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In the context of Swedish schools, direction on curricula has been decentralized for 20 years, with teachers given considerable responsibility. Emphasis is placed on assessment with formative purposes, i.e. assessment developing learning, assessment of learning, as well as equity in assessment. Directions for assessment are only partially given in Swedish school, and many teachers find that assessment criteria are vague and expressed in a general way, resulting in schools and teachers having to interpret these criteria. Assessment of students’ knowledge is a large part of a teacher’s daily work, and therefore also occupy a large part of a student’s school day, however, what underlies teachers’ assessment is not often made transparent to learners.  Major reforms that are prominent within assessment processes, e.g. changing curriculum guidelines and grading scales, will be implemented in 2011. Questions should be asked about how the discourses of assessment from the political and scientific arena correspond to the discourse of Swedish teachers about assessment during periods of reform, i.e. how the discussion on assessment emerges among teachers who work in the tense arena between pedagogical practice and scientific and political expectations.  

The overall aim of the research project is to study how mathematics teachers in primary school discuss and interpret the concept of assessment.

The theoretical framework developed by Ludwik Fleck (1896-1961) on concepts of thought style and thought collectives, will be used. In a thought collective a thought style is developed e.g. about assessment. Thought style, i.e. a fixed view of coercion and an overall mental preparedness and desire to act in a certain way, can vary depending on which thought collectives one takes part in. The more thought collectives meet and interact the more stable the thought style will be. The talk about assessment in these thought collectives may correspond to different discourses e.g. the political and scientific discourses. By developingteachers’ talk abouttheir assessment practice, and thus visualize a shared meaning of the assessment, teachers may elaborate tools for enablingstudents to exercise their own rights and become active learners.

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