This article considers how teachers come to assess pupils' needs and abilities and how pupils come to acquire particular identities in the classroom - particularly Bangladeshi pupils who are both English as Additional Language (EAL) pupils and minority ethnic pupils. This work is a contribution to an emerging 'sociology of educational assessment' (Filer and Pollard, 2000) which considers assessment as a social practice, one which has consequences for identity, educational opportunity and the reproduction of social difference. How teachers understandings and expectations of pupils, how their needs as teachers to organise, manage and accomplish their lessons and how their pupils' actions in presenting themselves as particular kinds of pupils, contribute to the achievement and underachievement of minority ethnic and EAL pupils is outlined through the presentation of data from three case studies. The article attempts to outline how the case study pupils came to be positioned within their classrooms, how particular understandings and identities were ascribed to them and how this resulted in particular resources being made available to them. It also considers how the support provided by teachers focused on behaviour rather than on language development because of teachers’ needs to manage their lessons
