Manipulating the data: Teaching and NAPLAN in the control society

Thompson, G. and Cook, I. (2012) Manipulating the data: Teaching and NAPLAN in the control society. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 35 (1). In Press.

PDF - Authors' Version Embargoed until January 2014.

Abstract

High-stakes testing is changing what it means to be a ‘good teacher’ in the contemporary school. This paper uses Deleuze and Guattari’s ideas on the control society and dividuation in the context of NAPLAN testing in Australia to suggest that the database generates new understandings of the ‘good teacher’. Media reports are used to look at how teachers are responding to the high-stakes database through manipulating the data. This paper argues that manipulating the data is a regrettable, but logical, response to manifestations of teaching where only the data counts.