The consequences of metrics for social justice: tensions, pending issues, and questions

ABSTRACT

In the current scenario of expansion of neo-liberal and market-oriented policies, large-scale assessment has become an increasingly pervasive technology of power. Given their consequences, and the high stakes derived from them, assessment systems put pressure on schools to an extent where their practices and internal policies adapt to the logic of these mechanisms. The behaviours that emerge from this adaptation are seen as ‘gaming the system’ and are often portrayed as the responsibility of test users. However, the article aims at pushing the question around the consequences of metrics further, in terms of what these strategic gaming behaviours are adapting to and to what extent predominant metrics are accomplishing their assumptions of social justice. Through theoretically discussing the concept of social justice in connection with educational assessment, the paper problematises whether current metrics and their consequences, on the one hand, are able to respond to their underlying principles of equality of opportunity, which are characteristic of justice as distribution, and, on the other hand, highlights the insufficiency of these principles to respond to current developments of the concept of social justice with regard to the dimensions of recognition and participation, with considerations for their potential inclusion in future assessment systems.

KEYWORDS:

• Social justice
• assessment
• testing
• fairness
• consequences

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The three strands of research in this programme are: (1) a review of the literature around the concept of social justice in education and its connections to assessment; (2) exploration of experiences of injustice in connection to assessment; and (3) development and exploration of innovative practices in assessment aimed at responding to current emerging horizons of social justice.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

María Teresa Flórez Petour

María Teresa Flórez Petour is an Assistant Professor in the area of educational assessment in the Pedagogical Studies Department of the University of Chile. She coordinates the Centre for Studies on Educational Assessment in this institution and is also the national coordinator in Chile for the Latin American Network of Research on Educational Assessment (RELIEVA). She is currently a Research Associate at the Oxford University Centre for Educational Assessment. Her research interests are related to assessment policy in connection to history, politics, and ideology; the development of complex theoretical and methodological models to study assessment reform processes; the validity of high-stakes assessment systems; Assessment for Learning and its implementation in different contexts. She has been involved for more than 10 years in professional development programmes, consultancy work, and research around these topics both in Chile and the UK.

Tamara Rozas Assael is a Sociologist (Catholic University of Chile) and has a Master’s in Applied Systemic Analysis (University of Chile). She worked between 2012 and 2016 as a lecturer in the Pedagogical Studies Department of the University of Chile and as a researcher in the Centre for Advanced Research in Education (CIAE) of the same institution. She is a member of the Centre for Studies on Educational Assessment of this university. She is currently undertaking doctoral studies in the Institute of Education (IoE), University College London (UCL). Her doctoral research is focused on the relationship between Chile’s national curriculum assessment system and social justice. Her current research interests involve assessment policies, effects of high-stakes testing regimes, and social justice in assessment.

Jacqueline Gysling

Jacqueline Gysling Caselli is an Anthropologist and an Assistant Professor in the area of education policy and sociology of education in the Pedagogical Studies Department of the University of Chile. She is a member of the Centre for Studies on Educational Assessment. She was Head of the Assessment and Curriculum Unit of the Ministry of Education between 2006 and 2010, where she was in charge of policies around progress maps, Assessment for Learning, and curriculum adjustments. She recently finished her doctorate in a joint programme of the University of Leiden (Netherlands) and Diego Portales University (Chile). Her research interests include the historical relationship between the State and the private sector in connection to assessment policies, and the area of assessment in initial teacher education.

José Miguel Olave Astorga

José Miguel Olave Astorga is a geography and history teacher, with a Master’s in Education, who works as a lecturer and researcher in the area of educational assessment in the Pedagogical Studies Department of the University of Chile. He works as an academic coordinator and lecturer in courses for in-service teachers in the Programme for Continuous Teacher Education of the same institution, where he is also Head of Research. He is a member of the Centre for Studies on Educational Assessment. He is currently undertaking doctoral studies in a joint programme of the University of Chile and the University of Manizales (Colombia). His research interests include implementation of Assessment for Learning in schools, teaching profession and recognition, emotions in students in connection to assessment from a bio-political perspective.