ABSTRACT
It will soon be the tenth anniversary of citizenship education being taught in schools in England and recently Ofsted have made suggestions that they feel the subject is now ‘established’ (Ofsted, 2010). However, the theory and practice of how best to assess citizenship education are still massively underdeveloped. This is perhaps to be expected given that it is not hard to find theorists who believe the subject should not be assessed and practitioners who believe the subject cannot be assessed. Even amongst those who agree that citizenship education should and can be assessed, it seems the arguments are not straightforward. There are disagreements about how best to go about it, who should undertake it, what methods should be used and when it should take place. Publications offering advice as well as official policy documents often seem to ask more questions than they answer. It is therefore not surprising that many teachers seem confused about how best to assess citizenship education and have chosen to simply ignore it. This chapter will consider what it is about the nature of citizenship education that makes assessing it so contentious and challenging. The English schools inspectorate, Ofsted, have regularly regarded assessment
as one of the weakest aspects of citizenship education. Ofsted concluded bluntly in their 2003 report that, ‘assessment is currently a weak aspect of citizenship and few schools have progressed very far with it’ (Ofsted, 2003: 17). An Ofsted report a few years later showed that the picture had improved slightly, but that assessment still presented many difficulties for schools and teachers. The 2006 report, Towards Consensus?, stated that ‘[a]ssessment in citizenship is at a very early stage and teachers currently hav[e] only a very tentative view of standards and progression in citizenship. Indeed, the whole notion of assessment in citizenship remains controversial’ (Ofsted, 2006: 42), whilst the latest Ofsted report in 2010, Citizenship Established? commented:
Despite the steady improvements in standards at Key Stage 4 and gains in teachers’ confidence in establishing standards at Key Stage 3, many schools
identified the accurate assessment of standards and achievement as a challenge, particularly those where examination courses were not in place.
