Differential in assessment referentialization: democratic experiences?

Theoretical essay

Abstract

This text presents a theoretical essay on the dynamic character of assessment referentials (assessment frameworks) in a situated perspective of human activity and learning. It breaks with a methodical conception of referentialization in favour of a comprehensive approach to assessment activity in given socio-institutional practices. The notion of differential is introduced to examine the potentially democratic experience, individual and collective, produced by referentializations in action and the resulting co-construction and regulation of meanings. For illustrative purposes, the text exposes different situations that show the legitimacy of differentials to be expressed in formative and certificative assessment in primary school and in a professional development context. It questions the potentially democratic experience of taking differentials into account in referentialization when it allows for the construction of new meanings echoing indeterminate situations to be resolved.