The Negotiation of Scores by School Inspection Teams

This chapter focuses on the discursive moves employed by school inspectors to advance their scoring preferences as the most appropriate during team discussions. A key element of these scoring discussions is the establishment of shared performance expectations—of what is considered normal. The chapter highlights specific rhetorical strategies used by inspectors to upgrade or downgrade scores, which are often based on comparisons that establish reference points. Six types of such comparisons are identified that inspectors draw upon to appraise school performance. The analysis demonstrates how inspectors must actively negotiate to relate scoring criteria to evidence and allocate data flexibly in order to produce defensible scores. Creating these relations between scoring tasks and evidence constitutes inspectors as key decision-makers in the evaluation process. While the official inspection framework provides ground rules, arriving at joint scores requires complex discursive work that goes beyond mechanically applying predefined criteria. The naturalistic analysis of inspector negotiations provides novel insights into the social production of school inspection scores, shedding light on the situated strategies through which inspectors aim to construct appropriate, legitimate assessments.