Approaches to the analysis of accountability and high and low implications of large scale assessments in five countries of Latin America

Abstract

This work is part of some ongoing discussions and analysis about our research project on the political functions of national assessments in Latin America, with the aim of a critical exchange for the revision and enhancement of the analytical progression. As part of the educational reforms of the '80s and '90s in Latin America, national assessments as well as international testing applications are carried on in a number of countries, that, according to the conclusions drawn from many studies, have not had a significant impact on better educational practices in teaching processes neither in learning ones. Still, national assessments persist and seem to respond to political primary, secondary and tertiary functions, as Angulo Rasco called them (1995 : 203-204 ), given the degree of social visibility they present. From a comparative perspective, it is necessary to identify them in each country, considering also those functional equivalents as national evaluation systems, expression that, according to Reijo Rivarola, quotating Marton- produce the meanings and configurations of meaning in speech and in action, whether there is or not convergence or identity in the facts described between the cases compared ( Altbach and Kelly , 1990 : 300).