Tracking

Other prevalent institutional practices in the education system are: tracking, streaming or ability grouping; all of which at their core rely on the same principle: differentiate students based on prior performance to adapt the content of the curriculum (Ansalone, 2001). What sets these different practices apart is the rigidity of the enforced groups boundaries (i.e. the difficulty with which students can change groups) and the physical boundaries between students (within classrooms for ability grouping vs. separated classrooms or institutions in the case of tracking and streaming). All OECD countries implement at some stage in the educational process some form of tracking, although there is substantive variability as to the format and starting point of the selection. Students can be tracked for individual course subjects or in an overarching program leading to vocational or further academic training (OECD, 2013b).

The main feature of tracking is that it allows for the regulation of the distribution of learning opportunities. Access to knowledge, the amount and content of intended curriculum and the expected credentials are tailored to fit the perceived abilities of the group (Cohen, 2000). From a pedagogical point of view, the structural organization of learning is supposed to increase academic achievement, as it ensures an educational fit between the teaching and learning process. Teachers can better cater to students’ needs and interests by adjusting the content of their classes thereby maximizing every student’s achievement (Hallinan, 1994). The assumption is that teachers can teach material at a higher level and faster pace for higher ability students, and at a slower pace for students with lower ability, thereby improving overall student achievement. Another common assumption is that students will learn better in smaller more homogenous groups with material that is specifically adapted for its audience (Lleras, 2013).

Evidence for these assumptions are mixed. This could be due to differences in contexts within which schools operate or to the many confounding factors that are involved in tracking. In spite of these variations in application, there remains little consistent evidence of an overall positive effect on performance across context. Some studies report positive effects for high- ability students’ performance, but these benefits often come at the cost of lower streamed students who tend to perform worse in streamed educational structures (Caro, 2009; Hanushek & Woßmann, 2006; Huang, 2009; Schutz, Ursprung, & Woßmann, 2008). Studies with large scale quantitative, longitudinal data and cross-country comparative data have concluded that

streaming presents no significant improvement in overall achievement but can in some cases increase differences in performance between high and low-ability students (Hattie, 2002). Early tracking can even have a detrimental overall effect on mean performance (Lavrijsen & Nicaise, 2016).

Another widely studied subject in the field of tracking is the effect of tracking/ability grouping on the relationship between socio-economic background and educational attainment. There is substantial evidence demonstrating that low-SES students are overrepresented in lower tracks (OECD, 2013b). This observation has led many authors in the last century to wonder theoretically about the role of tracking as a practice serving to reproduce social class and racial inequalities (Bowles & Gintis, 1976; Oakes, 1995; Rosenbaum, 1976). Recent quantitative investigations propose that tracking comparatively to comprehensive educational systems tends to affect the representation of minority groups in higher education. These studies demonstrate that degree of differentiation and the age of selection changes the extent to which the educational system produces inequality (Van de Werfhorst & Mijs, 2010). Even when statistically controlling for past performance, socioeconomic background has been shown to still predict tracking position. A study across 30 countries determined that 60 % of the effect of socioeconomic background on achievement is mediated by school tracks, school types and curriculum tracking within schools (Marks, Cresswell, & Ainley, 2006). The lack of experimental investigation in the specific area makes it difficult to conclude on the specific causal direction of the relationship between past performance, tracking and social inequalities, or even students/ teachers’ behavior and expectations, but the patterns observed in these large correlational studies are consistent with the argument that tracking as a practice impairs social class equality at school.

In terms of psychological consequences, tracking has also been argued to produce potential harmful effects on teachers and students alike. Students are often aware of the hierarchy of the groups and the academic status which is attached to it (Lleras, 2013). Early on, Oakes (1985) found that students’ self-concepts and educational aspirations were related to track level. More recent research on tracking suggest that institutional stratification does not overall negatively affect academic self-concepts due to a big-fish—little-pond effect (Salchegger, 2016), but is likely related to lower educational expectations for disadvantaged students as tracking is associated to stronger differential achievement (Parker, Jerrim, Schoon & Marsh, 2016). Concerning teachers and tracking, Oakes observed that “the instructional environments of high-track classes were more characterized by a whole set of teacher behaviors thought to promote learning than were those of low-track classes.” (Oakes, 1985, p.110, cited

by Vanfossen, Jones, & Spade, 1987). Indeed, teachers have been consistently found to be more motivated, focused on content rather than discipline and feel more efficacious when teaching high-ability groups (Hallam & Ireson, 2003; Hattie, 2002).

