Overview
- Provides an overview of the history of standardized testing in Ontario
- Fills a gap in the research on testing and assessment in elementary school settings
- Focuses on race and racialized experiences led by voices of elementary school children, parents, and educators
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About this book
This book examines the history of standardized testing in Ontario leading to the current context and its impact on racialized identities, particularly on Grade 3 students, parents, and educators. Using a theoretical argument supplemented with statistical trends, the author illuminates how EQAO tests are culturally and racially biased and promote a Eurocentric curriculum and way of life privileging white students and those from higher socio-economic status. This book spurs readers to further question the use of EQAO standardized testing and challenges us to consider alternative models which serve the needs of all students.
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Keywords
Table of contents (10 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Reviews
“There is no question that we will always want to know how well our students are doing in school, but are standardized tests the way to find out? Through this work, using his experiences as a student and teacher, Eizadirad invites us to seriously consider the relevance and impact of EQAO as an assessment tool especially for Grade 3 students. His insights and recommendations are important if we are to make the assessment process responsive to the various needs and expectations of our culturally diverse student population.” (Carl E. James, Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community, and Diaspora, York University, Canada)
“Eizadirad provides both a powerful and convincing indictment of standardized testing, revealing the ways in which tests serve as ideological weapons of accountability and social reproduction, and the means by which educational officials weaponize such tests, rendering the test-taking process more detrimental, especially for racialized communities of twenty-first century learners. This study is an important contribution to the literature on testing, offering decolonizing pedagogical approaches that directly challenge the structural violence within our school system and the wider social relations in which such violence is embedded.” (Peter McLaren, Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Attallah College of Educational Studies at Chapman University, USA)
“In this book, Eizadirad illustrates how, across international contexts, high-stakes testing and the systems of accountability built around them consistently serve to not only control teaching and learning, but also as a tool of colonization, racism, and white supremacy that undermines the education of minoritized students.” (Wayne Au, Professor of Educational Studies, University of Washington Bothell, USA)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Ardavan Eizadirad holds a PhD from the Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto, Canada. He is an educator with the Toronto District School Board and a community activist with non-profit organizations Youth Association for Academics, Athletics, and Character Education in the Jane and Finch community and Amadeusz in Toronto, Canada.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Decolonizing Educational Assessment
Book Subtitle: Ontario Elementary Students and the EQAO
Authors: Ardavan Eizadirad
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27462-7
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Education, Education (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-27461-0Published: 20 September 2019
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-27464-1Published: 20 September 2020
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-27462-7Published: 06 September 2019
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XV, 255
Number of Illustrations: 3 b/w illustrations
Topics: Assessment, Testing and Evaluation, Early Childhood Education, Social Justice, Equality and Human Rights, Ethnicity in Education