23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Paper
Making of Standard Pupil Through National Final Assessment Criteria?
Hannele Pitkänen1, Eeva Rontu2
1University of Jyväskylä, Finland; 2University of Helsinki, Finland
Presenting Author: Pitkänen, Hannele;
Rontu, Eeva
The history of the student assessment can be traced back centuries. In recent decades, the educational evaluation and student assessment has found its way to the very core of education policy discourse, curricula, and scientific debate across the globe. The trend has also been manifesting as the massive increase of evaluation and assessment reforms enacted and infiltration of evaluation and assessment into each aspect in education and everyday life of it. In the global mainstream policy discourse, or GERM (Global Education Reform Movement) as Pasi Sahlberg (2016) calls it, the evaluation and assessment is reasoned as a policy tool for raising standards and quality of education and learning through inserting a mechanism of accountability. This trend has also been conceptualized as the emergence of global testing culture (Smith 2016) or the rise of test-based accountability (Verger et al 2019).
Elementary to this mainstream policy discourse is that the student assessment is considered to serve as a rather apolitical tool and neutral technique of making judgements about the performance of individual student and student population, and finally about effectiveness and quality of the education system (Pitkänen 2022). Taking the critical policy sociology stance (see e.g. Ball 2013), this article instead, follows the premise according to which assessment in its diversity of techniques, practices and purposes should not be approached as a pure and apolitical measure or technology of learning and quality of education. Rather, it elementary enacts and entails the societal power and governing by disciplining, self-disciplining, normalization and subjectification. Thus, instead of repressing or dominating, the power in question operates indirectly, by shaping and working on aspirations, attitudes, believes and interests of pupils and their subjectivities, and e.g. by inscribing the norm and standard as a frame of reference or comparison. (see also Ball 2003; 2013; Fejes & Dahlstedt 2012; Foucault 1975/1991; Grimaldi 2019;)
These issues of subject and power have been widely examined in the field of education and educational assessment by researchers and studies applying post-structuralist governmentality perspective (see e.g. Ball 2003; Fejes & Dahlstedt 2012; Grimaldi 2019). This study uses this literature, especially the works focusing on subjectifying power — power that makes and shapes subjects — as its theoretical frame. Using this frame, it aims at studying the power and pupil subjectivities shaped and enacted by curricula policy discourse on evaluation and assessment. More specifically, this paper is curious about which kind pupil subjectivities are mobilized by the very specific ‘technique’ of pupil assessment - by the criteria for final assessment in basic education in the case of Finnish curricula policy discourse. Our research question is:
Which are the pupil subjectivities mobilized and ’standardized’ by the Finnish final assessment criteria for comprehensive education as they describe the learning outcomes for grades five (tolerable) and nine (laudable) in grading scale 4 (failed) – 10 (outstanding)?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe study uses the current Finnish comprehensive education curricula policy discourse concerning the pupil assessment as its case. Unlike many other European education systems, Finland has remained quite resistant to the global discourse and mainstream practices of student assessment. For example, instead of high-stakes testing of whole age cohorts, Finland uses sample based testing in studying the performance of pupil population. At same, the shift towards global trend and more ‘standardized’ student assessment has been taken place through the adoption of standards for grading in final assessment at the end of ninth school year, for a first time in the curriculum 2004. (Kauko et al. 2020; Pitkänen 2022.) Before, the assessment of the pupil was pretty much under the autonomy of the education provider and an individual teacher. In Finnish case, the assessment criteria have been reasoned and justified as a way of homogenizing the grading between schools and geographical locations within the country, and therefore making the grading more equal and just. Even though they also may serve this function of equality and social justice for some part, this study challenges to think about this standardizing practice of student assessment as a practice of societal subjectifying and normalizing power too.
As the main data, the study uses the newest Criteria for final assessment in basic education, that is binging national order given by the National Board of Education (NBE 2020a). Additionally, the study uses the National Core Curriculum for Basic Education 2014 (FNBE 2014), and Assessment of Pupils’ learning and skills in basic education. Adjustments to the National Core Curriculum 2014 in 10.2.2020 (FNBE2020b) documents as complementary data. These three documents are curricula documents for basic education in effect.
