Page 58 - Looking_after_school

Looking after school: a critical analysis of personalisation in education

becomes a norm. The norm has a double function, which also clari-
fies the double function of exams. The norm sets out what should be
acquired in order to gain access to a different grade, to the next level
of education, or to the job market (Depaepe, 1999). It has the status of
a socially recognised standard. The exam is then above all the instru-
ment that regulates access to the job market or to further education
through socially recognised degrees. But the teacher also uses the exam
to collect knowledge about the student. By using norms in this way,
teachers are able to judge the development or the learning progress
of every student in terms of degrees of normality (Hacking, 1990).
Every exam (in)explicitly shows whether what a student of a certain
age knows, and what they are capable of, is (more or less) normal. In
addition to this examination, it becomes possible to determine for
every student what sanctions, exercises, instructions, or extra effort is
required to achieve normality. In so far as the norm is set by the subject
matter that is acquired at a certain age, the ultimate disciplinary sanc-
tion for the student is to have to repeat or be held back a grade (which
means to double a year or, in more contemporary vocabulary, a dif-
ferentiation in time to learn). In the educational institution, students
get to know themselves in relation to the norm. Often, this is based
on class averages: ‘am I more or less normal as a student?’ This self-
knowledge as a student, and also the positive or negative self-image
that is inextricably linked to it, always passes through one or another
social norm and often implies the comparison of oneself to others.
Through the school report, the parents also get to know their child as a
good or bad student, and thus as more normal or less normal. In this
way, the architecture of educational institutions instils also a sense of
responsibility in parents for supporting the normal course of a school
career (Donzelot, 1977).

Schooling and learning, as well as examination and qualification,
are inseparable in the architecture of the educational institution. As
such, they are almost indistinguishable. After all, the starting point for
both notions is that meaningful learning, both societal and individu-
ally, only takes place in an educational institution as a consequence
of teaching. The government authorises schools, as officially recog-
nised institutions, to take on the function of qualification by examining
and awarding degrees (unless of course governments partly take the

58