As the National Sats in primary schools comes to an end for another year, I have been wondering about what teachers actually think of the practices and processes involved in preparing children to sit an examination at such relatively young ages. Is there a 'hegemony' of practice in primary schools which has made these processes appear 'natural' and unquestionable as the means to assess children?
"Gramsci used the term hegemony to denote the predominance of one social class over others (e.g. bourgeois hegemony). This represents not only political and economic control, but also the ability of the dominant class to project its own way of seeing the world so that those who are subordinated by it accept it as 'common sense' and 'natural'. Commentators stress that this involves willing and active consent. Common sense, suggests Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, is 'the way a subordinate class lives its subordination' (cited in Alvarado & Boyd-Barrett 1992: 51)" (Chandler 2000:1 http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/marxism/marxism10.html).
Does this make teachers (and teacher educators) believe that grading children with a National Curriculum level and sub-level is in some way a reliable and responsible way of articulating a child's intellectual development? Has this become part of the professional consciousness of teachers? I'm not convinced at all. Just as I question Gramsci's conception of 'hegemony' as a way to explain what he saw as the lack of class-consciousness and will to fight back against the exploitation of capitalism - even when the inequality of society is obvious - I also question those who have this view of teachers' professional consciousness and their knowledge of schooling and learning.
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