ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the power structures in assessment, and how transgressing these in order to empower truly student-centred learning is the only way to provide transparent, ethical, and inclusive processes and products. The call to transgressing in assessment in education is substantiated by practice, theory, and empirical data: this leaves us nowhere to hide. The chapter demonstrates that the educational discourses and learning and assessment theories in fact require transgressing in assessment, if transgressing means challenging processes and hierarchies which currently represent the status quo and are academically untenable in a just and equitable society. It presents the argument for the need to transgress within the microcosm of the classroom to provide inclusion in assessment and grading where the power differentials are greatest within the educational process and the potential for injustice and marginalisation is highest. The chapter uses assessment as encompassing any decision which is based on criteria and standards; these may be implicit or explicit.
