In this article, the assessment practice known as the “grade conference” is analysed using an interactionally oriented narrative approach. The aim is to explore the grade conference and what it entails for students when executed in their fourth year of compulsory school, as part of a trial of an educational reform where students receive grades from year four instead of year six. Two cases illustrate the way that students are positioned and ascribed different paths and prospects in and through stories located within the grade conference. Findings show that students are ascribed individual responsibilities and their positions as students are largely evaluated by individual characteristics in these stories. It is concluded that the grade conference is a practice that may influence the students’ views of their potential in school, as the narratives about their paths and prospects discursively make different routes more or less viable.

BackgroundVerbal participation in the classroom is generally considered to contribute to positive student engagement and learning outcomes. Students are often required to demonstrate their learning in class by, for example, raising their hands and answering questions. However, there are students who remain quiet in the classroom, and are not responsive to invitations to participate. As quietness and low levels of verbal participation in class are often perceived and positioned as problematic in many educational systems and settings, more needs to be understood about the notion of students verbal participation and the implications for supporting all students learning journeys through school.

PurposeThe study sought to explore how students verbal participation was constructed and positioned in the narratives of parent-teacher conferences.

MethodA Swedish corpus of audio recordings and transcriptions of parent-teacher conferences with 24 students in years 5 and 6 (approximate student ages 10-12) across five schools was utilised as the basis for the investigation. Through an interactionally-oriented narrative approach, a collection of stories about verbal participation was identified. These stories were analysed using the concept of narrative positioning. Three stories from the collection were selected to demonstrate, in greater depth, aspects of how students verbal participation was constructed and how discourses unfolded.

FindingsThe analysis demonstrated diversity in terms of how discourses were employed and how students were positioned in the narratives about verbal participation. Prevalent discourses drew on notions of learning, affect and assessment and were identified as pedagogical, psychological and performative discourses.ConclusionsThe study highlights how verbal participation tends to be constructed as an individual undertaking, with the implication being that students are assigned individual responsibility for this. As students are usually encouraged to make the most of their verbal participation in class, the study gives rise to important and complex questions in terms of challenging assumptions about how best to support student learning, particularly in the case of students who remain quiet in the classroom.

This article explores emotional aspects of national grade policies in Sweden as they are enacted in feedback practices at middle school level. Policy measures such as standardized testing and grades have over the last decades put emphasis on academic outcomes in Sweden. However, research suggests that this emphasis can impact students’ emotions and well-being. An interactionally oriented narrative approach and positioning analysis were used to identify and explore accounts concerning grades and emotions within development talks and grade conferences with students who received grades in Year 4, 5 or 6. The findings present three key aspects for how emotions are used and functions within the feedback practices. Various emotion categories serve as discursive resources to A. explain and justify grades, B. evaluate and negotiate ambition levels and C. balance and manage expectations. This suggests that grades are not merely managed as simple evaluations of students’ academic performance, but rather managed as emotionally significant for students. The findings illustrate the complexity of enacting grade policies in a middle-school context where the participants navigate multiple priorities, demands and values within the school setting while operating within a policy context that emphasise academic performance.