A development towards an individual focus on the pupil has taken place in Sweden (Beach & Dovemark, 2011) as well as in many other countries (Rizvi & Lingard, 2010). In the 1990s’, the Swedish school was reformed towards a goal and result steering and a new approach to knowledge (Lundahl, 2009).  The Swedish curriculum from 2011, highlights that pupils should take a personal responsibility for their studies. Moreover, the Bologna grading system was introduced (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2011).  Hattie’s work on visible learning became popular (Håkansson & Sundberg, 2012) highlighting visions on formative assessment. To develop a sense of responsibility required to succeed in goal-oriented schools, pupils need to master strategies in order to reduce the gap between their current and desired level of knowledge (Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall & Wiliam, 2004; Hattie, 2009). Carlgren (2015) argues that being able to show a behaviour responding to an ability, does not necessarily express a required ability, and that it is not surprising if pupils try to get hold of correct answers elsewhere rather than developing the answers themselves - as long as teachers are judges to assess pupils’ achievements and the aim of teaching activities is that pupils deliver correct answers.  

Informal networks where people share experiences and events in for example Social Medias such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat increase worldwide - simultaneously with the educational enhanced focus on measuring, assessing and competing results.

In a report, Lundahl (1995) showed that pupils frequently adapted to assignments given by the teachers in different ways depending on the context. Some pupils took schoolwork lightly and used now-related strategies as shortcuts to avoid putting lots of efforts into for example doing homework. Other pupils put lots of efforts into schoolwork and used more long-term adaption strategies. Schwartz (2013) showed that pupils’ response to an individualized pedagogy was to develop social strategies as resistance against a school system where the individual pupil is emphasized at the expense of the collective.

At Swedish schools, summative assessment has gained land with an extensive national testing (Lundahl, 2009), and an intention to endorse equivalent and equitable grading (National Agency for Education, 2019). Over the last years, numerous National Tests have leaked beforehand and the National Test will be digitalized in 2023 to prevent the leaking (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2020).  

It is important to study how pupils adapt to formative and summative assessing in a goal-oriented educational context, and to identify factors within the school system having an impact on pupils’ informal networking with classmates, achievements, grades, and also equivalent and equitable grading – in order to adapt the teaching to meet the pupils’ needs.

The purpose was to explore the pupils’ informal social strategies, when dealing with written individual assignments and leaked National Tests at a Swedish municipal school.

The research questions were:

What informal social strategies do pupils use while dealing with written individual assignments and leaked National Tests?

What are the pupils’ rationale for using the identified strategies?

 The study’s theoretical point of departure is Goffman’s (1959/1990) theater metaphor, where people’s behaviors are considered as either enacted on the “frontstage” or the “backstage” of social life. The metaphor lends itself to the ordinary classroom context during lessons where pupils interact in quiet informal conversations with classmates inside the classroom. The theory is also applied on pupils’ interaction with peers outside school (backstage) preparing for the encounter with the teacher at school (frontstage). It is “backstage” in social interactions with classmates that pupils learn the “line” for the frontstage; they prepare their performances and prevent outsiders (teachers) from catching glimpses of them.

This study, inspired by ethnography, was carried out in an 8th grade class with 25 pupils (14-year-olds), at a lower secondary municipal school. Ethnography can produce new knowledge of groups and reveal how they talk, work, and create culture. It tries to capture the complexity of every-day life. Central to ethnography is to study at first-hand what people say and do in particular contexts aiming at understanding their views and perceptions from various perspectives (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1983/1993). However, the culture sharing group must have been interacting for long enough time in order to develop certain patterns - which was the reason for conducting the study in an 8th grade class though the pupils had probably been together in the class for a long enough time to develop patterns. Studying the 8th grade made it possible to return a year later, following up the study with interviews with the pupils during the National Test-taking period in spring 2018. Participant observations, audio-visual recordings, interviews (four group interviews - N=15 - and 14 individual interviews) as well as document analysis (the pupils’ grades year 8 and 9) gave a complex picture of the pupils every-day life and their informal social strategies. Participant observation was carried out, and field notes were taken during four months. Three camcorders with external microphones and several Dictaphones were later used to record the pupils’ more informal conversations with peers during lessons in English as a foreign language, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies and Swedish. The camcorders focused on a part of the classroom (and not particular pupils) where eight pupils had their seats. However, all pupils in the class occasionally went to this part of the classroom to talk with their classmates. Parts of all the pupils’ spontaneous flow of interacting with peers in class was therefore covered. The recorded files were later synchronized with Adobe Premiere and transcribed in multiple transcripts and coded using the software Transana Professional 3.21. The analyzing level is on a group level. Though the pupils were under age, their guardians’ informed consents were collected. This study does not make claims of generalizability. However, the pupils’ informal social strategies “backstage” (out of the teachers’ supervision) may resemble those of pupils in similar educational contexts at other schools inside and outside the country. The Regional Ethical Review Board in Umeå/Sweden reviewed the study.

Some pupils’ social strategies in dealing with individual written assignments were: a)having peers logging in to their Google classroom accounts and write assignments for them, and b)using smartphones after school to send text messages to classmates; asking pupils who had completed their assignment to take pictures of them and forward to the requesting classmates - to be rewritten “in their own words” and hand in to teachers for assessment, c)share leaked National Tests on the class’ Snapchat-group. The strategies took place “backstage” and, according to pupils, teachers were unaware of them. Thus, some pupils found (short-term) strategies to obtain passing grades with little efforts. Drawing on Carlgren (2015) the analysis indicates that some pupils behaviour responding to an ability does not necessarily express a required ability to compose texts. The three parameters a)where the pupil is at, b)where (s)he is going and c)how (s)he is to get there -which are the stepping stone for visible learning (Hattie, 2009)- are demolished, or at risk, by the pupils’ social strategies. However, some pupils had long-term strategies in doing schoolwork, composing their own assignments. Some key-factors identified to maintaining the pupils’ informal social strategies were: -Supportive pupils willing to assist, -A view of grades as being important, -The goal-oriented Bologna grading system, where the grades of the pupils sharing their assignments are not put at stake by assisting peers, -The pupils’ daily access to digital tools. -Self-regulated learning in combination with assignments that are not limited to lessons at school. If one or several key-factors were removed, the effectiveness of the pupils’ social strategies in dealing with written assignments and leaked National Tests, would likely crumble. This study’s findings might touch upon at all educational levels where pupils are assessed for “backstage” informal social performances – and might risk to undermine our meritocratic society.

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