GHGeographica HelveticaGHGeogr. Helv.2194-8798Copernicus PublicationsGöttingen, Germany10.5194/gh-73-19-2018Framing, overflowing, and fuzzy logic in educational selection:
Zurich as a case studyBauerIttaitta.bauer@geo.uzh.chDepartment of Geography, University of Zurich, 8057 Zurich, SwitzerlandItta Bauer (itta.bauer@geo.uzh.ch)26January2018731193024January20175December201710December2017This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/This article is available from https://gh.copernicus.org/articles/73/19/2018/gh-73-19-2018.htmlThe full text article is available as a PDF file from https://gh.copernicus.org/articles/73/19/2018/gh-73-19-2018.pdf
This paper uses the concepts of “framing and overflowing” (Callon, 1998)
and “fuzzy logic” (Zadeh, 2015) to show the application and relevance of
critically examining educational selection beyond the particular local
context. It examines the empirical example of the central entrance
examination procedure to grammar schools in the canton of Zurich. The main
argument illuminates the widely neglected grey zones and the fuzzy logic
lying at the heart of the selection machinery for higher education. This
article elaborates fruitful links between the local case study and
international discourses on the geography of education and educational research.
It thus shows how a socio-material approach may build bridges not only
between international and national educational discourse and local practice
but also between academic research and a socio-political engagement that
cares about young people's educational realities and futures.
Introduction
One broad field of interest within social, geographical, and educational
research concerns “transitions”. This has generated an extremely rich and
quite heterogeneous body of literature. The structures, processes, and
experiences of transitions within both comprehensive and selective education
systems in Europe have been discussed from various theoretical standpoints.
One salient issue related to transitions within formal education is that of
selection: is it possible to select students fairly according to their
differing abilities? Which criteria are relevant to granting students access
to higher education? At what age is educational selection most appropriate?
At the heart of these questions is the wider issue of social justice or the
reproduction of social inequalities through public institutions of education.
Whereas these questions of principle have been inspirational sources for many
disciplines, I focus here on the research on educational selection and
geographies of education in particular.
Research on educational selection and geographies of education
The issue of educational selection unites several strands of research:
established and powerful discourses on rational-choice approaches to
selection (Ditton, 2010; Maaz et al., 2006), debate on the reproduction of
social inequalities (Becker, 2010, Bourdieu and Passeron, 2011; Henz and
Maas, 1995), and discussion of the emergence of global educational
governance through PISA, TIMSS, and other tests (Meyer and Benavot, 2013).
In relation to the issue of educational selection, I identified two lines of
transdisciplinary discourse: the first of these lines is the discourse on
the inequality of opportunity in education. The debate is mainly focused on
the
threshold
between primary and secondary education and is dominated by rather contrary
positions. On the one hand, researchers draw on rational-choice approaches
to explain a meritocratic education ideal that makes use of selective
procedures in education to reproduce different social milieus in Western
societies (Baumert et al., 2009; Becker and Hadjar, 2009; Boudon, 1974; Maaz
et al., 2006). On the other hand, critical approaches either advocate the
right of children and young people from socially disadvantaged and migration
backgrounds to good education (e.g. Becker, 2010; Becker and Lauterbach,
2004; Brake and Büchner, 2012; Fibbi et al., 2011; Imdorf, 2011) or
contest the “illusion of equality of opportunity” in education altogether
(Bourdieu and Passeron, 2011). This stronger position sees as false the
notion of equal outcomes on the grounds of equal starting points. This
perspective or socio-political dogma veils, legitimizes, and reinforces the
existing inequality of chances, because children start from very different
educational backgrounds. Consequently, they face different prospects, and
this needs to be addressed by a politics of inequality that advantages the
hitherto disadvantaged at the social and educational margins. However,
transferring this claim from theoretical discourse to educational
realpolitik presents quite a challenge. Furthermore, Tim Butler and Chris
Hamnett (2007) add a geographical aspect to this argument: “The social and
political dangers of exclusion and polarization for large swathes of the
populations of the currently developed nations and the consequences of these
for social cohesion serve to explain why this issue is moving up the social
and political agenda” (Butler and Hamnett, 2007:1162). They argue that the
growth of the middle classes in Western countries increases the pressure for
educational achievement on the next generation, who may even struggle to
hold their parents' class positions.
The second line of discourse concerns educational selection seen not as a
system of social reproduction but rather as a process that is crucial to
young people and their families. From this perspective, educational selection
has been studied as one of the key temporal and spatial changes in young
people's lives. Research in this field has examined the diverse challenges
that young people face in the global North and South. These include growing
aspirations and increasing pressure on young people and their families to
manage life-course transitions in neoliberal working environments with
precarious job prospects at all levels of educational training (e.g. Jeffrey
and Dyson, 2008; Johnson-Hanks, 2002; Punch, 2002; Morrow, 2013; Vasarik
Staub, 2015). A range of theoretical and empirical perspectives have proved
useful in capturing young people's present educational realities and future
perspectives (Brown et al., 2012; Ecclestone et al., 2010; Hörschelmann,
2011; Skelton, 2002; Valentine, 2003). The last 10 years have seen a
distinct rise not only in the number of research papers but also in the
diversity of research interests within the broad field of geographies of
education. This trend has been strengthened by children's and young people's
geographers, who have focused on the “social geographies of education”,
including the educational aspirations of families and young people (Collins
and Coleman, 2008; Grant, 2017; Holloway et al., 2011), and “informal
education, childhood and youth” (Mills and Kraftl, 2014). However, only a
limited body of literature examines the intersection of transitional aspects
and segregation in formal schooling by applying both quantitative (e.g.
