Never Mind the Gap: Formative Assessment Confronted with Dewey’s and Gadamer’s Concept of Experience

The notion of “closing the learning gap” is widely used in the conceptualisation of formative assessment. It builds on an unarticulated assumption that students' learning can and should be controlled towards predefined outcomes. This article discusses this control assumption in the light of the concept of the American philosopher John Dewey and the German philosopher Hans‐Georg Gadamer. Their conceptualisation challenges the idea of learning as a linear and controllable process that results in stable and predictable outcomes. Using the concept of experience, we argue that learning follows a continuous circular movement where previous experiences condition future interpretations and that every experience changes the subject. This process of change is both unpredictable and diverse and requires that attention is paid to the uniqueness of each situation and to students as subjects. Following the discussion, we propose a model for considering the extensiveness and rigidity of formative assessment practices and that authors pay attention to whether they conceptualise formative assessment in a way that promotes student and teacher “gap closing” and control.publishedVersio

Socioeconomic Inequality and Student Outcomes in The Netherlands

In this chapter, we address the educational outcomes of students with low socioeconomic status (SES), both Dutch and with an immigrant background. We indicate how these outcomes have developed over time, and how this development might be related to educational policy measures that seek to enhance the educational opportunities for students with a disadvantaged background. We start with a description of the Dutch school structure and note that the highly tracked secondary school level and high school autonomy are significant features. Next, we provide a short description of the share of low SES parents and primary school students, and how these have evolved over time during the period 2008–2017, while distinguishing between Dutch and immigrant background. The main body of the chapter provides an overview of the outcomes of low SES and immigrant students in primary and secondary education. Finally, we critically comment on the effectiveness and efficiency of the Dutch educational equity policy

Understanding the policy influence of international large-scale assessments in education

International large-scale assessments (ILSAs) require national governments to invest significant resources in both time and money. With such investment national governments expect the results of ILSAs to provide policy and research communities with evaluative information on their educational system. Armed with this evaluative information, policymakers in many participating countries have used the results to stimulate reform. However, systematically tracking this influence and judging the validity of the claims has proven difficult for both the policy and research communities. There can be an erroneous expectation in the wider education community, and sometimes amongst policymakers themselves, that ILSA data automatically suggests policy solutions. Because of this error, a means for better systematizing the policymaking process responding to ILSA results is required. The model developed here can assist the policy and research community to better understand whether ILSAs are providing valid evidence to support their use in policy formation enactment and can be used to analyze ongoing consequences of that influence. Two worked examples demonstrate the utility of the model

Policy of suspiciousness – mobilization of educational reforms in Sweden

In this article, we explore the processes of transfer and translation ofeducation policy in a study focusing on the relationship betweenthe Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development(OECD) and Sweden. The purpose of the study is to investigatehow selective borrowing occurs both in terms of references todifferent types of knowledge sources underpinning the argumentsand shared discourse formations. The data were obtained fromtwo policy reports: an OECD review report of the Swedish schoolsystem and a Swedish follow-up report proposing actual schoolreforms. The method was twofold: first, mapping, categorizing,and counting all the textual references in the two documents;second, critically analyzing the discourses emerging in the twopolicy texts. The results show that international references play asignificant role in substantiating arguments for Swedish educationpolicy. Both policy texts share a policy discourse characterized bysuspiciousness toward the professionalism exercised by teachersand local education authorities.Bibliografiskt granskad</p