World Yearbook of Education 2017

Book excerpt: This latest volume in the World Yearbook of Education series examines the relationship between assessment systems and efforts to advance equity in education at a time of growing inequalities. It focuses on the political motives behind the expansion of an assessment industry, the associated expansion of an SEN industry and a growth in consequential accountability systems. Split into three key sections, the first part is concerned with the assessment industry, and considers the purpose and function of assessment in policy and politics and the political context in which particular assessment practices have emerged. Part II of the book, on assessing deviance, explores those assessment and identification practices that seek to classify different categories of learners, including children with Limited English Proficiency, with special needs and disabilities and with behavioural problems. The final part of the book considers the consequences of assessment and the possibility of fairer and more equitable alternatives, examining the production of inequalities within assessment in relation to race, class, gender and disability. Discussing in detail the complex historical intersections of assessment and educational equity with particular attention to the implications for marginalised populations of students and their families, this volume seeks to provide reframings and reconceptualisations of assessment and identification by offering new insights into economic and cultural trends influencing them. Co-edited by two internationally renowned scholars, Julie Allan and Alfredo J. Artiles, World Yearbook of Education 2017 will be a valuable resource for researchers, graduates and policy makers who are interested in the economic trends of global education assessment.