Vulnerable contexts: the contribution of assessment

Abstract

Strongly developed in different ways, educational evaluation has now a relevant role in educationalpolicies in many countries. If it is well designed and implemented, and if its results are correctly analyzed and used, evaluation can support decisions that improve educational quality, but when these conditions are not fulfilled it can bring negative results in the form of quality deterioration. And both possibilities, either positive or negative, have specific features when related with schools and pupils of disadvantaged social backgrounds. This article reflects on this issue, mainly from Mexico’s point of view. It starts with a definition of disadvantaged backgrounds (as an expression of the shortage of essential elements for family welfare and school development) —in relation to social inequality, so deeply embedded in the Mexican society and school system— and of the quality of an educationsystem; after that, the consequences for educational evaluation and assessment are explored, in the case of large-scale standardized tests and the diffusion of their results in the form of rankings.