Negotiating performative and professional accountability in inclusive mathematics education in Norway

Abstract

Previous research often emphasises the negative consequences for inclusive education following the current dominance of performative accountability in education. However, contextual variations, as well as along what dimensions context matters, are often overlooked. Based on a qualitative analysis of inclusive mathematics education in Norway, what we described as the knowledge dimension of professional accountability in education is found to be important for understanding such contextual differences. Mathematics is an interesting case for examining performative accountability given its indispensable nature, importance for further education and often failure to enable all students to reach their full potential, raising an array of questions about teaching, differentiation, support and the learning environment. To study the meaning, operationalisation and enactment of inclusive mathematics education, we draw on theoretical perspectives on performative and professional accountability and ask: How do education actors at different institutional levels give meaning to and operationalise inclusive mathematics education? How does the negotiation between what we analytically describe as performative and professional accountability contribute to how inclusive mathematics education is enacted? This study shows that professional accountability was more prominent in the accounts than performative accountability, pointing to the need to study performative accountability in its national and local contexts, including the school and classroom contexts. To understand these contextual differences, however, there is a need to include a knowledge dimension, as the knowledge the actors draw upon clearly has implications for how ideas about both inclusion and performance are enacted.