Testing who? Testing me, Testing you: Exploring the practice of mandatory testing in primary schools in the Republic of Ireland

Author(s):

Gerry Mac Ruairc

Conference:

ECER 2009

Network:

9. Assessment, Evaluation, Testing and Measurement

Format:

Paper

Session Information

09 SES 04 C, Assessment in Elementary and Primary Education

Paper Session

Time:

2009-09-28

16:00-17:30

Room:

HG, Elise Richter

Chair:

Martin Goy

Contribution

The recent Government of Ireland decision to introduce mandatory standardised testing of children’s attainment in English and Mathematics to all primary schools from September 2008 brings the Republic of Ireland into line with, what is now, well established assessment practice in many countries. Ireland could therefore have drawn on international research findings in relation difficulties with this type of testing to inform and refine the Irish policy response. Unfortunately, this was not the case and discourse in relation to evidence of the problematic nature of this form of testing, particularly for schools in working-class, marginalised communities, was entirely absent from the debate. What is now in place is a policy which results in “far reaching and high stakes decisions and consequences about individuals and groups” (Shohamy, 2001a p.373). The seemingly objective task of filling in bubbles with a no. 2 pencil takes on a very different meaning when considered in the context of national testing where the abstraction of information through “a series of translations – from the individual to the aggregated publicized number” (Graham and Neu, 2004 p. 314) serves only to stigmatise those already at the fringes of the educational system. The whole process and its outcomes resonate strongly with Apple’s assertion that every institution policy and practice establishes relations of power in which some voices are heard and some are not. Since this pattern of power relations regularly remains unchallenged, particularly in relation to the fundamental link between social class and patterns of educational success and failure , we fail to circumvent the current trend where policy initiatives “when actually put in place, tend to benefit those who already have advantages” (Apple, 2001 p. 312). Despite the recent reworking of social class in the context of education and the resultant range of conceptual tools that facilitate this nuanced exploration of class inequalities (Bourdieu, 1991; Parenti, 1994; Reay, 1998, 2000. 2003. 2004, 2005, Laureau, 2003; Giroux, 1983; 2001, Giroux and McLaren, 1989, 1994; Apple, 2000a, 2001; Delpit, 2006) problematic policy decisions continue to be made without adequate reference to these frameworks that could enable a more egalitarian, emancipatory outcome for all students. This study explores the patterns of engagement of students with the testing process in order to elicit specific socio-cultural factors that have a direct impact on the asymmetric patterns of student attainment.

Method

There are two different parts to the findings presented here. In the first part of the study the differential attainment patterns in reading between children from these different socio-economic groups are reported based on an analysis of standardised reading test results from a sample of 24 schools clustered at both ends of the socio-economic spectrum. This provides the broad context for the second part of the study which examines the process of testing through the use of a series of focus groups with a sample of 51, mixed gender, children drawn from the contrasting ideal type socio–economic urban communities.

Expected Outcomes

The findings reveal differential patterns of engagement with the testing process between the different socio-economic groups in the study. These patterns of engagement are attributable to the correlation between the language register of the test and children's own preferred linguistic register. The study contributes to existing literature related to bias in standardised tests and provides an insight into the deep level at which this bias operates.It concludes that by choosing to test children on the dominant linguistic code, the test and the testing process negate a whole way of being; a complete and well-established way of making sense of the world by failing to recognise the language variety used by specific groups to construct meaning. The meaning that is communicated to children in marginalised communities in relation to the lack of prestige and stigmatised nature of linguistic capital is overtly articulated by schools through the practice of testing.

References

Apple, M. (1996). Cultural politics and educati,on New York: Teachers College Press. Apple, M. (2000a). Educational politics from below. Educational Policy, 15, (5), 724-729 Apple, M. (2000b). Official knowledge (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. Apple, M. (2001). Will standards save public education? Educational Policy, 14 (2), 311- 318. Apple, M. (2002). Does education have independent power? Bernstein and the question of relative autonomy. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 23,(4),607-616. Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power. Cambridge: Polity Press. Delpit, L. (2006). Other people’s children: cultural conflict in the classroom. New York: The New Press Lareau, A. (2003). Unequal childhoods. Beckley LA: University of California Press. Giroux, H. A. (1983). Theory and Resistance in Education: A Pedagogy for the Opposition, London: Heinemann. Giroux, H.A. (2001).‘Cultural studies as performative politics’ in Cultural Studies/Critical Methodologies Vol.1 (1): 5–23, London: Sage Publications inc. Giroux, H. A. and McLaren, P. (1994). Between Borders, New York: Routledge. Giroux, H.A. and McLaren, P. (1989). Critical Pedagogy, The State and Cultural Struggle USA: State University of New York Press. Mac Ruairc, G (1997). Big mad words: dialect in the classroom' in: D Bates (eds). The teaching and usage of English in contemporary Ireland, pages. Dublin: UCD. Mac Ruairc, G. (2004). Schools, social class and children’s perception of language variation’ in ‘Primary Voices’, Deegan, Devine & Lodge (eds.), Dublin: IPA. Mac Ruairc, G. (2009). Dip, Dip, Sky Blue - Children's experience of standardised testing: A Socio-cultural perspective. Irish Educational Studies, 28 (1), Parenti, M. (1994) Land of idols: politician mythology in America. New York: St. Martins Press. Reay, D. (1998) ‘Rethinking social class: qualitative perspectives on class and gender’ in Sociology Vol. 32 (2): 259 –277. Reay, D. (2000) ‘Children’s urban landscapes: configurations of class and place’ in Munt, S (2000) Cultural Studies and the Working Class: Subject to Change , London, New York: Cassell: (pp 151- 164) Reay, D. (2003) “ ‘Troubling, troubled and troublesome?’ – working with boys in the primary classroom” in Skelton et al (eds.) (2003: 151- 166) Boys and Girls in the Primary Classroom, Berkshire, Open University Press. Reay, D. (2004) “ ‘It’s all becoming a bit of a habitus’: beyond the habitual use of habitus in educational research” in British Journal of Sociology of Education, Vol.25 (4): 432-443. Reay, D. (2005) ‘Beyond consciousness? The psychic landscape of social class’, Sociology Vol. 39(5): 911-928, London, Thousand Oaks, New Deli: Sage Publications.

Author Information

Gerry Mac Ruairc

University College Dublin

School of Education

Dublin

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