Preface Introduction Part 1 The rationality of judgement: understanding educational assessment sociologically.
1. Competence, competition, content and control: how assessment mediates the relationship between education and society.
2. Selection, certification and control: meritocracy or social reproduction? Part 2 Insights from comparing national education systems: empirical studies of differences in the impact of assessment for system control on teachers and pupils
3. Towards a focus on learning and culture: time for a new approach to comparative education?
4. New forms of system control: the power of assessment as a tool for accountability and legitimation.
5.Using the comparative approach to understand teachers’ priorities: the ‘Bristaix study of English and French education.
6. Values, understanding and power: mapping the impact of assessment policy changes on teachers’ practice through the PACE project.
7. Comparing influences on pupil achievement? Insights from the QUEST project.
8. Culture, context and policy: new perspectives on learning from the ENCOMPASS study of pupils in England, France and Denmark. Part 3 Assessment as a policy tool
9. Performativity versus empowerment: how the ‘assessment society’ is inhibiting the advent of a ‘learning society’.
10. Assessment as a social technology: the socio-cultural origins and implications of the ‘standards’ agenda. Part 4 Anticipating the future: assessment for learning and the digital revolution.
11. Enter the ‘assessment society’: international trends and future challenges.
12. Challenging the status quo: the potential of assessment for learning.
13. Towards an Assessment Revolution? The potentially transforming potential of computer-based assessment. Epilogue Postscript