1st Edition
Testing and Inclusive Schooling International Challenges and Opportunities
Testing and Inclusive Schooling provides a comparative perspective on seemingly incompatible global agendas and efforts to include all children in the general school system, thus reducing exclusion. With an examination of the international testing culture and the politics of inclusion currently permeating national school reforms, this book raises a critical and constructive discussion of these movements, which appear to support one another, yet simultaneously offer profound contradictions.
With contributions from around the world, the book analyses the dilemma arising between reforms that urge schools to move towards a constantly higher academic level, and those who practice a politics of inclusion leading to a greater degree of student diversity. The book considers the types of problems that arise when reforms implemented at the international level are transformed into policies and practices, firmly placing global educational efforts into perspective by highlighting a range of different cases at both national and local levels.
Testing and Inclusive Schooling sheds light on new possibilities for educational improvements in global and local contexts and is essential reading for academics, researchers and postgraduate students interested in international and comparative education, assessment technologies and practices, inclusion, educational psychology and educational policy.
Preface: The tension field between testing and inclusion: Introducing a research endeavour Section 1: Testing and School Reforms Chapter 1: Educational testing, the question of the public good, and room for inclusion: A comparative study between Scotland and the United States Chapter 2: Minorities and educational testing in schools in Arctic regions: An analysis and discussion focusing on normality, democracy, and inclusion for the cases of Greenland and the Swedish Sami Schools Chapter 3: Educational opportunity between meritocracy and equity: A review of the National College Entrance Examination in China since 1977 Chapter 4: The ‘problem’ or ‘quality’ schooling, national testing, and inclusion: Australian insights into policy and practice Chapter 5: Standardized assessment and the shaping of neoliberal student subjectivities Section Essay: Stephen Ball Section 2: The Agenda of Inclusion Chapter 6: Quality and Inclusion in the SDGs: Tension in principle and practice Chapter 7: School reforms, market logic, and the politics of inclusion in the United States and Denmark Chapter 8: School development and inclusion in England and Germany Chapter 9: Inclusion as a right and an obligation in a neoliberal society Chapter 10: Refugee education: Conceptualizing inclusion amid conflict and crisis Section Essay: Roger Slee Section 3: Inclusion and Psychological Assessment Chapter 11: Inclusion: The Cinderella concept in educational policy in Latin America Chapter 12: Psychiatric testing and everyday school life: Collaborative work with diagnosed children Chapter 13: Development of a formative assessment system within a cross-cultural context (MANGO) Chapter 14: The significance of SEN assessment, diagnoses, and psychometric tests in inclusive education: Studies from Sweden and Germany Section Essay: Lani Florian Conclusion
Biography
Bjørn Hamre is an associate professor at The Department of Education, Institute of Media, Cognition and Communication, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Anne Morin is an associate professor at the Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, Denmark.
Christian Ydesen is an associate professor at the Department of Learning and Philosophy, Aalborg University, Denmark.
"Testing and Inclusive Schooling is an ambitious volume in scope and intent. In convening a global conversation on the pragmatics of subjectification, the wide-ranging discussions rigorously appraise debate concerning inclusive education and its ambitions. In doing so, argument assertively rallies to address what yet may be realised for students in education systems over the clamour of calculated assessments. This book is an invaluable resource for those committed to educational prospects beyond current conditions of instrumentality."
Dr Tim Corcoran, School of Education, Deakin University, Australia.