Harris, 2012; Hamnett and Butler, 2011) and qualitative methodologies
(Hollingworth et al., 2011). This article contributes to both educational
research and geographies of education. In the theoretical section of the
article, I present a novel conceptual framing of educational selection that
draws on socio-material approaches to education (e.g. Fenwick and Edwards,
2010).
In contrast to established models of educational selection conveying the
belief in a meritocratic organization of society in Europe and Switzerland
(Baeriswyl, 2015; Becker and Hadjar, 2009; Maaz and Neumann, 2014;
Neuenschwander, 2014), this article is written from a socio-material
perspective on the geography of education. To develop this perspective, I
use actor–network theory (ANT) and assemblage theories (Callon, 1986; Latour,
1996; Law, 1999). These ideas have been applied by educational researchers
with diverse interests including a Deleuzian assemblage approach, teacher
education programmes, deconstructing objectivized statistical pursuits, and
the political implications of PISA (e.g. Beighton, 2012; Gorur, 2011, 2014).
Young people's geographers and geographers of education have also found
socio-material approaches useful for enriching the theoretical and
methodological debates in relation to formal and informal contexts of
learning (Fenwick and Edwards, 2010; Horton and Kraftl, 2006; Jöns,
2006; Rautio, 2013). Crossing the boundaries between university and school,
researchers have initiated new debates that have helped to read and analyse
everyday classroom encounters through the lenses of ANT and
socio-material approaches. Their studies have elaborated the importance to
researchers and teachers alike of critically questioning the use of things
such as books, web pages, models, and films as co-productive educational
tools in contexts of learning (e.g. Bauer, 2015; Fox, 2009; Verran, 1999).
I use the concepts of “framing and overflowing” (Callon, 1998) and “fuzzy
logic” (Zadeh, 2015) to show the relevance of considering the central
entrance examination procedure to grammar schools in the canton of
Zurich beyond the narrow local
context. In so doing, I draw wider connections to debates in educational
research and geographies of education. The main argument of this article
elaborates diverse aspects of the widely neglected grey zones and the fuzzy
logic at the heart of the selection process.
Before doing this, it is important to explain the local context in which the
central entrance examination to grammar schools in the canton of Zurich is
used as a tool for selection at the threshold between primary and secondary
education.
Context: educational selection in Switzerland and the introduction of ZAP
in the canton Zurich
Switzerland and its German-speaking neighbours have a long tradition in a
stratified education system that bifurcates students after 4 to 6 years of
primary school to either grammar schools (this term is used here to
translate Mittelschulen, Maturitätsschulen, and Gymnasien in the German-speaking part of Switzerland) or to
secondary schools (i.e. Sekundarschulen). Although there have been some initiatives for
comprehensive schooling (Gesamtschulen), the academically selective,
university-preparatory grammar school is not in danger of disappearing any
time soon (see Schneider and Tieben, 2011). On the contrary, it is widely
supported. In Switzerland, as in Germany and Austria, grammar schools have
constantly expanded in numbers since the 1960s. Whereas in 1960 only 3.8 %
of the population in Switzerland graduated from a grammar school (receiving
unrestricted university access by obtaining a school leaving certificate,
called a Matura), the equivalent figure had increased by 1980 to 10.6 % in 1980,
by 2000 to 17.8 %, and by 2016 to 20.2 % (Bundesamt für Statistik,
2017a; Oelkers, 2008). The expansion of grammar schools is also reflected by
the number of graduates. In 2000, 15 027 students who left Swiss grammar
schools with a Matura, compared to 18 629 8 years later, a level that has
remained steady ever since (Bundesamt für Statistik, 2017b). This trend
is even stronger in the largely urban canton of Zurich: in 2000, 1735 students
graduated from grammar school; in 2016, the equivalent figure
was 2957 (Bildungsdirektion Kanton Zürich, 2001, 2017).
The education system in Switzerland, with its dual focus on academic and
vocational education, provides the opportunity for motivated and gifted
students who attended secondary school and started apprenticeships to take
additional courses (at Berufsmaturitätsschulen), for which successful attendees are rewarded with a
Berufsmaturität. This certificate is a key qualification and a first step towards tertiary
education for such young people. The numbers of students graduating from
occupational training (including training on the job and advanced courses in
subjects such as languages and mathematics) steadily increased from 6475 in
2000 to 14 397 in 2016 across Switzerland and from 1172 (2000) to 2312 (2016)
in the canton of Zurich (Bundesamt für Statistik, 2017b).
In addition to the high numbers of students graduating from
school or professional training with Berufsmatura, there are other educational tracks
within specific key areas of training (e.g. in health and natural sciences
or communication and ICT) available in Switzerland, resulting in
Fachmaturitäten (2730 graduates in 2016), Fachmittelschulausweise (3991 graduates in 2016), advanced
Berufsmatura (also termed Passarelle) (959 graduates in 2016), and international baccalaureate (680
graduates in 2016; Bundesamt für Statistik, 2017b).
On the one hand,
the numbers have shown a move towards higher education in Switzerland that
reflects the general trend in countries of the global North
“At
30 % (2011), the Swiss Matura rate (sum of Matura from grammar schools,
Berufsmaturitätsschulen, and Fachmaturitätsschulen) is
comparatively low compared to international levels of education;
for instance, in OECD countries, this average rate exceeds 60 %”
(SKBF, 2014:145, translated by author).
. On the other
hand, a political dispute has arisen over regional differences between the
graduation quotas of the 26 cantons in Switzerland. The graduation quota
(Maturitätsquote) shows the percentage of students who have graduated from school with a
certificate that enables them to continue education at tertiary level
(Bundesamt für Statistik, 2017a, translated by the author). The
graduation quotas from grammar schools of 2006 and 2016 across different
Swiss cantons range from 13 % in the cantons of St. Gallen and Uri to
about 30 % in the cantons of Basel-Stadt, Ticino, and Geneva
(SKBF, 2014:144; Bundesamt für Statistik, 2017a). In
selective educational systems, such as in Switzerland, it is not only the
number of graduates that is important. Additionally, how students are granted
access to grammar school and thus have the chance to aspire to higher
education has been a political hot potato in Switzerland for a long time.
