Chapter 3: Test Anxiety: Participation and Exclusion beyond the Institution

In this chapter, we examine the reflexive interplay of cultural, institutional, organizational, and personal narratives to examine more completely the ways in which successful and normative participation in schooling signals the ability and opportunity to participate in life beyond the institution.

Using narrative analysis techniques, we analyzed the interviews of eight college students who described their experiences with test anxiety.

Each individual story and experience points to the ebb and flow of participation and exclusion in the activities of schooling as well as a full participant in life more broadly. Significantly, we find that what it means to be a successful student in higher education has bearing on what it means to be a productive and worthwhile citizen, daughter, son, and partner.

This research adds needed complexity to the study of test anxiety by highlighting the ways in which higher education settings rely on the medical model of disability to enact their own gatekeeping mechanisms in an effort to “legitimize” disability through acknowledgment and accommodation. Findings point to the ways in which culturally circulating stories of disability can shape organizational responses and how these can shape personal experience.