ABSTRACT
This chapter sets out to examine in detail the part played by educational assessment procedures in helping to shape the organization and ethos of the provision of mass schooling as this has emerged in response to the major changes in the economic and social order brought about by industrialization. It evokes some of central themes of sociology in their attempt to identify those characteristics of the transition from feudal to industrial society that may be associated with rise of educational assessment procedures. Actors were increasingly required to perform specific, defined roles in whole range of social institutions, notably the division of labour. They were increasingly chosen on the basis of their demonstrated competence as measured by some rational criterion. Similarly, in other systems, in the past autonomy could be safeguarded by the relatively minor role of ‘product evaluation’ despite existence of highly centralized, bureaucratic education system in which every aspect of pedagogic activity, and especially curricular objectives, was tightly controlled.