The year 2007 is an important landmark in the educational landscape of the
canton of Zurich. Until then, each grammar school was able to select
students according to their marks in primary school and the results of an
entrance test that the students took at their favoured grammar school. Each
school took direct responsibility for the preparation, performance, and
marking of its own entrance test. As a consequence, each grammar school
accepted as many successful students as the school was willing to cope with.
This situation started to change in 2005, when the head of the cantonal
Bildungsdirektion, the administrative division of local government
responsible for the school system (Regine Aeppli, Social-Democratic Party),
introduced a reform of the Mittelschulgesetz which would regulate all publicly funded grammar
schools in the canton of Zurich. The core element of this reform was the
introduction of a centrally organized entrance test (called the Zentrale Aufnahmeprüfung,
subsequently abbreviated as ZAP). This written test in mathematics and
German was to be obligatory for all grammar schools. The reform was
effective from the year 2007, starting with Langzeitgymnasium (6-year grammar schools) and
extending to Kurzzeitgymnasium (4-year grammar schools) a year later. Students of both types
of grammar school complete their secondary education with a Matura, granting free
access to higher education.
The Bildungsdirektion gave two main reasons for this ambitious initiative
which were widely circulated by the local media: first, the local government
wanted to end public rumours that grammar schools varied greatly in their
treatment of potential new students. This gave rise to speculation that the
share of students attending grammar school in well-off areas in Zurich was
disproportionally high compared to poorer urban areas and elsewhere in the
agglomeration of the canton (Baumann, 2007). The Bildungsdirektion decided
that, from 2007 on, every student had to pass the same test procedure to
qualify for the prestigious education at a grammar school. Second, the
introduction of one test for all was intended to increase the comparability
of test results at grammar schools in the canton. Therefore, the
Bildungsdirektion hoped that the introduction of the ZAP would effectively
put an end to speculation about unequal opportunities in education
(Schneebli, 2007).
The canton of Zurich is a particularly interesting place to study selection
processes because this complete overhaul of the regulations granting access
to grammar schools through the introduction of ZAP has not led to any public
uproar, general protest, or substantial critique. Viewed from the outside,
this may be rather surprising, especially because both local media coverage
and educational research (Eberle, 2013; Gymnasialer Mittelschulbericht,
2014; Oelkers, 2008) have been discussing the test procedures, the various
amendments to the test, and the annual results in rich detail. Nonetheless,
the introduction of the ZAP has rarely been considered anything other than
an inevitable fact.
Empirical sources
The main research purpose of this article is to illuminate and elaborate the
widely neglected grey zones and the fuzzy logic at the heart of the
selection machinery for higher education. The theoretical argument of the
paper is informed by a long-term, qualitative content analysis of local
media that includes daily and weekly newspapers (Tagesanzeiger, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, various regional papers
in the canton of Zurich, 20 Minuten
With a daily print run of 442 994,
this free tabloid-style newspaper is the most read newspaper in the
German-speaking part of Switzerland,
(http://www.schweizermedien.ch/SCHM/media/SCHMMediaLibrary/Statistiken/Statistiken 2016_1/16_Tageszeitungen-Sonntagszeitungen-2016_1.pdf,
25.8.2017)
, Blick
This free tabloid newspaper has a daily
print run of 143 499 and is one of the most read newspapers in Zurich
(http://www.schweizermedien.ch/SCHM/media/SCHMMediaLibrary/Statistiken/Statistiken 2016_1/16_Tageszeitungen-Sonntagszeitungen-2016_1.pdf, 25.8.2017).
, WOZ – Die Wochenzeitung
This is an independent, national, critical
weekly paper; in 2016, it had an annual print run of 16 501 and about
107 000 readers (https://www.woz.ch/info/woz, 25.8.2017).
) and
publications of local and federal education reports (e.g. press releases,
statistics, reports by Bildungsdirektion Zürich, Bildungsbericht Schweiz,
2014).
First, the data covering the years from 2002 to 2017 were collected in a
database using MaxQDA 11, a software for qualitative and mixed methods
research. I used qualitative content analysis (Mayring, 2010; Krippendorff,
2013; Schreier, 2012) as a “hermeneutic procedure of text interpretation”
to assign abstract categories to text passages with particular contents (e.g.
issues, claims, problem definitions; see Kutter and Kantner, 2012:7). Next,
the data was processed and coded in more detail. This process involved
several runs of close reading and resulted in a code notebook that included
both concept-driven codes (inspired by theory about transition, social
inequalities and selection) and data-driven codes (drawing in situ codes from
the texts, e.g. emotions, ZAP results, boys). Also, “successive
summarizing” (Mayring, 2010) of particular codes were helpful in elaborating
highly relevant issues (e.g. introducing ZAP) and recurring contradictions in
the data concerning a particular issue (e.g. equality of chances).
The theoretical arguments of the paper are therefore developed and enriched
by drawing on this database. The empirical examples presented in this
article have all been selected from the Tagesanzeiger, which is the most read
(460 000 readers) daily newspaper in Zurich
In 2016, Tagesanzeiger had a
print run of 147 146 compared to a run of 85 261 for its local competitor,
Neue Zürcher Zeitung (www.schweizermedien.ch, 21.8.2017, translated by
the author).
. Therefore, it is an excellent source from which to follow
interlinked thematic threads such as educational selection and transitions,
inequality of chances, and ZAP procedures and the various debates about
educational transition and selection.