Disputes over efficiency and equality concerns of this practice have also revolved around societal trade-offs. Some authors argue that this practice is justified as it serves to increase societal efficiency in the regulation of societal resources (Ansalone, 2004). Indeed, the potential trade-off of tracking does not necessarily reside on its beneficial effect on student’s performance but rather on its efficiency to provide the labor-market with differentiated skilled workers (Bol et al., 2014). Tracking might not be useful to promote educational equality, but it presents pragmatic societal advantages of providing society with appropriately skilled individuals for the market. Along those lines, Shavit & Müller (2000) suggest that benefits of tracking are overlooked by researchers who are focused on potential rewards of high levels of education for lower social class students instead of analyzing the potential pitfalls of pursuing higher education. They contend that vocational tracking reduces unemployment levels of lower social class individuals by offering them concrete skills.

The general consensus in the tracking debate is that evidence fails to consistently support claims for the educational benefits, whereas the negative consequences for educational equality are robust. The ubiquity of this educational practice across countries is surprising as it stands at odds with most researchers’ policy recommendations, even if some researchers do present the pragmatic argument that it may protect low-SES students from downward mobility.

2.2. Selection practices: Tools for social reproduction?

The literature on both normative assessment and tracking as educational practices present striking similarities. Scholars tend to agree that both educational practices are limited in the educational benefits they provide for students (except at times for high-achieving students) but are nonetheless widely implemented across the globe. Arguably, both practices present advantages comparatively to other practices as they allow for an efficient and clear selection process. These practices are also complementary in their underlying selection function. Without normative assessment, it would prove complicated to summarize students’ level of competency in a manner which permits a clear ranking of students in different tracks or streams. They have, on the other hand, been shown to produce certification of competence which align with original status inequalities (Croizet & Millet, 2012), thereby furthering the argument that selection processes could participate in maintaining the pre-existing social order.

Previous historical and sociological analyses have proposed that competitive examinations such as the one involved in tracking and normative assessment are rooted in traditions, methods, conceptions of knowledge and standards that benefit higher status groups (Carson, 2007; Delandshere, 2001; Leathwood, 2005; Oakes, 1985; Wilbrink, 1997). For instance, a relevant sociological case study for the link between selection processes and social inequalities can be found in Gillborn and Youdell’s (2001) article on the effects of A-to-C economy on school practices. They argue that political pressure to provide external performance measures in England had led to an increase in selection practices. They propose that the push towards selection processes had affected the distribution of academic rewards, which, in the end, seem to revolve around group identities and stereotypes. Increased selection process required looking for more differences between students. In order to justify (to others but also to themselves) the differentiation process, teachers relied on the concept of ability to guide their decisional process. However, as ability is a polymorphous concept, it tended to take the form of relevant stereotypes because in order to implement a selection, some students must be at the bottom of the hierarchy. They suggest that: “A final element in this potentially devastating equation is supplied by the increased use of selection within secondary schools: this provides a mechanism by which numerous, often ill-defined and even unrecognized differences in teacher expectations can be given concrete existence through their institutionalization within the organization of teaching groups and, in some cases, the placing of literally impenetrable limits on the exam grades that are available. (…) The schools do not set out deliberately to fail particular groups but, in the face of the A-to-C economy, they must find some way of deciding where best to focus their limited resources. This is educational triage and the decisions are based on judgements of “ability”. But “ability'” is a loaded, fallacious and highly dangerous concept. “Ability” offers a supposedly fair means for condemning some children to second class educations: it is a discourse that characterizes national educational policy, draws on common sense prejudices and misconceptions, and acts to legitimate the systematic failing of Black and working-class young people.” (Gillborn & Youdell, 2001, pp. 87, 94-95).

