Educational systems can be read as a manifestation of social, physical, behavioral, and cognitive norms. Historically speaking but also today, children were and are confronted with institutional (and thereby societal) expectations regarding development, abilities, projected progress, and the alike (cf. Jackson 1968). These sometimes converging, sometimes diverging educational agendas only become visible when being actively challenged and/or irritated. One such case of irritation are children which do not adhere to the implicitly expressed prescriptions by either failing academically and/or violating behavioral norms. If this kind of irritation remains stable across a longer period of time, the children in question are evaluated in Special Needs Assessment Procedures (SNAPs). In SNAPs, experts from different disciplines - medicine, psychology, pedagogy, and special needs – assess the child and decide the place (regular school or a school specialized in special needs) and mode of its future schooling (cf. Sauer/Floth/Vogt 2018). These experts can be considered stakeholders of their respective disciplines and apply discipline-specific concepts of normality (cf. Link 1997) on the child; thereby, the consulted disciplines partially decide the child’s future mode and place of schooling. As such, SNAPs can be considered mechanisms to match societal expectations and prescriptions with the child. Taking societal expectations as a starting point, it can be argued that these differ depending on the corresponding culture, the geographical location, and the specific time (cf. Berger/Luckmann 1966). While place, time, and culture clearly play a role in expectation formulated by society and subsequently expressed in institutions, certain norms appear to be stable across these dimensions. Thereby, one key question in the field of SNAPs is which elements of a certain SNAP are derived from culturally, historically, or geographically idiosyncrasies and which elements re-appear across these dimensions and thereby form something approximating a grammar of educational assessment procedures. 

Up to now, SNAPs have – in the few cases they were investigated – primarily been analyzed from a national perspective. This perspective neglects the potentials outlined above; thereby, the cultural as well as societal hegemony expressed in SNAPs goes mostly unchecked. The hegemonic position (cf. Foucault 2015) could only be irritated, questioned, expanded, and ultimately reformulated by historical, geographical, and cross-cultural comparisons of SNAPs. Through the identification of convergences and divergences, SNAPs from specific contexts as well as the construct of the SNAP in general could be understood and subsequently conceptualized. This could result in a meta-theorization of SNAPs. These investigations and the associated outputs (i.e. conceptualizations, meta-theorizations etc.) ultimately enable reconciliation of the assessed children with the educational system as the implicitly uttered expectations and prescriptions with which children were confronted are finally analyzed and questioned in a systematic fashion. In order to further pursue this aim, SNAPs from three locations (Canada, Italy, Germany) and different times (1950s to 1989) will be analyzed and compared. The locations have been chosen as they exhibit a strong European focus – through migration Canada was exposed to European ideas while also incorporating American concepts – and thereby exemplarily illustrate the converging/diverging agendas across Europe. These three countries will be systematically analyzed by addressing the four following research questions: 1) How are SNAPs organized, conducted, and set up in Canada, Germany, and Italy? 2) How and to what extent does the cultural, historical, and geographical context influence SNAPs in Canada, Germany, and Italy? 3) Which elements of SNAPs are stable across time and space and could thereby be considered part of a grammar of educational assessment procedures? 4) How can these insights from question 1-3 contribute to a meta-theorization of SNAPs and what are the potentials of these insights for the reconciliation of assessed children with the education sector?  

This project will analyze forms filled out by the different experts involved in SNAPs. In these forms the respective experts have put their discipline-specific insights on the child into writing. The forms have been retrieved from archives at different locations, such as East (Görlitz) and West Germany (Frankfurt), Canada (Toronto), and Italy. The historical temporal context in which these forms have been filled out ranges from 1950 to 1989. In terms of methodology, the forms will be analyzed with the help of qualitative research methods (qualitative content analysis (cf. Mayering 2015) and document analysis (cf. Wolff 2000)). As qualitative content analysis neglects aspects of time and temporality, the results will also be historically framed and contextualized; the combination of these two approaches is referred to as “construct analysis” (Vogt 2015). Further, this project will – for the comparative aspects – draw on the extensive methodology created by international comparative education research (cf. Rossello 1959; cf. Hilker 1962). This project ultimately aims at a meta-theorization of SNAPs which could shape future international-comparative research on SNAPs; thereby, this paper does not only apply methods but tries to create a method of a systematized SNAP analysis and comparison.

Regarding the first research question, it can be stated that SNAPs follow – on a procedural and institutional level – relatively similar patterns in the three analyzed countries as the child is analyzed across highly similar dimensions. Further, it can be stated that within the consulted disciplines, similar items and standards are employed. In turn, this hints at a larger involvement of experts in internationally connected communities of practice. This aspect needs to be reflected from a critical perspective. With regard to the second research question, historical, cultural, and geographical idiosyncrasies can be spotted within the different SNAPs. Such differences stretch across aspects such as sensitivity to indigenous groups (Canada), changing default settings for deviant children (i.e. between Germany and Italy), different levels of involvements of different actors (i.e. parents), and diverging influence of different professions in the respective countries. Research question three is closely linked to the first question as procedure and content partly go hand in hand. Relatively stable (and content related) traits of SNAPs seem to be the focus on physical, mental, cognitive, and social-emotional aspects in the assessment. This seems to hint at a more generalizable scheme of assessments. Research question four focuses on the converging and diverging agendas of educational assessment across Europe and beyond. As said, some SNAP traits appear relatively stable, others are more dependent on the cultural, historical, and geographical context. The latter hint at the national/local agendas, the former emphasizes more general mechanisms and/or (global?) power relations. Local/national agendas as well as more general mechanisms need to be compared, reflected, and checked with regard to their legitimacy. Ultimately, this can foster the process of criticizing illegitimate usages of power through implicitly and/or explicitly uttered prescriptions and expectations and thereby offers a possibility of reconciliation.

Berger, P. L. and T. Luckmann (1966). The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. Foucault, M. (2015). Wahnsinn und Gesellschaft. Eine Geschichte des Wahns im Zeitalter der Vernunft. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Hilker, F. (1962). Vergleichende Pädagogik. Eine Einführung in ihre Geschichte, Theorie und Praxis. München. Jackson, P. W. (1968). Life in the classroom. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Link, J. (1997). Versuch über den Normalismus. Wie Normalität produziert wird. Göttingen. Mayering, P. (2015). Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse. 12. Auflage. Beltz Verlag. Rossello, P. (1959). L’Education Comparée au Service de la Planification. In: Schriftenreihe “Les Cahiers de Pédagogie Expérimentale et de Psychologie de l’Enfant“. Nr. 17. Neuchâtel, Paris. Sauer, L./Floth, A./Vogt, M. (2018). Die Normierung des Primarschulkindes im Hilfsschulaufnahmeverfahren: Eine historisch-vergleichende Untersuchung von Schülerpersonalbögen aus der BRD und der DDR. Zeitschrift für Grundschulforschung 11. 67-83. Vogt, M. (2015). Professionswissen über Unterstufenschüler in der DDR. Julius Klinkhardt Verlag. Bad Heilbrunn. Wolff, S. (2000): Dokumenten- und Aktenanalyse. In: Uwe Flick/ Ernst v. Kardorff/ Ines Steinke (Hg.): Qualitative Forschung: Ein Handbuch. Reinbek: Rowohlt, S. 502-514.