Evaluation for Empowerment?

Author(s):

Astrid Birgitte Eggen

Conference:

ECER 2010

Network:

19. Ethnography

Format:

Paper

Session Information

19 SES 04 B,

Paper Session

Time:

2010-08-25

16:00-17:30

Room:

U40 SALI 4, Metsätalo

Chair:

Sofia Marques da Silva

Contribution

The paper is an empirically based discussion of the relationship between multiple understandings of democracy with the multiple practices of evaluation. The conceptualization is inspired by three broad democratic evaluation orientations: elitist democratic evaluation, participatory democratic evaluation and discursive democratic evaluation as well as four dimensions of democracy (agency, voice, audience and influence). Evaluation practice at school level among leaders and teachers is combining student assessment with school evaluation strategies to feed the overall school development. Embedded in the structures for school development from the national level is the controversy between a school effectiveness and a school development ideology and methodology. There is also a national drive for evaluation and assessment competence, however documentation requirement is emphasizing external control rather then internal development. The tensions and dilemmas at school level as well as between schools and school owners (municipal and county levels) have been important to address. A situated learning perspective has been applied in order to view evaluation as joint enterprises depending on shared vocabulary and repertoire of evaluative tools in each community of practice. Consequently, the relevance of the traditional dichotomies of evaluation is questioned based on the findings, and boundary objects are introduced as an alternative analytical tool.

Method

This paper is presenting the main results of three ethnographic research projects among school leaders in secondary education concerning evaluation practices and discourses. Using a critical ethnographic research methodology, the paper focuses on dilemmas, tensions and paradoxes of evaluation in an era of market driven accountability. A broad perspective on validity is developed.

Expected Outcomes

The school communities find themselves within an overall ideological and epistemological controversy between a drive for goal oriented and “evidence based” practices on one hand, and on the other hand the emancipative bottom up developmental strategies. The languages used at the two levels are different with market language being dominant at school owner level and educational professional language being dominant at school level. The ideological underpinning of documentation varies.

References

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Author Information

Astrid Birgitte Eggen

University of Agder

Faculty of humanities and education

Oslo

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