These qualitative analyses are corroborated by recent empirical research that demonstrated the deleterious consequences of selection processes on achievement goals as well as performance for lower status-group students. Selection processes emphasizing competition and social comparison such as numerus clausus policies have been shown to decrease the adoption of mastery-approach goals for all (i.e. desire to master a task; Sommet, Pulfrey, & Butera, 2013). Moreover, competitive and selective departments were shown to affect specifically first-generation students’ endorsement of these adaptive goals. In the selective

departments, comparisons between first and third-year students showed a greater decrease of mastery-approach goals for first-generation students comparatively to continuing-generations (Sommet, Quiamzade, Jury, & Mugny, 2015).

As for effects on performance, Smeding, Darnon, Souchal, Toczek-Capelle and Butera (2013) provided a direct demonstration that assessment practices geared towards comparison and selection could threaten the success of lower-status group members. In their field study, students participating in a psychology class were either told that assessment in this class was designed to help them learn (i.e. educational function of assessment) or that assessment was used to select the best of them (i.e. selection function of assessment). Results showed that assessment to select particularly harmed the academic achievement of low-SES students comparatively to the high-SES students. Specifically, they showed that assessment focused on selection led low-SES students to underperform. In the selection condition, the classic social class achievement gap was replicated. The gap, however, disappeared when assessment was experimentally presented to students as a way to learn and improve. Similar results on assessment were found in another research focusing on the gender-based achievement gap in science (Souchal et al., 2013). Even reminding student of the selection function of universities (i.e. to identify the best students, reward them with degrees and guide them toward the highest social positions) hindered the performance of first-generation students (Jury et al., 2015).

This body of research showed that selection-oriented assessments lead students to focus on demonstrating their ability and outperforming others. This dynamic then contributes to the lower achievement of lower status students. Furthermore, endorsing the idea that educational institutions should select the best student predicts more support for traditional assessment practices—which as mentioned above, are known to disadvantage low status students—and less support for alternative assessment practices. More precisely, data from a questionnaire (shown in Figure 1) administered to 140 students playing the role of teachers indicated that the relationship between preference for selection in institutions (3 items; e.g. “The role of the educational system should be to deliver the best diplomas to the best students”) and support for normative assessment method (4 items measuring whether they think it is a good, reliable and accurate assessment tool) is mediated by perceptions that this assessment method follows equitarian principle of justice (3 items; e.g., “This method values your students as a function of their merit”).

Figure 1. Mediation model showing how the function of selection of education positively

relates to the support for normative assessment via equity. All values are unstandardized coefficients (†p < 0.10; ∗

p < 0.05; ∗∗∗

p < 0.001).

Preference for selection was also negatively related to support for formative assessment, a relationship that was mediated by perceptions that formative assessment caters to students’ needs and ensures equality of outcome (3 items for the equality principle: e.g., “This method allows you to take all your students to the same level of attainment,” and 3 items for the need principle: e.g., “This method values your students even if they struggle”; cf. Figure 2). Consequently, promoting the idea that schools select the most deserving students could thus restrain changes in assessment practices towards greater equality (Autin, Batruch, & Butera, 2015).

Figure 2. Mediation model showing how the function of selection of education

negatively relates to the support for formative assessment via corrective justice (equality and need). All values are unstandardized coefficients (∗_{p < 0.05;} ∗∗∗_{p < 0.001).}

It has long been suggested in qualitative theoretical work and correlational studies that traditional assessment and selection practices reproduce social class inequalities, but the recent development of experimental studies on the selection function provides further evidence that

the relationship could be causal. Selection practices could in fact act as a threat and lead to the production of social class inequalities, by reducing contextually-adaptive learning motivations of students and reduce their performance. If so, then selection practices can become tools which help maintain intergroup hierarchical status quo.

2.3. Meritocracy as an ideological justification for selection: Consequence at the intergroup level

As the model presented in Figure 1 suggest, preference for selection in educational institutions is related to the beliefs that traditional assessment methods rely on a equitarian (i.e. meritocratic) justice principle. More generally, the function of selection is based on a meritocratic ideal which allows for individuals to be guided toward the position corresponding to their dispositions. Although the principle of meritocracy should in theory ensure equal access to allocations of ressources in school, recent research in social psychology suggest that believing societies are meritocratic could have paradoxical nefarious effects on equality of opportunity.

