In this chapter I am particularly concerned with the marking or grading aspects of the assessment process. Rowntree (1987) points out that the individual who assigns a mark to a student’s work holds a set of ideas, beliefs, and constructs about assessment. As discussed in the introduction to this book, assessment and grading need to be viewed at the levels of individual action, institutional practice, and the wider societal context. This emphasis on assessment as a practice situated within the wider socio-cultural, political context defi nes a social practices view of assessment. Lecturers marking student work are working within institutions that have certain expectations and in turn these institutions are located within a society that has particular values and priorities. Adopting the perspective that assessment is socially constructed, Delandshere (2001) argues that assessment reproduces the values of the society in which it operates. Higgins (2000) underlines this point when he states that assessment is a social affair ‘embedded within a particular social relationship involving power, emotion, control, authority and discourse’ (p. 5). From this perspective, student work does not have a ‘true’ score in any absolutist sense. Instead, marks awarded will be contingent on a variety of factors (Rowntree, 1987).