Aligning the post-structuralist frame and the perspective of the governmentality, the data is approached as effect and constitutive of discourse that ‘inscribes rules and standards by which we ‘reason’ about the world and our ‘self’’ (Popkewitz, 1997, p. 132). Instead of representative of the world and reality, it is read as ‘programme of conduct’ (Foucault 2000b), that as part of some ‘game of truth’ (Foucault 1982 is aimed at governing the conduct and subjectivities of those governed (Rose 2009). In Ball’s methodological terms, data studied is analytically approached here as a discourse rather than as a text. Our special methodological focus is on the constitution of subjectivities.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsStudy shows, that while describing the expected level of learning for grades five and nine and therefore offering a tool for ensuring more equal and just grading at the end of the basic schooling, the criteria mobilize specific and ‘suitable’ subjectivities for students attaining grade five and nine. Pupil receiving grade five is constituted as simplistic, capable of doing only something expected and with the support of some other. In contrast, pupil receiving grade nine is constituted as performative, competitive, autonomous and self-evaluative individual fitting the demands of global economy and idea of continuous self-improvement. This means, the criteria do not only specify specific skills and the level of learning, but constitute categorizations of pupils attaining the school expectations differently. The finding is interesting within the frame of Finnish curricula policy discourse itself as it states that assessment should not be focused on the personality of pupil. Our claim is, while criterion does not directly focus on evaluating the personality of pupil, it more than ever in the history of Finnish curriculum (see Pitkänen 2022), constitutes some traits of personality more preferable by inscribing different subjectivities for pupils receiving different grades.
ReferencesBall, S. J. (2003). The teacher's soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy, 18(2), 215–228.
Ball, S. J. 2013. Foucault, Power, and Education. Routledge
Fejes, A. & Dahlstedt, M. (2012). The Confessing Society: Foucault, Confession and Practices of Lifelong Learning. Taylor and Francis Group.
Foucault, M. (1975/1991). Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison. Penguin Books.
Foucault, M. (1982). The Subject and Power. Critical Inquiry 8(4), 777–795.
Foucault, M. (2000a). Governmentality. In J. D. Faubion (Ed.), Power. Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984 (pp. 201–222). The New Press.
Foucault, M. (2000b). The Question of Method. In J. D. Faubion (Ed.), Power. Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984 (pp. 223–238). The New Press.
Grimaldi, E. (2019). An Archaeology of Educational Evaluation: Epistemological Spaces and Political Paradoxes. Roudledge.
Kauko, J., Varjo, J. & Pitkänen, H. (2020). Quality and Evaluation in Finnish Schools. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. Oxford University Press.
NBE (2014). Perusopetuksen opetussuunnitelman perusteet. [National Core Curriculum for Basic Education 2014]. Finnish National Board of Education.
NBE (2020a). Perusopetuksen päättöarvioinnin kriteerit. Opetushallituksen määräys 5042/2020. [Criteria for final assessment in basic education. Order of the National Board of Education 5042/2020]. Finnish National Board of Education.
NBE (2020b). Oppilaan oppimisen ja osaamisen arviointi perusopetuksessa. Perusopetuksen opetussuunnitelman perusteiden 2014 muutokset. 10.2.2020. [Assessment Pupils’ learning and skills in basic education. Adjustment to the National Core Curriculum 2014 in 10.2.2020]. Finnish National Board of Education.
Pitkänen, H. 2022. The Politics of Pupil Self-evaluation: A case of Finnish assessment policy discourse. Journal of Curriculum Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2022.2040596
Popkewitz, T. S. (1997). The production of reason and power: Curriculum history and intellectual traditions. Journal of Curriculum Studies 29(2), 131–164.
Rose, N. (1999/2009). Powers of Freedom. Reframing political thought. 2nd edition. UK: The Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge.
Sahlberg, P. 2016. The global educational reform movement and its impact on schooling. In The handbook of global education policy, eds. K. Mundy, A. Green, B. Lingard, and A. Verger, 128–144. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons.
Verger, A., Parcerisa, L. & Fontdevila, C. (2019). The growth and spread of large-scale assessments and test-based accountabilities: a political sociology of global education reforms. Educational Review, 71(1), 5–30.
23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Paper
The Challenges of School Bullying Discourses
Anne-Mari Väisänen, Maija Lanas
University of Oulu, Finland
Presenting Author: Väisänen, Anne-Mari
School bullying is a subject that is talked about a lot and has also been tackled for decades by investing a lot of resources in research and various means of prevention and intervention. Despite all the effort, research, debate and media attention, peer challenges and conflicts among children and young people persist as a social and societal issue and continue to be part of everyday life in schools.
