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Who me? Hailing Individuals as Subjects: Standardised Literacy Testing as an Instrument of Neo-Liberal Ideology

Yandell, J; Doecke, B; Abdi, Z; (2020) Who me? Hailing Individuals as Subjects: Standardised Literacy Testing as an Instrument of Neo-Liberal Ideology. In: Mirhosseini, S-A and DeCosta, P, (eds.) The Sociopolitics of English Language Testing. Bloomsbury Academic: London, UK.

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Abstract

This chapter analyses the ideological work that standardised tests perform in constructing individuals as subjects. Standardised literacy testing enacts a neoliberal ideology through restructuring the everyday life of the school, mandating certain practices that radically transform the social organisation of the school and the place of students within a school community. Althusser’s understanding of ideology provides a theoretical framework for our analysis, but we also seek to resist its bleak determinism. Standardised testing seeks to construct students as competitive individuals, but such pressures continually conflict with and misrepresent the social relationships of the classroom and the way students and teachers experience those relationships from day to day. This chapter draws on a specific example of classroom practice in England that provides a telling instance, both of how standardised testing has come to mediate the practice of teachers and of the scope for resistance, by students as well as teachers.

Type: Book chapter
Title: Who me? Hailing Individuals as Subjects: Standardised Literacy Testing as an Instrument of Neo-Liberal Ideology
ISBN-13: 9781350071353
Publisher version: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-sociopolitics-of...
Language: English
Additional information: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
Keywords: standardised testing, curricular policy, text, identity, literature, resistance
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Culture, Communication and Media
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10077829
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