‘Language Background Other Than English’: a problem NAPLaN test category for Australian students of refugee background

Abstract

Since 2008 Australia has held the National Assessment Program: Literacy and Numeracy (known as NAPLAN) for all students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9. Despite the multilingual character of the Australian population, these standardized literacy and numeracy tests are built on an assumption of English as a first language competency. The capacity for monitoring the performance of students who speak languages other than English is achieved through the disaggregation of test data using a category labelled Language Background Other than English (LBOTE). A student is classified as LBOTE if they or their parents speak a language other than English at home. The category definition is so broad that the disaggregated national data suggest that LBOTE students are outperforming English speaking students, on most test domains, though the LBOTE category shows greater variance of results. Drawing on Foucault’s theory of governmentality, this article explores the possible implications of LBOTE categorisation for English as a Second Language (ESL) students of refugee background. The article uses a quantitative research project, carried out in Queensland, Australia, to demonstrate the potential inequities resultant from such a poorly constructed data category.

Keywords:

• categorization
• refugees
• Language Background Other Than English
• governmentality
• English as a Second Language
• NAPLAN

Notes

1. The national Australian curriculum is currently being implemented in stages across Australia.

2. For reporting purposes, parents receive student results in terms of band levels. Schools receive student results as numerical scores and numerical scores are also used for national reporting.

3. If results are normally distributed, approximately 68% of results fall within one standard deviation above and below the mean, and approximately 95% of results fall within 2 standard deviations above and below the mean.

4. Broadbanding involves the collapsing of specific targeted funding into broad and general categories of support, in order to support the government’s school priorities.