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Will Educational Accountability, Standards, and High-Stakes Testing Give Us the Futures We Want?
Will Educational Accountability, Standards, and High-Stakes Testing Give Us the Futures We Want?
Thursday, 14 July 2016: 10:45-12:15
Location: Hörsaal 11 (Juridicum)
RC04 Sociology of Education (host committee) Language: English
Numerous developed and developing nations have embraced some degree of school accountability that is linked to standards and often high-stakes testing. The systems of accountability, standards, and testing can be based on local, state or national standardized achievement test or they can be couched in tests that are implemented or coordinated by multi-national entities such as OECD. Educational systems that rank high on such standardized systems of accountability are often presented as exemplars to be copied, while those systems that rank significantly lower than others fear for their futures. They may face the prospect of closure and termination of staffs or may be deemed by multi-national corporations as having a less competent and less employable labor force.
The newer systems of accountability have redefined the nature of standardized student testing, from a method by which educators can assess strengths and weaknesses in students and direct appropriate educational instruction and/or remediation to a vehicle by which teachers themselves, schools, educational systems, and nation states can be judged as succeeding or failing. Protagonists and antagonists of the various systems of accountability, standards, and testing debate whether their effect is to heighten inequality or serve as a mechanism to reduce inequality.
The present session invites papers that examine the intended and unintended consequences of accountability systems, educational standards, and high-stakes testing on the future of schools, school personnel, the young and societies in the 21st century.
Session Organizer: