Centering Multilingualism for More Equitable Education Systems in Assessment: Global Perspectives

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This session responds to the conference call for “embracing global perspectives, looking to other nations for effective models and shared challenges, and considering how global forces structure educational opportunity” (AERA p. 1). We bring together scholarship around assessment in multilingual communities of practice (COP) in the United States, Canada, Belgium, and Singapore, and a discussant from Mexico to highlight the uniqueness of each context while also coming together to overcome shared challenges to enact and sustain change that addresses inequities in assessment practices. The knowledge generated in bringing together these different works serves to inform overarching validity frameworks in assessment as well, countering the longstanding and well-documented neglect of multilingual COP to contribute to more equitable educational systems more broadly.

Sub Unit

• Division L - Educational Policies and Politics / Division L - Section 7: Social Context and Structural Inequalities

Chairs

• Jamie L. Schissel, University of North Carolina - Greensboro

• Angel Arias, Carleton University

Papers

• Language Assessment Frameworks as Language Policy: Is a Multilingual Approach Possible? - Saskia Van Viegen, York University; Eunice Eunhee Jang, University of Toronto

• Teachers' Assessment Literacy: A Comparison of Teachers' Expectations of Multilingual Students' Accommodated and Non-Accommodated Science Test Performances - Fauve De Backer, Ghent University

• Adolescent Test-Taker Characteristics: A Qualitative Validation Study of a Chinese Language Reading Examination in Singapore - Yun Yee Cheong, Singapore Ministry of Education

• Examining Validity Issues in Classifying and Reclassifying English Learners Through Dynamic Views of Languaging Practices - Sultan Turkan, Queen's University, Belfast

Discussant

• Mario E. Lopez-Gopar, Universityersidad Autonoma Benito Juarez de Oaxaca