Socio-material frameworks: framing, overflowing, and fuzzy logic in
educational selection
One purpose of this article is to show how a socio-material reading of
educational selection frames an understanding of this process from a
different perspective and thus may help to elaborate arguments for a more
engaged involvement in this issue. For this purpose, I draw on ANT and assemblage theories, a strand of research that has been
developed by scholars such as Annemarie Mol, Bruno Latour, John Hassard,
John Law, Marianne de Laet, and Steve Woolgar. In ANT and
its applications in education (Fenwick and Edwards, 2010; Fox, 2009; Gorur,
2011; Verran, 1999), I found an approach that broadens the established
binary focus in education on either objects (e.g. structures, institutions,
benchmarks) or subjects (e.g. teachers, students, families). ANT and
assemblage theories led me to question this binary thinking generally and
ask different questions. To give two examples, how can educational selection
be framed as an assemblage that draws in both social and material things,
references, and actors? How is educational selection enacted and performed
by human and non-human actors? This theoretical perspective is particularly
suited to shedding light on diverse entanglements of human and non-human
actors, associations of material and immaterial, emotional and affective,
extraordinary and mundane, and stable and ephemeral things and phenomena.
This fresh perspective on a well-studied terrain may contribute ideas that
help to take the discourse on educational selection further. Starting from
the concepts of framing and overflowing (Callon, 1998), I develop this
theoretical argument using examples from my empirical study of the selection
processes from primary to upper secondary education in the canton of Zurich.
Framing and overflowing
Starting from the concept of “frame” that Goffman elaborated in the study
of interpersonal relationships and negotiations of meaning (1974), Callon
explains that actors agree “on the frame within which their interactions
will take place and on the courses of action open to them” (Callon, 1998:249).
The frame establishes a boundary within which interactions (…) take place
more or less independently of their surrounding context.
(Callon, 1998:249)
The process of framing implies severing all sorts of connections (see Berndt
and Boeckler, 2011:1060). However, Callon observes that framing is not
fully detached from its surrounding context, since actors bring with them
“cognitive resources as well as forms of behaviour and strategies which
have been shaped and structured by previous experiences” (Callon, 1998:249). The
whole process of framing is therefore “rooted in the outside world, in
various physical and organizational devices. This is why framing puts the
outside world in brackets, as it were, but does not actually abolish all
links with it” (Callon, 1998:249). The relation between the outside world
and the interiority is a rather complex entanglement or assemblage, since
there is “an endless ramification of processes and contexts `out-there' that
are both necessary to what is `in-here' and invisible to it” (Law, 2004:42).
Such complex entanglements between “out-there” and “in-here” may
also be found in processes like educational selection. In this way, the
interests of schools (“in-here”) are connected with public discourse
(“out-there”) on the issue of educational selection.
To link the in-here with the out-there of things, Callon suggested two
dimensions of framing. The first assumes that “framing is the norm” and that
“overflows are exceptions” (Callon, 1998:250). An empirical example can illustrate
this theoretical argument. Before 2007, grammar schools in Zurich could
autonomously select their future students. It was each school's
responsibility to create, conduct, mark, and evaluate the entrance tests and
permit as many students to the school as there were places. This seems at
first glance to be a simple question of economic demand and supply.
Unsurprisingly, the entrance examination tests and results varied from
school to school. Each school used their own procedure to adjust the
allocation of student places to their capacities. The in-here of school
particularities set the frame for the out-there experienced by candidates
seeking to enter the school.
However, the schools also had to apply the cantonal entrance requirements
for Langzeitgymnasien: students were accepted if their test results in mathematics and German
(shown as full, half, and quarter marks) averaged with their marks in
mathematics and German from their final year in primary school to a score of
4.5 or better on a scale from 1 to 6. So, despite the schools' relative
autonomy in selecting their future students according to the schools' needs
and profiles, they also had to comply with regulations applying to all
grammar schools in the canton of Zurich. The in-here-ness of school is
legally subordinated to the Bildungsdirektion, which is constituted by many
actors that are part of out-there. Furthermore, students in the canton of
Zurich were also free to apply to and take the entrance test at whichever
school they preferred. However, each student was allowed to apply and sit
the test only once a year and at his or her preferred grammar school.
Returning to the theoretical discussion above, the introduction of the ZAP
in 2007 can be seen as establishing a new and formalized frame or “framing”
(Callon, 1998:248) for educational selection. While the schools were still
able to select their future students autonomously under the ZAP, potential
advantages were thus bracketed and rendered invisible. Through the ZAP, all
candidates actually sitting the test were made equal on the day of the
examination, since there was one test for all at all schools. Nonetheless,
candidates with excellent marks in year 6 of primary school were still “more
equal”; their chances of succeeding were stronger, because the school marks
and the test result were still required to reach an average of at least 4.5.
However, how the marks from primary school are “produced” may vary greatly
in detail, depending on such factors as the size, performance, and standards
in each class; the assessment culture of the teacher; the teaching and
evaluation standards of schools in catchments with diversely performing
student bodies; and the knowledge and skills that students from various
social and cultural backgrounds bring to class.
As the following example shows, framing actually means a reset and
re-evaluation of established, invisible, powerful, unstable, social, and
technical connections. Framing or re-framing may therefore result in
facilitating new arrangements and agencies of socio-material effects. The
following example illustrates the notion of “flexibility” that is inherent
in framing processes:
The wondrous uplift of the marks before the central entrance examination (ZAP)
Twelve-year old Luca scores an average of 4.5 in mathematics. In his school
report, however, this is generously rounded up to 5.0. And here is why: when
a student aspires to go to a grammar school after completing year 6 in the
canton of Zurich, the student's marks in German and mathematics at primary
school are averaged with their results in the central entrance examination
(ZAP). What counts, in the end, is the average, which has to be 4.5 or
better. Luca's parents and his primary teacher are well aware of the fact
that this goal is almost out of reach with a 4.5 in the mathematics primary
school report.
