National Tests and minorities: Power Relations and questions of in- and exclusion in Greenland and Northern Sweden

Assessment in school represent a technology and materiality with profound impact on the life, activities and interactions in school (eg. Lawn & Grosvenor, 2005). It can be considered as an integrated and in different ways also dominating part of pedagogic practice which influence processes of in- and exclusion in both direct and in more indirect ways. Depending of its design and use it might also point to differences between pupils with references to categories such as clever, skilled, good, medium, average, below average, best etc.. These processes might be considered as problematic at the micro level – in the classroom – as well as at the macro level – the nation.The practice of teachers offering national tests occurs in different forms in primary schools throughout the world (eg. McNess et al. 2015). These practices are often associated with a curriculum and learning objectives that are nationalistic in their orientation. In a policy perspective, the underlying motive may be a desire to evaluate and compare students’ academic development and performance as well as schools’ performance and goal attainment at the national level. National testing are based on the assumption that the tested pupils all speak the same language, and are often not adapted to the languages of minorities.However, regionally determined differences – for example, linguistic or cultural – often exhibit considerable influence over student performance in such national academic tests, with any such potential effects generally not considered during the design of test materials (eg. Banks, 2009; Coronel-Molina & McCarthy, 2016). While initiatives have been taken to adapt national test practices to certain regional conditions, the dominant culture will continue to be imposed via both tests and national educational objectives observed in learning environments, and the pedagogy practiced in these regions – in some cases, with unfortunate, unintentional consequences. We might state, then, such tests transgress cultural boundaries and exert power.