What does success mean to you? Negotiating individual definitions of educational success within an examination-dominated regime of truth

Journal article

The meaning of education success is a complex and contested question. In England, as in many countries, this question remains dominated by high-stakes summative assessment, resulting in perverse secondary consequences, detrimental to education itself. In this study, we asked six policy-makers, seven secondary-school teachers and 17 pupils what success meant to them. We extend Broadfoot’s four Cs framework of competence, competition, content, and control, by adding ‘creation’, emphasising how assessment creates the realities it is intended to measure. The study took a grounded theory approach, iterating data collection, literature review, and inductive analysis alongside critical input from a steering committee composed of five study participants. We argue that assessment practices in England create and proliferate a regime of truth which positions high-ranking examination results as the only legitimate meaning of educational success. In school, children discover and determine their interests, identities, and individuality. This process is negotiated with parents, peers, teachers and wider society. We highlight the role that assessment has in engendering competition, controlling choices, and creating identities. Assessment results influence both how we are perceived by others and how we perceive ourselves. We discuss the role that assessment plays in mediating identity negotiation – in shaping, legitimising, and controlling it.

Authors: Godfrey-Faussett, T; Baird, J-A

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Journal: Oxford Review of Education
• Volume: 51
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 178-201
• Publication date: 2025-03-14
• Acceptance date: 2025-01-21
• DOI: 10.1080/03054985.2024.2439287
• EISSN: 1465-3915
• ISSN: 0305-4985
• Language: English
• Keywords: pupil perceptions of assessment; identity; assessment; sociology of assessment