One consequence of this phenomenon is that those responsible for the
entrance examination adjust to the generously rounded up marks in primary
school reports by particularly severe marking of the entrance examinations.
This results in a rather low average mark.
There is a vicious circle at work here. Grammar school teachers marking the
entrance examinations presume that primary school teachers marking their
students too generously and therefore judge the students' tests more
strictly than they would do otherwise. Primary school teachers, on the other
side, presume that grammar school teachers mark the entrance examinations
very strictly and therefore round up the marks in the primary school report.
This is a system of self-fulfilling prophecies in which the expected
behaviour of the opposite party is enforced by one's own behaviour.
(newspaper article by Marius Huber, Tagesanzeiger 5 February 2015; translated,
abbreviated, and slightly adapted by this paper's author)
This short newspaper article not only shows an individual case. In addition,
his example illustrates the positive modification and adaptation of marks in
primary school and the corresponding stricter evaluation of the ZAP tests by
teachers at grammar school. Luca's case strikingly illustrates the framing
of educational selection as a socio-technical assemblage, “a process of
bundling, of assembling, or better of recursive self-assembling in which the
elements put together are not fixed in shape, do not belong to a larger
pre-given list but are constructed at least in part as they are entangled
together” (Law, 2004:42).
Thus, predicting candidates' chances of passing on the basis of their
entrance marks and their social and migratory backgrounds (see e.g. Kramer et
al., 2009; Oelkers, 2008; Neuenschwander and Grunder, 2010) fails to
acknowledge the hidden processes of translation, negotiation, and
entanglements of aspects and sometimes playful agencies that are both social
and material. Whereas Law emphasizes this notion of playfulness and the
instability of assemblages, Deleuzian “socio-technical agencements” show two
other points: first, an “arrangement of material, technical, logistical, legal,
procedural, etc. elements and human beings; and second, this arrangement,
this hybrid collective shapes agency, a capacity to act which may be
individualized, but is more often distributed amongst various agents”
(Berndt and Boeckler, 2011:1060, emphasis in original). In Luca's case,
agency was distributed amongst teachers from primary school and grammar
school, his own performance at school, test papers and evaluation sheets
from school, the primary school headmaster backing the teacher's decision,
the ZAP regulations and test, and his parents' support or insistence on his
taking the ZAP test. Consequently, the distribution of agency by the ZAP
enables a discussion of the socio-materialities, human and non-human
actants, and agency arrangements that stabilize educational selection or
formal schooling in general (see also Fenwick and Edwards, 2010, 2014).
To summarize this argument on framing and assembling: the introduction of
the ZAP in 2007 was actually an important milestone in the formalization and
legitimization of the selection process for secondary education within the
canton of Zurich. The framing of the ZAP included rules and standards newly
established by the Bildungsdirektion and legitimized by the cantonal
parliament, the consent of the schools executing and responding to the
results of the tests, and the aspiring students and their families following
the new rules. The framing of the ZAP was introduced, formalized, and
acknowledged by socio-material agents such as students, marks, regulations,
quotas, and geographical differences. This system of educational selection
provides a clear instance of the logic underlying Callon's argument that
“framing is the norm (…) and overflows are exceptions which must be
contained and channelled” (Callon, 1998:250).
What now happens to my analysis of educational selection when I approach the
issue with Callon's second dimension of framing, which turns the first
upside down? This counterargument claims that instead of framing, it is
overflows that are the norm (see Callon, 1998:252).
The preceding paragraphs have sketched out some sort of “primary framework”
(Goffman, 1974) for educational selection in Zurich. According to Callon,
overflows are part and parcel of framing processes, because “framing implies
the possibility of identifying overflows and containing them” (1998:248).
Through the active interrelation of framing and overflowing, we understand
framing as a “delicate and contested process, a process which can only be
stabilized performatively, easily gets out of control, and is never
complete” (Berndt and Boeckler, 2011:1060).
I argue that in addition to a self-stabilizing and self-fulfilling framing
of educational selection as a process inherent to a society that views
itself as meritocratic, there is also an element of overflow in educational
selection in Zurich. This overflow simultaneously stabilizes and contradicts
the established selection network. This statement raises interesting
questions: how is educational selection assembled, enacted, and performed?
How can we grasp a thing that both acts and counteracts and both stabilizes and
destabilizes at the same time? Callon (1998, 2007a, b) offers a theoretical
framework to explain the particularities and contradictions that help to set
up a forceful assemblage. In relation to educational selection, this is the
core argument: framing may be conceptualized as a hybrid process consisting
of framing-and-overflowing and of enacting and performing (including acting
against) the set of rules established by the frame. The most important
constant in this frame is permanent change, because “orders only exist when
actors enact them. And as there cannot be identical repetition, there is
always a degree of instability, fuzziness, an irritation” (Berndt and
Boeckler, 2011:1060–1061). The local context of educational selection in
Zurich, with its framing and overflowing, fully exemplifies this theoretical
argument.
I illustrate this point by returning to the empirical example of Luca. When
the Bildungsdirektion enacted the ZAP by establishing a new legal and
authoritative framework, the human and non-human actors involved in this
framing started to perform the ZAP in different ways right from the start.
This is apparent in Luca's example. Schools as institutional settings and
teachers and administrators as ZAP executives differ in how they manage the
test procedures within the standardized test guidelines. Further, the
constant change within this framework is made even more apparent by the
almost annual amendments to the ZAP procedure since its introduction in
2007
For an example on changing regulations, see
https://www.zh.ch/dam/Portal/internet/news/mm/2012/050/Aufnahme_Mittelschulen_Reglemente.pdf.spooler.download.1330586275647.pdf/Aufnahme_Mittelschulen_Reglemente.pdf (25.8.2017).
