Arviointi, tieto ja hallinta: Peruskoulun paikallisen arvioinnin genealogia

The study examines the fabrication and mobilization of the local and school levelevaluation in the field of comprehensive schooling within the Finnish quality evaluation discourse.Drawing on genealogy, the study runs out of the current notion and understanding in which the evaluation is reasoned as a necessary, natural and normal part of the workings of schools and municipalities as education provider. Finally, the evaluation is considered inevitable in constant improvement, development and governing of education in the context of global economy.The study analyses the descent, fabrication and mobilization of this understanding. It asks: 1) how is the present understanding on local quality evaluation in comprehensive school mobilized and construed within the Finnish dis-course, and 2) which kind of discursive principles and rules can be identified as conditions for the construction and fabrication of a present discourse when examined in the dimensions of the knowledge, power and subject. The research data consists of a set of Finnish policy documents, legislation and texts on quality evaluation written by the experts of the evaluation in the field of comprehensive education in the period of 1970–2010.In answering the first research question, the study provides a dense descriptiveanalysis on the formation and construction of the field of the statements where the school and municipal self-evaluation becomes fabricated as self-evident. Study identifies three discursive practices – systems of reasoning and doing – within the field of statements mobilizing the present understanding on evaluation. Those are the discursive practices of the 1) school based development, 2) performativity and educational outcomes and 3) customer oriented quality. The analysis is focusing on the emergence and mobilization of statements on evaluation within these discursive practices, and further on their stratification into the present discourse on quality evaluation.The second research question is focusing on the discursive principles and rulesoperating as conditions for the construction and fabrication of the present discourse. The question is approached by setting the descriptive analysis of discursive practices and layers under examination in the genealogical dimensions of the knowledge, power and subject. First, in the dimension of knowledge, the study identifies an increasing and overarching will to know about education; will to know the all-embracing performance and the quality in all areas of schooling. In the dimension of power, the study identifies the process of normalization of evaluation in education practices during the research period. The evaluation becomes construed as a normal daily practice of education inseparable from teaching, schooling and education governance. In the dimension of subjectivity, the study identifies the fabrication of the ethics of inevitability of self-evaluation. Within the discourse, there is no decent place for actors those are unwilling to evaluate or to be evaluated.Finally, the evaluation discourse can be described as a discourse based on evolutionary hope towards the better future – with higher performativity and excellent quality. The discourse wraps and embeds the desire towards the better. However, at the same time, by the discourse itself, it appears evident that the education in its variedness will stay immeasurable by its nature. It also appears that the ethics of inevitability of self-evaluation will necessarily be bounded by the vagueness and subjective nature of the evaluation. Finally, in aspiring towards the normalization of the evaluation and quality work in the direction of universal organization, the school context and specific school knowledge appears to be fading out.The study, having its roots in historical sociology, genealogy, the analytics ofgovernance, the historical and comparative studies of educational evaluation, aims to bring back forth and uncover the hidden historical horizon of the quality evaluation in education. This is thought as a way of widening the spectrum of reasoning and thinking the evaluation in education and re-thinking the present self-evidences. Finally, new kinds of perspectives for visioning might be open in striving for better and equal education.Keywords: Discourse, discursive practice, evaluation, genealogy, quality, qualityevaluation