National curriculum sub-levels: assessment practices as assemblage

Abstract

There is an established critique of the nature and role of assessment practices in mathematics education. This critique centres on the credibility of assessment, and the effects of practices on teachers and learners, including in relation to issues of social justice. This paper adds to these critical perspectives by examining some ways assessment practices come to happen in the way they do employing a sociomaterial analysis using the concept of assemblage. To exemplify the potential for this theoretical approach, I take as a focus National Curriculum Levels in England and in particular the emergence of 'sub levels' and their relationship to various actors, practices and discourses, particularly those concerned with differentiation and ability. I also point to how, even though National Curriculum Levels have been abolished ghosts of levels continue in spite of policy changes as assessment has not (yet) been reassembled