Peer pressure between schoolchildren was first identified as school bullying in Sweden in the late 1960s, when Peter-Paul Heinemann (1969) wrote a newspaper article about the bullying of his own black adopted son. This triggered a broad social debate that considered the phenomenon of bullying in the context of other social phenomena such as racism, urbanisation and the democratisation of schools. Since then, social perspectives were marginalised, as psychological research took over the field until, in the mid-2000s, social perspectives began to re-emerge in school bullying research (Agevall 2008; Schott & Søndergaard 2021). Consequently research on bullying internationally is divided into two distinct research perspectives. Individualised research focuses on the risk factors and behaviours of the individual. It seeks to manage and address bullying through large-scale surveys, building on them to construct context-independent intervention models and targeting remedial interventions at individual children and young people. Critical bullying research, on the other hand, looks at bullying situations as a complex phenomenon linked to broad social and societal structures, involving ordinary children and young people. Critical bullying research seeks to identify and remedy structural factors that produce offence or emotional or physical violence against others, such as racism or heteronormativity (Schott & Søndergaard 2021).
In the middle of this research dichotomy, in my research, I discursively analyse Finnish expert texts on school bullying. I focus on the discourses that practitioners use to form their knowledge base on bullying, and on which anti-bullying interventions in schools are built. In this study, I ask: What are the expert discourses on school bullying in Finland and what do they bring to school practices? Although I study discourses specifically in the Finnish context, the research is also relevant elsewhere. Research on bullying is international and Finnish research has been very influential in it (e.g. Salmivalli et al. 2021). So it can be argued that Finnish discourses of bullying are to some extent in line with international discourses.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedA discursive perspective braids together power, knowledge, institutions, expertise and society into broad systems and allows for a critical examination of what is taken for granted as expert knowledge (Foucault, 2003; Gannon & Davies, 2014). Through my research, I thus aim to respond to the challenge of critical bullying research (e.g. Horton, 2021; Walton, 2015) and question the theoretical assumptions that seem to be taken for granted in bullying research. I have analysed the expert discourse on school bullying through professional literature on bullying (n=40), and Finnish administrative documents on anti-bullying work (n=36).
In the first part of the study, I examined the professional literature on bullying and how children and young people are talked about in this literature and what kind of subject positions (Youdell, 2006; Davies & Harré, 1990; Ryan & Morgan, 2011) are formed for them in this literature. With thematic analysis I answered the question: How does the professional literature on school bullying describe the bully and the victim?
In the second part of the study, I used the concept of decontextualisation with concept as method analysis (e.g. Jackson & Mazzei, 2012;Taguchi & St.Pierre, 2017. The concept of decontextualisation has not been used before in bullying research and with this concept I aimed to open up new perspectives and not to reproduce previous knowledge (Kuby et al, 2016). In this phase I asked how the contexts are recognized in professional literature.
In the third part of the study I used What's the problem represented to be -method (Bacchi & Goodwin, 2016). This method is based on the poststructuralist view that problems are discursively produced in temporal and spatial contexts, under specific conceptualisations, practices and conditions, and if the conditions are different, the problem statements could also be different (e.g. Foucault & Lotringer,1996). Following the WPR method of analysis, I asked what is presented as a problem in administrative documents on bullying?
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsFinnish expert discourse on bullying relies heavily on individualistic research and marginalises the relevance of contexts in the bullying discourses. School bullying as a phenomenon becomes decontextualized. The impact of social phenomena such as racism, poverty or heteronormativity on bullying situations is hardly recognised or is thought to be part of other discourses. As a result of decontextualisation, the causes of bullying are seen to lie in the characteristics of individuals, thus cementing the positions of children and young people in bullying situations in permanent, opposing positions of bully and victim, while placing school and home on opposite sides. By cementing the position of bully and victim into permanent positions, the possibility for change, growth and education is reduced. In these discourses, discipline is validated and education is invalidated, stricter control and management are justified, and the pedagogical expertise, understanding, warmth and empathy that are central to education, seem excessively lacking.
ReferencesAgevall, O. (2008). ‘The career of bullying: emergence, transformation, and utilisation of a new concept’, in Rapport No. 29, School of Social Sciences, Växjö University, Sweden: 1–71
Bacchi, C. L. & Goodwin, S. (2016). Poststructural policy analysis: A guide to practice. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Davies, B. & Harré, R. (1990). Positioning: The Discursive Production of Selves. Journal for the theory of social behaviour, 20(1), 43-63.
Foucault, M. (2003). "Society must be defended ": Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975-76. New York: Picador.
Foucault, Michel & Lotringer, Sylvère (1996) Foucault live: (interviews, 1961-1984). New York: Columbia University.
Gannon, S., & Davies, B. (2014). Postmodern, post-structural, and critical theories. In S. N. Hesse-Biber (Ed.), Handbook of feminist research: Theory and praxis (pp. 65–91). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
Heinemann, P.-P. (1969) ’Apartheid’, Liberal debatt, 22 (2) 3-14
Horton, P. (2021). Critique of the Bullying Research Program. In P.K. Smith & J. O'Higgins-Norman (Ed.), The Wiley Blackwell handbook of bullying: A comprehensive and international review of research and intervention Vol 2. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons.
