Making Grades

Abstract

T H E focus of this paper is on the role that culture plays in shaping the way examiners arrive at assessments of candidates' relative academic ability in tertiary entrance examinations. In attempting to understand this process, I call on notions of 'Discourse', especially of the kind developed by Gee (1991, 1992, 1994). When examiners 'make grades', they call on culturally specific understandings of what counts as a 'literate essay', a 'relevant' argument, and an appropriate relationship between candidate and examiner. I start with a discussion of tertiary entrance examinations, move to a discussion of Discourse and conclude with an analysis of one set of examiners' reports. Examiners use underlying discourse structure as the basis on which they make their judgements about academic merit, and that these judgements are culturally situated and do, therefore, realise cultural values. However, although they are clearly culturally situated, they gain their legitimacy in the public arena by an appeal to the universality of standards of academic merit.

EFL Learners’ Development of Voice In Academic Writing: Lexical bundles, Boosters/Hedges and Stance-taking Strategies

“…The academic writing discourse community claims that 'good' writing ought to be impersonal, objective and informational (Rahimivand & Kuhi, 2014) and grounded in the specific highly-valued features of literacy, relevance and politeness (Farrell, 1997). 'Literate' texts are expected to be objective, analytical and sequential, and thus organized in ways that showcase symmetry, order and logical thinking.…”

School physics and the construction of educational inequality

“…These yield more reliable estimates of relative academic merit and provide more robust predictors of tertiary performance. Such alternative forms of assessment are reputed to be fairer with respect to ethnicity (Supovitz & Brennan 1997), social class (Farrell 1997) and gender (Teese et al 1995) than externally imposed, written assessments like the physics examination. However, our study of Mr Robson and Mrs Lane confirmed what we had found in our earlier studies of Mr Ward and David: the new physics syllabus had little impact on teaching practice.…”

Re-opening an Asia-Scar: engaging (troubled) emotions in knowing, knowledge production and scholarly endeavors

“…As in Phan ( 2008 ), I have found Euro-American theory helpful, although it is questionable whether there is anything so concrete as to be named “Euro-American.” Likewise, I also find Euro-American theory open to expansion, critiquing, new practices, and transformations, according to however a scholar can make it and engage with it (Phan, 2008 , 2009 , 2017 ). I also recognize the flexibility of many Western scholars in practicing their own writing and in receiving different writing voices (Farrell, 1997a , 1997b ; Ivanic, 1997 ; Kamler, 2001 ; Thomson, 2018 ; Viete & Phan, 2007 ). They are also willing to accept changes to established English academic writing norms, despite institutionalized efforts (i.e., journals, universities, publishers) to control and maintain these rigid and formulaic norms.…”

“…They are also seen as being objective/neutral, formula-driven, agreed-upon, rule-based, and clarity-enhancing. However, over the past decades, many scholars have argued that these norms are contested, critiquing them for dictating, and being biased and socially and culturally informed by a particular Western worldview and tradition of thought (Canagarajah, 2002a , 2002b ; Casanave, 2002 , 2003 ; Curry & Lillis, 2017 ; Farrell, 1997a , 1997b ; Ivanič, 1997 ; Kamler, 2001 ; Phan, 2009 ; Phan & Baurain, 2011 ). These norms, regarded by these scholars as being inherently hegemonic, ought to be debunked so as to nurture and create room for diverse ways of writing, idea presentation, and knowledge building.…”