. I return to this
argument about framing and overflowing in educational selection in the next
chapter. There, I use a second empirical example, this time drawn from my
data, to link the three theoretical concepts on which this article is
founded. Before I do so, I introduce the concept of “fuzzy logic” and the
empirical data.
Fuzzy Logic
This section elaborates the aspect of “fuzziness” by introducing another
empirical example. The intent is to connect Callon's concept of framing and
overflowing with Zadeh's fuzzy logic (Zadeh, 1989, 2015).
For 2 years shortly after its introduction (2008 and 2009), the obligatory
test of the ZAP was accompanied by a second test, the Allgemeine Kognitive Fähigkeiten (general cognitive
competencies – AKF) test. This voluntary test was designed by the Institute
for Educational Evaluation at the University of Zurich. The test procedure
had the students first do the ZAP test (comprising 60 min text
production and 30 min text comprehension for the test result in German and
a 60 min test in mathematics), then proceed to the AKF test, running
another 45 min (with 60 questions that were divided into five sections with
multiple choice, verbal, and non-verbal tasks). However, they were informed
that the outcomes of the AKF test had no influence on their entrance into
grammar schools. According to Moser and Berger (2010:4), this additional
test was provided to answer three questions: first, did the results of the
ZAP provide reliable results – did it pass the most intelligent and able
students? Second, did the ZAP disadvantage intelligent students with a poor
or migration social background? And third, could the results of the AKF and
ZAP tests together provide a reliable prognosis of which students would pass
the probationary period at grammar schools? The Bildungsdirektion hoped to
further improve the quality of the central entrance examination by finding
answers to these three questions.
A closer look at the local media coverage concerning the AKF test between
its introduction (2008) and abolition (2010) together with subsequent
accounts (e.g. in 2014) reveals interesting aspects.
Argument 1: ZAP and AKF produce reliable test results
The admittance procedure to grammar school is fair. The majority of the
primary school marks have been reproduced in the entrance examination. This
confirms the excellent work and assessments of students by primary school
teachers. Overall, high-achieving students also did well in the AKF test.
(Tagesanzeiger, 1 July 2009)
Argument 2: Divergent test results between ZAP and AKF
The most interesting figures are the numbers of those 12- and 13-year-old
students who failed the central entrance examination. Among them, 49 were
among the top 10 % in the AKF test (…) and 35 of this
failing cohort were boys. (Tagesanzeiger, 1 July 2009)
Argument 3: AKF test is not producing the expected results
There are no advantages for children speaking a foreign language, because
compared to their German-speaking peers, they consistently achieved lower
results. This applies to the entrance examination just as much as to the AKF
test. (Tagesanzeiger, 1 July 2009)
Surprisingly, the Bildungsdirektion abandoned the AKF test. The reason given
was that the test produced results that were not expected. (Tagesanzeiger, 15 July 2010)
Argument 4: AKF test was abolished because it produced the expected results
The results of the AKF test showed strong agreement with the results of the
entrance examination procedure, especially the written tests. Consequently,
the Bildungsdirektion decided in 2011 to do without any additional tests of this kind.
(Tagesanzeiger, 25 October 2014)
This was the initial frame of the central examination procedure: when the
AKF test was introduced in 2008 as a complimentary test to ZAP, it was
initially seen as a tool to show whether able students from migration
backgrounds were advantaged or disadvantaged by the central examination.
However, the results of the test for 2 years revealed a different picture:
the ZAP test did not disadvantage students with a migration background. A
small group of 49 intelligent students (35 boys and 14 girls) in 2008 showed
an extremely strong performance in the AKF test (they reached the top 10 %
of AKF test scores) but failed the ZAP test. The next year, the group
of students whose AKF and ZAP test results were highly contradictory
declined to 13 students. Unfortunately, the final AKF report (Moser and
Berger, 2010) does not differentiate this group into girls and boys. In both years,
this group of students was denied access to grammar school after year 6 of
primary school. The numbers indicate that in 2008, it was mainly boys,
presumably highly intelligent boys, who failed the entrance test. An
evaluation of the AKF test by Moser and Berger (2010:28ff.) also
demonstrated that the percentage of successful male ZAP candidates with high
scores in AKF tests (top 20 %) who did not pass the probationary
period at grammar schools was significantly higher than the equivalent
figure for their female colleagues (74 % of that group were male in
the 2008 cohort entering Langgymnasium, with similar results in 2009). The conclusion of
the evaluation team implied a straightforward gender issue concerning the
difference in results between ZAP and AKF. Moser and Berger stated that
there is a gender correlation between candidates with high test scores and
failing ZAP results, because boys were overrepresented in this group. They
also reveal that boys achieved significantly better test results than girls
(see Moser and Berger, 2010:29, 46). The report concluded that it would be
mostly to the benefit of boys if a test evaluating the general cognitive
abilities such as the AKF test were to be introduced to the ZAP procedure.
