Chapter 9: Dilemmas in Designing Problems in “Realistic” School Mathematics: A Sociological Overview and Some Research Findings¹

Since a learner’s trajectory through the differentiated tracks that constitute “the school” is determined partially by his or her assessed performance at key branching points, any sociology of learning, broadly conceived, will need to address assessment. Clearly, to be equitable, modes of assessment should not cause children from some socio-cultural backgrounds to display their knowledge and understanding more or less readily than those from other backgrounds. Educators should want to avoid a situation, for example, where a child speaking language A, with good knowledge of some discipline, may be found to perform poorly in a test of this subject written in language B. Unfortunately, not all examples of bias in assessment are as clear cut as this. In this chapter I discuss a subtler example of potential bias arising in the use of “realistic” problems in tests. Furthermore, my examples will be drawn from a disciplinary context frequently portrayed as socially neutral, that of mathematics.