Historically, testing and graded exams were implemented to form a society based on individual merit (Carson, 2007). Educational systems are nowadays structured to facilitate its measure. To ensure that comparisons are relevant and meaningful, classes are grouped around students’ age and everyone is given similar teaching conditions (i.e. classrooms, material, teachers and tests; Croizet, et al., 2017). On the one hand, these arrangements represent the embodiment of the educational function of educational institution: every student is given the same learning and testing conditions. On the other hand, it is also a prerequisite for the selection function. In order to identify merit and legitimize selection processes, every student has to be given the same starting opportunities and be individually comparable to one another. Thus, if individuals or groups produce better or worse performance, it can be assumed that they reflect differences in merit. These differences become the justification for the allocation of institutionalized rewards.

Though individuals vary in their adherence to meritocracy, it is still considered to be the dominant ideology of liberal societies (McCoy & Major, 2007). Son Hing et al. (2011) define merit as a combination of ability, training, and experience and is considered by many to be an ideal justice principle. What is supposed to be rewarded in a meritocratic system is achievement, no longer ascription. In a meritocracy, it is expected that one's social position does not depend on social background but results from a fair competition based only on criteria of talent and merit. These values permeate the educational system. Selection and admission

practices claim to rely on rules of meritocracy (Sabbagh et al., 2006). By rewarding individual performance, the meritocratic educational system is supposed to circumvent group-based considerations and offer every student the same opportunities, therefore guarantying the possibility of social mobility. Since each individual is given the same conditions to demonstrate his or her talent and succeed at school, students are seen as responsible for their own destiny and worth, and for occupying the place they hold in the educational hierarchy. The idea that hard work leads to success is an influential norm in school environments (Duru-Bellat, 2011).

The pervasiveness of the competitive meritocratic ethos in education has lead Deutsch (1979) to suggest that these selective competitive practices are fulfilling a larger societal ideological purpose. He proposed that school acted as a socializing agent and prepared students to conform to ideological beliefs and practices of a broader competitive society infused with a meritocratic ideology. Academic institutions reflect societal values of competition and prepare students to comply with this ideology by using educational practices which communicate the endorsement of this justice principle. This implies that meritocracy is used to justify the implementation of these education practices, but at the same time their widespread use serves to socialize and by extent propagate the ideology in society.

A similar point was also made by Beauvois & Dubois (1988) who thought that internal explanations (i.e. explanations in which the attribution of success and failure is seen as related to oneself) and evaluative school practices work together to perpetuate a liberal competitive ideology. The use of internal explanations would be sought by evaluators as proof of students’ adherence to liberal psychological ideals, which advocate values of social differentiation between self and others, assertiveness and self-sufficiency (Beauvois, 2003). They concluded that the norm of internality (i.e. norm encouraging the use of internal attributions) would participate in the ideological reproduction of liberal societies (Beauvois, 1994) through normative selection practices (Beauvois, 2003). Resh (2009) proposed similarly that: “The institutionalized pattern of evaluation is a component in the hidden curriculum that transmits meritocracy and universalism as a central societal norm.” (Resh, 2009, p. 322).

On a related matter, an experiment conducted by Darnon et al. (2009) demonstrated that students implicitly understand which achievement goals are useful to succeed in the education system, even when it is not explicitly endorsed by teachers. Students recognized that competition in education and being able to demonstrate superior competence to others is an essential component to succeed at university despite teachers claiming they only promoted mastery goals instead of performance-approach goals in their classes (Darnon et al., 2009). These studies demonstrate that institutional structure and institutional practices can convey the

importance of competition, meritocracy and selection for academic success even when teachers do not explicitly or intentionally express it. In sum, evaluative practices can be seen as socialization tools which facilitates the endorsement of meritocratic values.

The literature in social psychology suggest to clearly differentiate between the general preference for merit principles (i.e. prescriptive meritocracy) and the belief that merit principles are in effect in society (i.e. descriptive meritocracy or belief in meritocracy). Research