Funding, reputation and targets: The discursive logics of high-stakes testing

Cambridge Journal of Education

Volumn 45, Issue 2, 2015, Pages 245-264

  Lewis, Steven ^a   Hardy, Ian ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND   (Australia)

Author keywords

Bourdieu; disciplinarity; fields; Foucault; high stakes testing; subjectivity

Indexed keywords

EID: 84926420545     PISSN: 0305764X     EISSN: 14693577     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/0305764X.2014.936826     Document Type: Article

References (53)

1. ACARA. (2011). National Assessment Program. Retrieved September 28, 2013, from http://www.nap.edu.au
2. ACARA. (2013). My School. Retrieved January 9, 2013, from http://www.myschool.edu.au
3. Ball, S. (1993). What is policy? Texts, trajectories and toolboxes. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 13, 10–17. doi:10.1080/0159630930130203
4. Ball, S. (2003). The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy, 18, 215–228. doi:10.1080/026809302200004306510.1080/0268093022000043065
5. Ball, S., Maguire, M., Braun, A., Perryman, J., & Hoskins, K. (2012). Assessment technologies in schools: ‘Deliverology’ and the ‘play of dominations’. Research Papers in Education, 27, 513–533. doi:10.1080/02671522.2010.55001210.1080/02671522.2010.550012
6. Berliner, D. C. (2011). Rational responses to high stakes testing: The case of curriculum narrowing and the harm that follows. Cambridge Journal of Education, 41, 287–302. doi:10.1080/0305764x.2011.60715110.1080/0305764X.2011.607151
7. Booher-Jennings, J. (2005). Below the bubble: ‘Educational triage’ and the Texas accountability system. American Educational Research Journal, 42, 231–268.10.3102/00028312042002231
8. Bourdieu, P. (1998a). On television and journalism. London: Pluto Press.
9. Bourdieu, P. (1998b). Practical reason: On the theory of action. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
10. Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
11. Braun, H., Chapman, L., & Vezzu, S. (2010). The Black–White achievement gap revisited. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 18, 1–99. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.14507/epaa.v18n21.2010
12. Comber, B. (2012). Mandated literacy assessment and the reorganisation of teachers’ work: Federal policy, local effects. Critical Studies in Education, 53, 119–136. doi:10.1080/17508487.2012.67233110.1080/17508487.2012.672331
13. Comber, B., & Nixon, H. (2009). Teachers’ work and pedagogy in an era of accountability. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 30, 333–345. doi:10.1080/01596300903037069
14. Cormack, P., & Comber, B. (2013). High-stakes literacy tests and local effects in a rural schools. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 36, 78–89.
15. Council of Australian Governments. (2009). National partnership agreement on low socio-economic status school communities. Retrieved October 15, 2013, from http://foi.deewr.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/ssnatpartneragreem_0.pdf
16. Eick, D. (2004). Discourses on language and symbolic power: Foucault and Bourdieu. In M. Grenfell & M. Kelly (Eds.), Pierre Bourdieu: Language, culture and education: Theory into practice (pp. 85–96). New York, NY: Peter Lang.
17. Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. (A. Sheridan, Trans.). New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
18. Foucault, M. (1978). The history of sexuality. Volume one: The will to knowledge. Camberwell: Penguin Group.
19. Foucault, M. (1990). Critical theory/intellectual history. (A. Sheridan, Trans.). In L. Kritzman (Ed.), Michel Foucault: Politics, philosophy, culture. Interviews and other writings 1977–1984 (pp. 17–46). London: Routledge.
20. Gerrard, J., & Farrell, L. (2013). Remaking the professional teacher: Authority and curriculum reform. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 1–22. doi:10.1080/00220272.2013.85441010.1080/00220272.2013.854410
21. Gillborn, D., & Youdell, D. (2000). Rationing education: Policy, practice, reform and equity. Buckingham: Open University Press.
22. Grek, S. (2009). Governing by numbers: The PISA ‘effect’ in Europe. Journal of Education Policy, 24, 23–37. doi:10.1080/02680930802412669.10.1080/02680930802412669
23. Hannus, S., & Simola, H. (2010). The effects of power mechanisms in education: Bringing Foucault and Bourdieu together. Power and Education, 2, 1. doi:10.2304/power.2010.2.1.110.2304/power
24. Hardy, I. (2013). A logic of appropriation: Enacting national testing (NAPLAN) in Australia. Journal of Education Policy, 1–18. doi:10.1080/02680939.2013.782425
25. Hardy, I., & Boyle, C. (2011). My School? Critiquing the abstraction and quantification of education. Asia–Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 39, 211–222. doi:10.1080/1359866x.2011.58831210.1080/1359866X.2011.588312
