In:
Social Forces, Oxford University Press (OUP), Vol. 99, No. 4 ( 2021-04-05), p. 1631-1657
Abstract:
How do national high-stakes exams affect educational expansion across the world? High-stakes exams are conventionally viewed as systems of exclusion that constrain enrollments. In this paper, we situate exams within a broader historical and institutional context and argue that the constraining effect of exams on educational enrollments is a recent phenomenon. Exam systems diffused globally at a time when schooling was a limited enterprise, linked to just a few occupational roles. The later emergence of more inclusive visions of education, culminating in the Education for All (EFA) movement, propelled rapid global educational expansion. In this context, national high-stakes exam systems institutionalize earlier logics of selective education and consequently blunt the impact of more recent expansionary norms. Using panel regression models and a newly constructed dataset of 142 countries from 1960 to 2010, we show that high-stakes exams are associated with lower enrollments. However, this association is strongest in recent years, and exams interact negatively with measures of international pro-educational norms and pressures on nation-states. These findings are consistent with our historical/institutional argument: Exams constrain enrollments in recent years, in part by rendering nations less responsive to global expansionary pressures.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
0037-7732
,
1534-7605
Language:
English
Publisher:
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Publication Date:
2021
detail.hit.zdb_id:
212930-9
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2049434-8
SSG:
3,4
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