Jackson, A. Y. & Mazzei, L. A. (2012). Thinking with theory in qualitative research: Viewing data across multiple perspectives. London: Routledge.
Kuby, C. R., Aguayo, R. C., Holloway, N., Mulligan, J., Shear, S. B. & Ward, A., 2016. Teaching, troubling, transgressing: Thinking with theory in a post-qualitative inquiry course. Qualitative inquiry, 22(2), 140–148.
Ryan, A. & Morgan, M. (2011). Bullying in secondary schools: An analysis of discursive positioning. New Zealand journal of educational studies, 46(1), 23-34.
Salmivalli, C., Laninga‐Wijnen, L., Malamut, S. T. & Garandeau, C. F. (2021). Bullying Prevention in Adolescence: Solutions and New Challenges from the Past Decade. Journal of research on adolescence, 31(4), 1023-1046.
Schott, R. M. & Søndergaard, D. M. (2021). The Social Turn in Bullying Research: Sociocultural/Sociological Perspectives. Teoksessa P.K. Smith & J. O'Higgins-Norman (Edit..), The Wiley Blackwell handbook of bullying: A comprehensive and international review of research and intervention Vol 2. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Taguchi, H. L. & St.Pierre, E. A., 2017. Using concept as method in educational and social science inquiry. Qualitative inquiry, 23(9), 643–648.
Walton, G. (2015). Bullying and the philosophy of shooting freaks. Confero, 3(2), 17-35.
Youdell, D. (2006). Diversity, Inequality, and a Post-structural Politics for Education. Discourse (Abingdon, England), 27(1), 33-42.
23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Paper
Policy in Action: the Construction of The Good Student
Gunn Elisabeth Søreide
University of Bergen, Norway
Presenting Author: Søreide, Gunn Elisabeth
This paper discusses how a local educational policy/strategy-document and lower secondary students in an Norwegian municipality draw on globally traveling policy ideas of 21st century skills and responsibilization in their positioning and construction of “The good student”.
In 2020 Norway started implementing what is called the LK-20 reform throughout compulsory (grade 1–10) and upper secondary (grade 11–13/14) school. The reform has been developed and introduced by the Norwegian government through a series of policy and curriculum documents over a period of 5 years (2015–2020). This paper reports from the Reforming Education Norway (RENO)-project who follows the development as well as the introduction of the LK-20 reform. The LK-20 reform is characterized by the introduction of global policy ideas, such as 21st century skills into Norwegian educational policy, and the first phase of the RENO-project had a special focus on how social, emotional and metacognitive competencies are included, legitimated and frame student identity in policy- and curriculum reform documents. Studies from the first phase of the project (e.g. Søreide, 2022; Søreide, Riese & Hilt, 2022; Hilt, Riese & Søreide, 2019) illuminate how the LK-20 reform frame student identity within a strong self-regulation discourse and responsibilisation techniques that Peeters (2019) call ‘reciprocal governance’ where “…governments try to activate citizens socially and improve their employability…” (p.56).
The RENO-project is now in its second phase and investigates how the 21st century skills reform-ideas and self-regulation-discourse are interpreted and communicated by a) local educational authorities (municipalities) and b) students. The aim for the project is not to investigate how the reform is implemented on/by different hierarchical organizational levels in the educational sector. Rather, the approach is to explore how global and national educational policy ideas and discourses are enacted by significant educational agents (Ball et al., 2012) in the public school sector.
This paper reports from a study investigating the construction of “the good student” in a local policy/strategy document and in interviews with lower secondary school students in one of Norway’s lager urban municipalities. The study draws on a combination of discourse theory and positioning theory as analytical tools to identify how certain conceptions, rights and duties, and ‘truths’ about “The good student” are produced and legitimated (Ball, 1990; Harré & Langenhove, 1999; Ideland, 2016; Kayı-Aydar, 2019; Spohrer et al., 20189). A position is a discursively, socially and historically constructed cluster of rights and duties that allow persons or groups to act, feel, believe, and know in specific ways (Kayı-Aydar, 2019). Persons or groups can be assigned, ascribed, or denied certain positions by others, a process called ‘interactive positioning’, or they can appropriate or reject certain positions themselves, which is called ‘reflexive positioning’ (Harré & Langenhove, 1999).
