External assessments and their effects within teachers’ subjetivity

Abstract

The current study aims at questioning, through a discursive perspective, some concepts and representations surrounding the school context regarding the teachers’ performance review, as well as the way they impact pedagogical-discursive practices, by paying special attention to changes within subjective positions experienced by teachers who have become examinees instead of examiners. As research material some excerpts taken from a report addressed to teachers were analyzed. Its purpose was to reinforce the inclusive assessment intended by the Education National Committee. The contradictions unveiled in the utterances showed the difficulties faced when trying to establish a wide, neutral and fair assessment process. Besides that, the analysis allowed us to understand the resentment felt by teachers, as a whole, towards the external assessments. New formal assessment concepts are proposed at all times but they keep on evoking old-exclusive punishing practices, as well as the same representations on what means to assess and be assessed.