Assessment policies and policies assessment: the portuguese case in the pbero-American context

Abstract

Based on different research studies, in which the author has been involved over the past few years, this paper proposes a debate concerning the recent development of assessment devices and its relationship with politics and mass media in the Ibero-American context, with special focus on the Portuguese case during the last legislative period (2005-2009). During this period, besides the remarkable impact that national and international exams had on the design of educative policies, national assessment systems for schools and teachers were deployed. This became a privileged locus for observation. Throughout the analysis we can identify Ibero-American trends, but also the influence of European pressure and national characteristics. If assessment devices are born influenced by the political and ideological orientation of those who promote and support them, public appropriation of the outcome is conditioned by rhetorical Manichaeism that reflects individual interests that don't stop creating information that question all the educative actors. In this way, we promote public debate and the broadening of systems in a constant dialectic between assessment policies and policies assessment.