I would like to offer two different readings of the surprising outcomes and
the subsequent abolishment of the AKF test. First, Zadeh introduced his
ideas on fuzzy logic in the early 1960s, but they did not attract much
attention until the upsurge in computing, electronic engineering and
artificial intelligence from the 1980s onwards. Zadeh describes the main
ideas of fuzzy logic by attacking thinking in binary systems, which is at the
core of the Cartesian scientific tradition:
Binarization – drawing a sharply defined boundary between two classes – is
a deeply entrenched Cartesian tradition. What is not widely recognized is
that this tradition has outlived its usefulness. One of the principal
contributions of fuzzy logic is providing a basis for a progression from
binarization to graduation, from binarism to pluralism, from black and white
to shades of gray. (Zadeh, 2015:4)
The motivation for the Bildungdirektion's pilot study and the development of a supplementary
intelligent test to the ZAP procedure was also based on a binary assumption:
intelligent but disadvantaged students, the Bildungsdirektion assumed,
might not be able to show their full potential in the ZAP test because of
language problems, missing preparatory time, or poor opportunities due to
lacking family budgets, knowledge, networks, or other difficulties. The
argument followed a binary logic: the kids were highly talented (1) but
were not able to show it and so failed the test (0). Interestingly, the
final AKF evaluation report by Moser and Berger drew quite different
pictures of the test results in ZAP and AKF with numerical categories (test
results) and lexical (therefore approximate rather than exact)
categorizations: “(d)epending on where the borderline between the
categories actually is drawn – between the groups of very gifted, gifted
and rather gifted students – the number of students who may be able to
benefit from the AKF test could vary significantly”
In the report,
the three categories were defined as follows: students in Group 1 were very
capable but were unsuccessful (in the AKF test results, they were among the
best 10 %); Group 2 were capable but were unsuccessful (in the AKF
test results, they were among the best 11 to 20 %); Group 3 were quite
capable but were unsuccessful (in the AKF test results, they were among the
best 21 to 30 %; see Moser and Berger 2010:22–23).
(Moser and
Berger, 2010:23, translated by the author). This quote shows not only that
the results varied but also the possible consequences of this, with many
nonbinary shades of grey in between the lines. Some of these raise
unexpected questions and the potential of socio-political controversies,
such as the correlation between gender and test results. So, if we examine
the two opposing statements from the media extracts above explaining that
the AKF had been abolished either because it had or had not produced the
expected results, we may initially be inclined to dismiss the newspaper
reports simply as contradictory. However, the report actually provides
support for both interpretations. Applying the basic argument of fuzzy
logic, it is not a question of a binary set like true–false, but a more
complex logic of grade membership in overlapping fuzzy sets or “cointensive
indefinability” (Zadeh, 2015:6). Consequently, everything is a matter of
degree in fuzzy logic (Zadeh, 1989:89). Unable to openly accept that fuzzy
logic is an inherent element of educational selection, the Bildungsdirektion
abolished the AKF test in 2010 and continued to rely solely on the results
of the ZAP.
My second reading follows the argument of framing and overflowing in the
preceding section. Here, the failing boys and girls did not fit, or
overflowed, the ZAP structure and procedure in three aspects: first, they
failed the ZAP test. Second, the calculation of the ZAP score (test results
in mathematics and German and mathematics and German results in year 6 must
average a mark of 4.5 or better) failed to pass these students, because
their school marks were not good enough to compensate for their poor test
results. And third, this showed that their primary teachers also failed to
recognize their high potential, although the marks for mathematics and
German in the primary school report in year 6 are estimated to be overrated
by most primary teachers, as the example of Luca above shows. Rather than
labelling or stigmatizing these boys and girls as overflow, I would argue
that the ZAP and the accompanying AKF test enacted and performed an overflow
on this group of students. The testing machinery could not appropriately
account for this problem; it was not designed to cope with these
contradictory elements and actors. What the Bildungsdirektion did to solve
this dilemma was to abolish the AKF test altogether. As a consequence, no
more problematic or irritating “data” (or crucial personal experiences and
consequences for highly gifted yet failing students) have been produced since
2009.
Two interesting processes are at work here: first, framing and overflowing
and, second, enacting and performing. The ZAP/AKF example illustrates how
ambivalent the play is between these hybrid connections. Interestingly, the
Bildungsdirektion abolished the AKF test with the justification that the
“test produced different results than were expected” (Tagesanzeiger, 15 July 2010). The
media coverage focused on the overflows, the “irritations, disjunctures and
paradoxes surfacing when heterogeneous actors practically enact the model”
(Berndt and Boeckler, 2011:1058). Conversely, reporting in 2014 followed
the argument that the test had been abolished because of its strong
correlation with the ZAP results. Here, the coverage follows the argument of
framing or stabilizing the ZAP assemblage, where the frame is trying to
shape the outside according to the internal logic of the model. There is no
right or wrong, since both processes are at work, stabilizing and
destabilizing, doing and undoing. In the end, it was the test that was
turned into an enacting and performing procedure with varying
interpretations, because the test produced not only exactly the expected
but also very different results than were expected from the
Bildungsdirektion, according to the media coverage. This logic is fuzzy
indeed. At the same time, the Bildungsdirektion enacted and performed a
readjustment and stabilization of the ZAP framework by abolishing the AKF
test because the overflowing effects of the established frame were too
irritating to accept.
Conclusion
Starting with conceptual considerations from ANT and
assemblage theories, this article has illuminated how an approach inspired
by socio-material thinking can make novel contributions to analysing
educational selection. In the context of educational selection,
socio-material approaches can help to show “how such assemblages can be
unmade as well as made, and how counter-networks or alternative forms and
spaces can take shape and develop strength” (Fenwick et al., 2011:97).
Following this line of thought, the central entrance examination (ZAP) for
grammar schools in Zurich was considered an assemblage of material,
non-material, and human elements that effectively produce or frame a
socially accepted form of selection. It is the ZAP that assembles humans
(e.g. teachers, experts, students) and non-humans (e.g. statistical data,
evaluation sheets, examination questions) in a way that provides a constant
frame for the sake of stabilizing the procedures of an annual test
machinery.