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedContext:
Although both public and private schools in Norway are regulated by a national curriculum and Education act, the responsibility for and governing of primary (grade 1 – 7) and lower secondary (grade 8 – 10) public schools are distributed to local educational authorities in 356 municipalities across the country. Local authorities develop educational policies that support the implementation of national policies and curricula and supervise and oversee the work and results of the schools in the municipality. The municipality where the 2nd phase of the RENO- project is conducted, is responsible for approximately 80 public schools. Based on the main ideas in two core LK-20 reform documents, the municipality developed a strategy-document describing designated areas of development, quality work and standards that all public schools in the municipality were expected to implement over a period of 3 – 4 years. At the time the student-interviews were conducted, the strategy had been implemented and “working” in the schools for approximately 3 years.
2 sets of material:
1)The strategy document developed by the municipality’s department of education. The document is based on the main ideas in two core national reform documents in addition to the municipality’s selected quality enhancement focus areas.
2)Focus group interviews with 5 groups of 4 – 5 10th grade students (age 15 – 16) in 3 lower secondary schools. The schools were situated in districts typically characterized by lower middle-class families. Informed consent were obtained from individual students and their parents. The interviews were conducted by a research assistant who also is an experienced lower secondary school teacher. Recordings of the interviews are stored on a university run server for sensitive research material with protected and limited access. This paper reports from the section of the interviews focusing on what a good student is and how young people can become/learn how to be a good student.
Analysis:
The transcribed interviews and strategy documents were analyzed in three main steps to identify constructions of “The good student”. Firstly, all descriptions and statements addressing students’ expected behavior, competencies, attitudes, and values were marked and extracted. Secondly the extracts were organized in inductively developed categories focusing on different aspects of what “The good student” do, think, feel, and know. Finally overlaps and differences in the positioning of “The good student” between the two sets of material were identified.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsPreliminary findings indicate overlaps as well as differences in the positioning and construction of “The good student” in student interviews and the strategy-document. Although all positions mainly draw on self-regulation-discourses, student interviews and the strategy document emphasize different features of self-regulation and responsibility in their construction of “The good student”.
In the student interviews, the three most dominant positions are:
o The good student makes an effort.
o The good student is open to learning.
o The good student show respect.
The three most dominant positions in the strategy-document are:
o The good student is goal oriented.
o The good student has insight in and control over their learning process
o The good student is active.
While the strategy document position “The good student” as a goal (outcome)-oriented learner, the student interviews focus on the importance of ‘making an effort’ and ‘doing your best’, regardless of the achieved results. Thus, activating two different approaches to how “The good student” should be motivated: by goals and expected outcomes or hard work and stamina. Further, the strategy document underscore “The good student’s” understanding, reflection over and control of their learning processes, while students position ‘The good student’ as open and willing to learn new things. Finally, while the strategy document position “the good student” as contributing to their own and other students’ learning by being active, students position “the good student” as contributing to the creation of a good learning environment by showing teachers and fellow students respect. To “show respect” include two different sub-positions; a) “The good student “respect the knowledge, opinions and utterances from teachers and other students and b) “The good student” do the chores they are assigned and are quiet, talk, move, sit still, and pay attention when they are supposed/expected to.
ReferencesBall, S. (1990). Politics and policy making in education. London and New York: Routledge.
Ball, S., Maguire, M. & Brown, A. (2012) How schools do policy. Policy enactments in secondary schools. Routledge.
Harré, R. & van Langenhove, L. (1999) (Eds.) Positioning theory: Moral contexts of intentional action. Blackwell.
Hilt, L. T., Riese, H. & Søreide G. E. (2019) “Narrow identity resources for future students: the 21st century skills movement encounters the Norwegian education policy context”. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 51 (3), 384 – 402
Ideland, M. (2016) The action-competent child: responsibilization through practices and emotions in environmental education. Knowledge cultures, 4(2), 95 – 112
Kayı-Aydar, H. (2019) Positioning theory in applied linguistics: Research design and applications. Springer.
Peeters, R. (2019) Manufacturing responsibility: The governmentality of behavioural power in social policies. Social policy and society, 18 (1), 51-65.
Spohrer, K. , Stahl, G. & Bowers-Brown, T. (2018) Constituting neoliberal subjects? ‘Aspiration’ as technology of government in UK policy discourse, Journal of Education Policy, 33 (3), 327-342
Søreide, G. E. (2022) “Narrative control and standards for pupil identity in the Norwegian LK-20 educational reform” in Riese, H., Hilt, L. T. & Søreide, G. E. (eds) Educational Standardization in a Complex World. Emerald Publishing Limited.
Søreide, G. E., Riese, H. & Hilt, L. T. (2022). “21st Century Skills and Current Nordic Educational Reforms” in William Pink (ed) Oxford Encyclopedia of School Reform. Oxford University Press.
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