Paradoxes of assessment: the constitutive effects of assessment and evaluation in datafied early childhood education

Abstract

This article examines the constitutive effects of assessment and assessment-based evaluation in early childhood education (ECE) in the Nordic education regime, Finland. Specifically, inspired by Peter Dahler-Larsen’s work, we ask how the degree of institutionalization, the level of analysis in the evaluation process, and the organizational networks, including the levels of democratic negotiations as part of the evaluation process, structure constitutive effects. By using a multiple-case study design, this approach helps us identify three paradoxes of evaluation: the paradox of intensity, the paradox of institutionalization and the paradox of democracy. The findings show that constitutive effects, and how they are reflected in the everyday life of ECE, seem surprisingly similar in assessment regimes with high teacher autonomy and holistic pedagogical focus compared to prior research on standardized, accountability-driven assessment regimes. Even when an assessment is low-stakes, it affects the epistemes, content of education, the relations and subjectivities involved.