The Cultural Context of Classroom Assessment

The Cultural Context of Classroom assessment

Identifying the ‘cultural context’

The different levels of cultural context:

Society / Community

School

Classroom

Defining Classroom Culture

Gallego, M. A.’s(et al.)(2001) Article has introduced different approaches to the definitions and explanation of classroom culture. They are as cited below:

Defining culture

Raymond William (1967):

‘Culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language’(as cited in Gallego et al. p. 953)

The culture of the school

Waller 1932/1965 (as cited and rephrased in Gallego et al. 2001, p. 957):

The ‘culture of school is made up of a number of different subcultures, which are in conflict with each other as a consequence of the contradictions inherent in the situation.’

Major conflict: adult culture Vs. the indigenous culture of the students

Goodenough’s “Working Theory of Culture”

“the cultural makeup of a society should not be seen as a monolithic entity determining the behavior of its members, but as a mélange of understandings and expectations regarding a variety of activities that serve as guides to their conduct and interpretation”(as cited in Gallego et al. 2001, p. 958)

Importance in the linkage between culture and material practice: (Ibid., p. 598)

One must create sufficient understanding to get the task accomplished.

One must differentiate cultural tool kits, depending on the social roles one plays so that the culture associated with an activity is made up of different subcultures.

Defining Context

Gallego et al, drawing from past studies on cultural context, identify context as:

(Ibid., pp. 959-961)

That which surrounds

That which weaves together

Activity

Activity and participation structures.

Culture and classroom Assessment

Pryor, J., & Torrance, H. (2000), on the other hand, highlight the influence of culture on assessment practices in the classroom. They argue for the importance of various hidden socio-cultural values (held by teachers and students) in affecting students’ performance in classroom assessment. As they have argued:

“Classroom assessment itself constitutes a context of learning which in turn both produces and is produced by the understandings that pupils bring to their schooling and the transformations that thereby occur.” (p. 111)

They adopt Bourdieu’s(1977) theory on habitus and field[1]to explain that children’s choice in the assessment practice is always driven by their habitus:

‘Although [children] are able to make individual choices about their practices, in any setting the habitus predisposes them to behave in certain ways.’ (Pryor and Torrance 2000, p. 123)

References:

Gallego, M.A., Cole, M., & Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition (2001). Classroom cultures and cultures in the classroom. In V. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (4th ed.) (pp.951-997). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.

Pryor, J., & Torrance, H. (2000). Questioning the three bears: The social construction of classroom assessment. In A. Filer (Ed.), Assessment: Social practice and social product (pp. 110-128). LondonNew York: Routledge Falmer.

[1]Habitus and Field (Bourdieu 1977)

Habitus: The embodied social structures that individuals bring to interaction and that form the principles for organizing their practice and field.

Field: The structured arenas of social interaction.