary effort to resolve it.

Apart from delivering the grade, the two stories involve a description of student difficulties and they articulate criticism. The stories function to elaborate the talk on student trouble in the first story, and establish these as persistent and difficult. It thereby functions to reinforce the position of the student as someone who does not face challenges but gives up, and who lacks perseverance and determination. Determination and development are constructed as positive values through the story.

A Proper School-Lad

Following the story about the student’s grade and performance in mathematics is the story about the social science subjects:

[…] And then there are a whole lot of concepts that you need to know. And I feel that you don’t really have that, an understanding of all the facts and concepts. And there you also need to try to take part in the class more and be more involved in the discussions. Ask questions if there are things you don’t understand. So you-, so we’ll try to help you sort that out. Geography […] was an E. In history, you’ll also get an E. And in religion it will be E. And in civics there will be an E too. In these subjects, it’s quite, sometimes you have quite long work areas, you might work in groups and such. Then I feel you might lose focus, which may affect the result as well. So you probably need to be more focussed I think.

The summative evaluation is summarized in the grade E in all subject and the performance is evaluated as not quite proficient. The arguments are that the student does not have sufficient understanding of all the essential facts and concepts, and lacks focus. The argument of not having sufficient understanding of the facts and concepts is contextualized in the account that there are “a whole lot of concepts”, which can be understood as routinizing the difficulty as something that is justifiably challenging (cf. Pillet-Shore, 2016). The lack of focus is also contextualized, by circumstances of the teaching. Yet the student is urged to be more focussed. The teacher also urges the student to try to be more involved and to ask questions so they can resolve it together.

This story is later resumed by the other teacher in the introductory talk about the science subjects and technology:

[…] And similarly there, focus is lacking at times. You need to become a bit better school-lad, like someone who knows that “Now it’s school, now I’m going to do this”, sometimes there are some other things that grab your attention and this about doing homework properly and practicing before exams properly and things like that.

The other teacher resumes the story by saying he will talk about these subjects in “the same way” as the other teacher did, however, the teacher also refers to and utilizes what the other teacher said. The content is tied by the talk about the lack of focus and inattentiveness. These explicit ties between the form and content of the stories function to establish a coherence between them. In this continuing part of the story a more proper school-lad is introduced. By using reported speech, the attitude of proper school-lad is modelled and the student’s position as someone who lacks focus, is inattentive and needs to do things more properly is reinforced. Attentiveness and properness are constructed as positive values in school through this story.

Not Completely Hopeless

The final story told within the grade conference is about the student’s grade in science more generally, and it evaluates the student’s prospects for year five:

I feel like you’re a pretty solid E-lad, across the board. […] But I feel that, if you were to become a little more focussed and all we’ve said now, then you’ll have the opportunity to lift [your grades]. I think you have an interest in these subjects, you probably think they’re quite fun. So I think that in year five, you should work away from this E-lad and become another lad. What do you think? It is possible? […] And that stuff about being active during lessons, raising your hand and taking part in discussions and such. You do answer when I ask questions and sometimes you get it right and sometimes you almost get it right and so on. So it’s like not completely hopeless.

The summative evaluation is summarized with the grade E in all science subjects. Apart from the student being explicitly positioned as “a pretty solid E-lad, across the board”, the arguments are that the student only knows a little bit about quite a lot but does not develop this knowledge and do not grasp all the concepts. A great portion of the story concerns an appraisal of the student’s future possibilities in the science subjects. The appraisal of the student’s future possibilities might serve as arguments for the grade, as it articulates what the student ought to do to improve his grades and become something other than an “E-lad”. The judgement is that it is not completely hopeless, as the student is probably interested in the subjects and occasionally gets his answers right. However, it is portrayed as improbable, as the student would need to do everything they previously said, including becoming more focussed. As in previous stories, the position of the student as unfocussed, inattentive, and not quite determined to do things properly is reinforced. In this story, however, it is reinforced and stabilized by the categorization of the student as a “solid E-lad”.

The function of the story seems to be to urge the student to become someone else in school, i.e., a focussed and more proper “school-lad”. It also functions to set the expectations for the future, which are not very optimistic but rather concentrated on the consistency of the student’s past. In and through the story, being attentive, focussed and determined to make effort are constructed as positive values and norms.

Discussion

The findings in this article contribute to knowledge that offers insight in what the grade conference performs beyond its rudimentary purpose of informing students about their grades. The aim of this study was to explore grade conferences and to provide knowledge of what they entail for students in year four. The research questions focussed on how students are narratively constructed in and through stories within the grade conference, and what prospects are presented to students.