26. Head, B. W. (2008). Three lenses of evidence-based policy. Australian Journal of Public Administration, 67, 1–11. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8500.2007.00564.x10.1111/j.1467-8500.2007.00564.x
27. Hoy, D. C. (2004). Critical resistance: From poststructuralism to post-critique. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
28. Klenowski, V. (2011). Assessment for learning in the accountability era: Queensland Australia. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 37, 78–83. doi:10.1016/j.stueduc.2011.03.00310.1016/j.stueduc.2011.03.003
29. Kostogriz, A., & Doecke, B. (2013). The ethical practice of teaching literacy: Accountability or responsibility? Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 36, 90–98.
30. Lee, J. (2010). Trick or treat: New ecology of education accountability system in the USA. Journal of Education Policy, 25, 73–93. doi:10.1080/0268093090337742310.1080/02680930903377423
31. Lingard, B. (2011). Policy as numbers: Ac/counting for educational research. The Australian Educational Researcher, 38, 355–382. doi:10.1007/s13384-011-0041-910.1007/s13384-011-0041-9
32. Lingard, B., & Rawolle, S. (2011). New scalar politics: Implications for education policy. Comparative Education, 47, 489–502. doi:10.1080/03050068.2011.55594110.1080/03050068.2011.555941
33. Lingard, B., & Sellar, S. (2013). ‘Catalyst data’: Perverse systemic effects of audit and accountability in Australian schooling. Journal of Education Policy, 1–23. doi:10.1080/02680939.2012.758815
34. Nichols, S. L., Glass, G. V., & Berliner, D. C. (2012). High-stakes testing and student achievement: Updated analyses with NAEP data. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 20, 1–35. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.14507/epaa.v20n20.2012
35. Novoa, A., & Yariv-Mashal, T. (2003). Comparative research in education: A mode of governance or a historical journey? Comparative Education, 39, 423–438.10.1080/0305006032000162002
36. Oksala, J. (2011). Freedom and bodies. In D. Taylor (Ed.), Michel Foucault: Key concepts (pp. 85–97). Durham: Acumen.
37. Perryman, J., Ball, S., Maguire, M., & Braun, A. (2011). Life in the pressure cooker: School league tables and English and Mathematics teachers’ responses to accountability in a results-driven era. British Journal of Educational Studies, 59, 179–195. doi:10.1080/00071005.2011.57856810.1080/00071005.2011.578568
38. Porter, T. (1995). Trust in numbers: The pursuit of objectivity in science and public life. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
39. Ravitch, D. (2010). The death and life of the great American school system: How testing and choice are undermining education. New York, NY: Basic Books.
40. Rose, N. (1999). Powers of freedom: Reframing political thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511488856
41. Shank, G. (2002). Qualitative research: A personal skills approach. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
42. Spillane, J. P. (2012). Data in practice: Conceptualizing the data-based decision-making phenemenon. American Journal of Education, 118, 113–141. doi:10.1086/66328310.1086/663283
43. Stobart, G. (2008). Testing times: The uses and abuses of assessment. Oxon: Routledge.
44. Strathern, M. (2000). The tyranny of transparency. British Educational Research Journal, 26, 309–321.10.1080/713651562
45. Supovitz, J. (2009). Can high stakes testing leverage educational improvement? Prospects from the last decade of testing and accountability reform. Journal of Educational Change, 10, 211–227. doi:10.1007/s10833-009-9105-210.1007/s10833-009-9105-2
46. Suspitsyna, T. (2010). Accountability in American education as a rhetoric and a technology of governmentality. Journal of Education Policy, 25, 567–586. doi:10.1080/0268093090354841110.1080/02680930903548411
47. Taubman, P. M. (2009). Teaching by numbers: Deconstructing the discourse of standards and accountability in education. New York, NY: Routledge.
48. Thompson, G., & Cook, I. (2012). Manipulating the data: Teaching and NAPLAN in the control society. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 1–14. doi:10.1080/01596306.2012.739472
49. Thrupp, M. (2008). National Standards for New Zealand’s primary and intermediate school pupils. New Zealand Annual Review of Education, 17, 199–218.
50. Thrupp, M. (2013). National Standards for student achievement: Is New Zealand’s ideosyncratic approach any better? Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 36, 99–110.
51. Wacquant, L. (1989). Towards a reflexive sociology: A workshop with Pierre Bourdieu. Sociological Theory, 7, 26–63.10.2307/202061
52. Wilson, D., Croxson, B., & Atkinson, A. (2006). What gets measured gets done. Policy Studies, 27, 153–171. doi:10.1080/0144287060063799510.1080/01442870600637995
53. Youdell, D. (2004). Engineering school markets, constituting schools and subjectivating students: The bureaucratic, institutional and classroom dimensions of educational triage. Journal of Education Policy, 19, 407–431. doi:10.1080/026809304200022747410.1080/0268093042000227474