ABSTRACT
Educational measurement has an extended history of addressing fairness issues, largely targeting methodological development and test use, with little attention devoted to interrogating basic principles. This chapter presents a descriptive review of 20 assessment conceptions that contest those principles in ways intended to better meet the needs of a more pluralistic and multicultural society. The identified conceptions were compared on multiple dimensions, including name, definition (or description), target population(s), setting, underlying literatures, principles, goals, governing theory, audiences the proponents are attempting to convince, and rhetorical stance taken by proponents. The review found most descriptions (13 of 20) to include responding to student characteristics as a key component. Despite that commonality, the conceptions cannot be considered exchangeable. Divergences were apparent on many dimensions, most obviously in target population, which ran from highly selective to broadly inclusive, and in the underlying literatures. For the few conceptions espousing principles and/or having an underlying theory, noteworthy distinctions also were evident.
