How do you know that he’s bright but lazy? Teachers’ assessments of Bangladeshi English as an Additional Language pupils in two Year Three classrooms

Abstract

This article considers how teachers come to assess pupils’ needs and abilities and how pupils come to acquire particular identities in the classroom—particularly Bangladeshi pupils who are both English as an Additional Language (EAL) and minority ethnic pupils. This work is a contribution to an emerging ‘sociology of educational assessment’ which considers assessment as a social practice. How teachers’ understandings of pupils, how their needs as teachers to manage their lessons and how their pupils’ actions in presenting themselves as particular kinds of pupils contribute to the achievement and underachievement of minority ethnic and EAL pupils is outlined through data from three case studies.