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Cited by 45Student Assessment and FeedbackEducation, Achievement, and GiftednessSchool Choice and Performance

Social justice in education: how the function of selection in educational institutions predicts support for (non)egalitarian assessment practices

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Autin, Frédérique, Batruch, Anatolia, Butera, Fabrizio·2015·Frontiers in Psychology
DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00707PMC PMC4454842
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Abstract

Educational institutions are considered a keystone for the establishment of a meritocratic society. They supposedly serve two functions: an educational function that promotes learning for all, and a selection function that sorts individuals into different programs, and ultimately social positions, based on individual merit. We study how the function of selection relates to support for assessment practices known to harm vs. benefit lower status students, through the perceived justice principles underlying these practices. We study two assessment practices: normative assessment-focused on ranking and social comparison, known to hinder the success of lower status students-and formative assessment-focused on learning and improvement, known to benefit lower status students. Normative assessment is usually perceived as relying on an equity principle, with rewards being allocated based on merit and should thus appear as positively associated with the function of selection. Formative assessment is usually perceived as relying on corrective justice that aims to ensure equality of outcomes by considering students' needs, which makes it less suitable for the function of selection. A questionnaire measuring these constructs was administered to university students. Results showed that believing that education is intended to select the best students positively predicts support for normative assessment, through increased perception of its reliance on equity, and negatively predicts support for formative assessment, through reduced perception of its ability to establish corrective justice. This study suggests that the belief in the function of selection as inherent to educational institutions can contribute to the reproduction of social inequalities by preventing change from assessment practices known to disadvantage lower-status student, namely normative assessment, to more favorable practices, namely formative assessment, and by promoting matching beliefs in justice principles.

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  • Students who are expected to do poorly because they are subjected to descriptive and prescriptive negative stereotypes are more likely to get placed in lower sets than their ability warrants.

    “Students who are expected to do poorly because they are subjected to descriptive and prescriptive negative stereotypes are more likely to get placed in lower sets than their ability warrants (Autin, Batruch, & Butera, 2015;Batruch et al., 2017;Connolly et al., 2019;Francis, Hodgen, Craig, Taylor, Archer, Mazenod, Tereshchenko, & Connolly, 2019a;Muntoni & Retelsdorf, 2018).”

    From Tackling Educational Inequalities with Social Psychology: Identities, Contexts, and Interventions (2021) · cites this paper as Autin, Batruch, & Butera, 2015

    The Introduction (‘Assessment Practices and Social Inequalities’; page unavailable) reports that teachers gave lower grades to identical work when they believed it came from migrant or low-caste pupils. The Discussion (page unavailable) says grades are supposedly the main criterion for tracking decisions in Switzerland. Together these support a concern about biased assessment, but the paper does not establish that negative descriptive or prescriptive stereotypes cause students to be placed in lower sets than their ability warrants. (LLM, conf=0.82)

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Authors
Autin, F., Batruch, A., & Butera, F.
Affiliations
University of Lausanne (CH)
Corresponding author
Autin, Frédérique
ORCID
Venue
Frontiers in Psychology
Publisher
Frontiers Media SA
Published
2015-06-04
Volume
6
Pages
707-707
ISSN
1664-1078 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00707
PMC
PMC4454842
OpenAlex
W1591533093
Cited by
45
References
94
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 1
FWCI
13.34
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by
Locations
  • Frontiers in Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • SERVAL (Université de Lausanne) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • IRIS (submittedVersion)
  • HAL (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • National Science Foundation
  • Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Education › Student Assessment and Feedback
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Education, Achievement, and Giftedness
  • Social Sciences › Education › School Choice and Performance
Keywords
social justice in education, normative evaluation, formative assessment, corrective justice, equity principle, meritocracy, educational inequality, student perceptions of assessment, reproduction of inequality

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