Assessment Cultures

Book excerpt: Large scale assessment influences national and international educational policy debates and reforms. Assessment data is increasingly used as a government instrument. However, within the contemporary realm of the current global testing regime both the cultural and the historical conditions of assessment are often neglected. This volume is therefore devoted to the reconstruction of "assessment cultures" (interpretation patterns, discourses, instruments, practices) and their involved groups of actors. The contributions cover examples of Western European, Eurasian, East Asian, Latin, and North American as well as international settings and refer to epochs ranging from the early modern period up to the current context.