The theoretical argument of the article used the concepts of framing and
overflowing (Callon, 1998) to elaborate a new and different reading of
educational selection processes. I argued that inherent in these processes of framing are
also aspects of overflowing. On one side, human and non-human
network effects try to stabilize the complex assemblage and provide a
coherent framing. However, the other side cannot be detached or
denied: the irritations, disjunctures, and paradoxes – in short, the
overflowings. These counter-narratives surface when heterogeneous actors
enact the ZAP frame. The examples of Luca and his marks (and the wondrous
rise in the marks in year 6) or the abolition of the AKF test illustrated
how framings and overflowings are mutually entwined within enacting and
performing the ZAP. Another reading of Luca's example introduced fuzzy logic
as a way to examine educational selection beyond binary dichotomies. I
argued that the test procedures and results of the ZAP and AKF tests may be
understood in terms of a complex logic of membership depending on what the
categories represent, how the test results are interpreted, and where the
borderlines between pass and fail are actually drawn. Perhaps
understandably, the Bildungsdirektion in Zurich was unable to openly accept
that fuzzy logic is an inherent element of educational selection. However,
the almost annual amendments to the test procedure themselves provide strong
evidence that the matter of degree within educational selection remains an
active issue for educational administrators and their application of an
inherent fuzzy logic of educational selection. There is no doubt that the
empirical example used in this paper as a starting point is quite a local
issue. However, from the local issues raised by ZAP, we may return to the
more general debates in educational research discussed at the beginning of
the article, such as inequalities, educational selection, and transitions in
public schooling. Using these arguments to link young people's geographies
with geographies of education and learning shows how to build bridges not
only between international and national educational discourse and local
practice but also between academic research and a socio-political engagement
that cares about young people's educational realities and futures.
An example from Zurich illustrates this point in more detail. Even years
after the introduction of ZAP, Regine Aeppli did not tire of repeating the
initial motivation for the initiative.
I am fully committed to the right to equal chances in education, but this
right may continue to be a constant challenge forever. (Regine Aeppli in an
interview with Tagesanzeiger, 5 May 2015, translated by the author)
Despite the good intentions that initiated the introduction of the ZAP,
comparative analysis before and after its introduction shows no significant
change to the imbalance in access rates to grammar schools. Young people
from wealthy backgrounds are still more likely to attend grammar schools
than their peers from socially disadvantaged or migration backgrounds
(Gymnasialer Mittelschulbericht, 2014:33). So, we may read Regine Aeppli's statement with feelings of
consternation or even resignation. The ideal of equal opportunities in
education – and in society more generally – may indeed remain a constant
challenge and a socio-political ideal. Even well-meant initiatives that try
to work against existing inequalities in education and educational selection
may ultimately reproduce old and new forms of inequalities. However,
criticizing existing procedures and structures is easier than getting
involved in educational realpolitik. Accepting this dilemma, I would argue
that we should not discourage initiatives that strive for a more just
realization of society but as academics and critical thinkers seek a more
active part in this process. Thus, in her mandate as head of the
Bildungsdirektion, Regine Aeppli chose to continue her active engagement in
education. She supported small projects and initiatives with realistic
targets. One of these projects facilitated a local programme, called ChaGALL
(Chancengerechtigkeit durch Arbeit an der Lernlaufbahn), at a private
grammar school in a wealthy Zurich neighbourhood trying to make a difference
to a small number of children (usually about 11–14 students per year) from
migrant families (Berger et al., 2015:6). Starting in 2008, this
programme has offered cost-free training for the entrance examination to a
selected number of intellectually gifted students. The Bildungsdirektion
hoped that the programme would not only help these students to better
prepare for and pass the ZAP test. Successful candidates were also offered
personal long-term mentors on their way through grammar school. The
evaluation of the programme (referring to the school years 2008/2009 to
2013/2014) documented the positive effects on the candidates' chances of
passing the ZAP: 70 % of the 74 participating youth in these 6 school
years altogether were successful in the ZAP and only five students had to
leave the grammar school during the probationary period. In addition, the
success rate of the project has increased continuously, from 42 % in
2008/2009 to 85 % in 2013/2014 (Berger et al., 2015).
Encouraged by the positive results of ChaGALL, Regine Aeppli promoted a
broader initiative that introduced a strong recommendation to all
Schulgemeinden (i.e. school communities) in the canton to offer training courses to gifted
and motivated students who intend to sit the next ZAP. Since 2012, most
Schulgemeinden have been offering free preparatory courses to students with high
aspirations at their local primary schools. These courses usually offer two
extra lessons per week throughout the school term preceding the ZAP in
March.
Recent trends in educational research and politics show that neoliberal,
meritocratic thinking has permeated through to governance of public
education and schooling (e.g. Gorur, 2014; Kulz, 2015). Using a
socio-material perspective on educational selection, I intended to offer a
constructive counterpoint to such trends, starting from a local case study
in Zurich. Studies using ANT and assemblage theory are helpful when moving
beyond the framing model with stabilizing effects and irritating overflows.
The focus shifts towards new questions, such as how educational
selection is actually performed and enacted by human and non-human actors. It
is this change in perspective that can make a difference because it may
give us an idea not only why but also how we can actually become engaged in
education and politics. In times of harsh budget cuts for youth-related
institutions, enforced accountability of schools, and growing support for
the neoliberal restructuring of education (e.g. Hörschelmann,
2018; Horton, 2016; Kulz, 2013), it is important not only to point
out that academics can put implicit activism into practice. We can actually
become ourselves engaged in projects of “small acts, kind words and not too
much fuss” that try to make a difference for young people of various
abilities and aspirations (Horton and Kraftl, 2009).
The empirical sources as well as the
methodology used to generate the findings presented in this paper have been
explained in Sect. 4. For further inquiries about the data, its processing,
coding, and analysis, please contact the author.
The author declares that she has no conflict of
interest.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the working group “Geographie, Jugend und Bildung”
and my colleague Sara Landolt at the Department of Geography at the
University of Zurich for their helpful comments and an inspiring debate on an
earlier version of this paper. Also, I would like to thank the reviewers and
Myriam Houssay-Holzschuch for their thoughtful and constructive feedbacks.
Edited by: Myriam
Houssay-Holzschuch Reviewed by: three anonymous referees
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