ABSTRACT
In this chapter, assessment rubrics are discussed in the broad educational context of the contested nexus and tension(s) between curriculum, teaching and assessment. Each plays a distinct role that also offers a check on each other. Rubrics would have to be decoded in terms of its distinctive roles for curriculum, teaching and assessment, as well as how each would offer a common site for all three to exist in tension. Hence, rubrics should be appreciated for its complexity in possessing a real risk of counterproductive outcomes. This requires underlying and underpining agendas of rubrics to be discerned, and a sophisticated awareness of rubrics as implements of power and authority would be helpful.
