Widening access to higher education in Brazil: A document analysis of assessment policy, purpose and practice
<p>To what extent did the changes in purposes of the Brazilian National Upper-Secondary Exam (ENEM) in 2009 affect the social equality gap and widened the access to higher education? Policy making can be a process where social inequalities are maintained, produced or tackled, affecting or bein...
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2020
|
| Subjects: |
| _version_ | 1797101699743088640 |
|---|---|
| author | Da Silva Zanon, M Gully, L |
| author_facet | Da Silva Zanon, M Gully, L |
| author_sort | Da Silva Zanon, M |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | <p>To what extent did the changes in purposes of the Brazilian National Upper-Secondary Exam (ENEM) in 2009 affect the social equality gap and widened the access to higher education? Policy making can be a process where social inequalities are maintained, produced or tackled, affecting or being affected by a large-scale and high-stakes assessment as is the case of the ENEM. From 1998 to 2015, the assessment underwent major reformulations with the explicit intent to widen the access to higher education, especially to the socially underprivileged. With that context in mind, I perform a policy cycle analysis of the ENEM purposes in relation to its practical uses when connected to other related policies. My theoretical framework was informed by a literature review on assessment purposes, as discussed by Pellegrino, Chudowsky, and Glaser (2001) and Newton (2007); specific literature on equality of opportunities in the access to education, with a focus on the Maximally Maintained Inequality hypothesis (Raftery & Hout, 1993) and on the Effectively Maintained Inequality conjecture (Lucas, 2001); and Ball’s Policy Cycle (Ball, 1994; Bowe, Ball, & Gold, 1992). The data collected consisted of policy, legislation, technical, report, institutional and academic texts, searched in specialised databases. My results uncover patterns that indicate that the uses proposed to the ENEM, in connection with a broader network of educational and social reforms, can indeed tackle the inequality of opportunities in the access to higher education. This could add to the international literature on the subject not only for the focus on the ENEM, which presents a rare case in the international assessment literature; but also as a counter-example to the reasonably consensual Maximally Maintained Inequality; and by providing a more comprehensive understanding of assessment not only as a policy in isolation of context, but as part of a larger policy framework.</p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T05:55:32Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oxford-uuid:ea5e581a-0aff-4414-9c5c-47ddd2f69af0 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T05:55:32Z |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:ea5e581a-0aff-4414-9c5c-47ddd2f69af02022-03-27T11:01:41ZWidening access to higher education in Brazil: A document analysis of assessment policy, purpose and practiceThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_bdccuuid:ea5e581a-0aff-4414-9c5c-47ddd2f69af0EducationEnglishHyrax Deposit2020Da Silva Zanon, MGully, L<p>To what extent did the changes in purposes of the Brazilian National Upper-Secondary Exam (ENEM) in 2009 affect the social equality gap and widened the access to higher education? Policy making can be a process where social inequalities are maintained, produced or tackled, affecting or being affected by a large-scale and high-stakes assessment as is the case of the ENEM. From 1998 to 2015, the assessment underwent major reformulations with the explicit intent to widen the access to higher education, especially to the socially underprivileged. With that context in mind, I perform a policy cycle analysis of the ENEM purposes in relation to its practical uses when connected to other related policies. My theoretical framework was informed by a literature review on assessment purposes, as discussed by Pellegrino, Chudowsky, and Glaser (2001) and Newton (2007); specific literature on equality of opportunities in the access to education, with a focus on the Maximally Maintained Inequality hypothesis (Raftery & Hout, 1993) and on the Effectively Maintained Inequality conjecture (Lucas, 2001); and Ball’s Policy Cycle (Ball, 1994; Bowe, Ball, & Gold, 1992). The data collected consisted of policy, legislation, technical, report, institutional and academic texts, searched in specialised databases. My results uncover patterns that indicate that the uses proposed to the ENEM, in connection with a broader network of educational and social reforms, can indeed tackle the inequality of opportunities in the access to higher education. This could add to the international literature on the subject not only for the focus on the ENEM, which presents a rare case in the international assessment literature; but also as a counter-example to the reasonably consensual Maximally Maintained Inequality; and by providing a more comprehensive understanding of assessment not only as a policy in isolation of context, but as part of a larger policy framework.</p> |
| spellingShingle | Education Da Silva Zanon, M Gully, L Widening access to higher education in Brazil: A document analysis of assessment policy, purpose and practice |
| title | Widening access to higher education in Brazil: A document analysis of assessment policy, purpose and practice |
| title_full | Widening access to higher education in Brazil: A document analysis of assessment policy, purpose and practice |
| title_fullStr | Widening access to higher education in Brazil: A document analysis of assessment policy, purpose and practice |
| title_full_unstemmed | Widening access to higher education in Brazil: A document analysis of assessment policy, purpose and practice |
| title_short | Widening access to higher education in Brazil: A document analysis of assessment policy, purpose and practice |
| title_sort | widening access to higher education in brazil a document analysis of assessment policy purpose and practice |
| topic | Education |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT dasilvazanonm wideningaccesstohighereducationinbraziladocumentanalysisofassessmentpolicypurposeandpractice AT gullyl wideningaccesstohighereducationinbraziladocumentanalysisofassessmentpolicypurposeandpractice |