This study reveals that students are ascribed responsibilities and are positioned relative to the norms and values elucidated by the narrative activity in the grade conference. A remarkable finding is the way that responsibility and accountability are ascribed to students in and through the stories of each case. A reasonable proportion of the stories accentuates the individual responsibilities and accountabilities of the student, rather than the school’s responsibility to support the student’s learning and progress. In addition, the values and norms disclosed by the two cases share a strong focus on the individual characteristics and attitudes of students (cf. Cedersund & Svensson, 1996; Hofvendahl, 2004; Mazeland & Berenst, 2008). Attentiveness, determination, self-sufficiency and performativity are some of the values and norms revealed in the two cases in this article. The students are positioned at opposing ends in relation to the individual characteristics and attitudes ascribed to the student in each case.

These findings are interesting as they contribute to the understanding of how this kind of high-stakes assessment practices, such as grading and evaluative institutional talk, may be significant in students’ educational trajectories (cf. Kotthoff, 2015; Thomas & Oldfather, 1997) and influence their views of themselves and their potentials as students in school.

When narrating the student paths and prospects in the grade conference, students’ pathways and horizons in school are discursively opened and closed for them. In this article, the findings show that the students are presented with considerably different prospects: one student is evaluated as having a promising future with higher grades and the potential of becoming a role model, while the other student is presented as an “E-lad” who is unlikely to become a “school-lad”. These prospects are consistent with the temporal orientation that the extensive narratives have in each case: where case 1 is centred toward the opportunities of the future, and case 2 is centred toward the consistency of the past. Case 2 includes stories that function as an identification of the student’s difficulty with a retrospective focus; making the student appear stuck in the past and change unlikely. Case 1 includes stories that function to affirm the student’s development with a prospective focus; making the student’s future appear promising with continuous development.

One important issue of the grade conference is the high-stakes event it represents (Meyer-Beining et al., 2018). The findings coincide with studies regarding the significance of grades for students (cf. Kärkkäinen et al., 2008; Klapp, 2015a; Löfgren et al., 2019; Räty et al., 2004). Specifically, an alignment with studies where grades can be considered labels of who one is (Kärkkäinen et al., 2008; Löfgren et al., 2019; Räty et al., 2004; Thomas & Oldfather, 1997), and the students’ perceptions of their potential seem to become more fixed as they proceed in their educational career. This alignment is most prominent in case 2, where the student is categorized relative to his grades, labelled an “E-lad” in the grade conference, and positioned as someone with persistent difficulties and contextualized by the consistency of the past. This explicit categorization may provide insight into how grades become a label of who one is and stabilize students’ perceptions of their potential in school.

A limitation of this study is that the results are drawn from a limited number of grade conferences that are all embedded within a specific context and situation. Whilst the context specificity of the grade conference is of value, it is also important to recognize the specific context in which they are embedded (cf. Larsson, 2005), such as it being a new practice for the participating students and teachers as awarding grades in year four was recently introduced in the school. It is however reasonable to think that the results are also consistent with that of a broader context. While the case study design opens for a detailed analysis of what the grade conferences may entail for students in year four, it does limit the representation of the full empirical material. The two cases provide contrasting examples that are particularly coherent and distinct. While also illustrating recurring tendencies in the empirical material, such as student categorizations and narrating the students’ paths and prospects in school. Many of the grade conferences are not forming quite as coherent and distinct narratives as the two cases in this paper. By providing the reader with the theoretical and methodological considerations, internal logic, and rich thick descriptions it is possible to assess the credibility and accuracy of the study (Larsson, 2005). The narrative approach also contributes to a “heuristic value”, as the results are configured in a way that highlights how the extensive narrative activity unfolds and configures the prospects that students are presented with (Larsson, 2005, pp. 27–28).

Although the actual consequences of the grade conference cannot be revealed by this study, the findings contribute to knowledge about practices in which the students’ perceptions of their capabilities are negotiated and transformed. If the grade conferences do influence the students in the direction that the findings of this article implicate, that is, in line with the paths and prospects articulated to the students, then the students who are about to finish year four face very different prospects and senses of being able to deal with the demands of school. However, the grade conferences presented in this study are one instance of numerous high-stakes assessment practices in school, and do not necessarily correlate with students’ educational trajectory. Therefore, we align with Kotthoff’s (2015) and Thomas and Oldfather’s (1997) conclusions that the significance of high-stakes assessment practices, such as the grade conference, for students and their educational trajectories warrants further investigation.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Skolverket, 2017, dnr 2.7.4-2017:1244.

2 Regionala etikprövningsnämnden i Linköping, 2018, dnr 2018/100-31.