Standing our ground: Nurturing the social justice role of assessment
Jan McArthur, Professor in Higher Education and Social Justice and Head of Department in the Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University, UK.
In the past eight years the importance of understanding the social justice role of assessment has gained greater and greater recognition. Under the broad umbrella of assessment for social justice, many authors have explored the ways in which assessment should be a just practice for both staff and students, as well as the role assessment plays in shaping the future dispositions and civic nature of our graduates. The excitement which has slowly grown in the higher educational literature, is now supported by conferences and events such as this. Many academics now want to talk about the social justice implications of our assessment practices, and understand that these involve far more than “fair” assessment. This interest and excitement, however, does not necessarily translate into changes in practice, and challenges to dominant neoliberal and narrow understandings of the purposes of higher education. The concept of assessment for social justice was never meant to be critique alone, nor aspirational thinking: it was meant to be a call to action. This workshop explores the practical ways in which we can bring assessment for social justice into the reality of our professional practices. While acknowledging the barriers and challenges that exist, we also want to look for the spaces and opportunities for rethinking assessment practices through a social justice lens. The workshop is designed to provide support for each of us standing our ground, that assessment is a social justice issue, as well as enabling each of us to leave with a practical plan to bring this, even in some small way, into fruition.
Biography
Jan McArthur is Professor in Higher Education and Social Justice and Head of Department in the Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University, UK. Her research focuses on the nature and purposes of higher education and how these relate to practices of teaching, learning and assessment. She has a particular interest in critical theory and in her published work explores the ideas of Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Axel Honneth, applying these to higher education. In Rethinking Knowledge in Higher Education (Bloomsbury) she explores how Adorno’s critical theory can inform our understanding of, and engagement with, knowledge in higher education for the purposes of greater social justice. Her second book, Assessment for Social Justice (Bloomsbury), uses Honneth’s conceptualisation of mutual recognition to rethink the nature of assessment in higher education, where one is committed to greater social justice. She has published a wide range of journal articles on assessment, critical theory and social justice, and most recently rethinking authentic assessment. Jan is a deputy director of the Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE).
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