Abstract

Educational assessment and marking, in particular, give teachers considerable power over students and their future possibilities. Analysing a teachers' meeting discussing school reports in a secondary school showed that marking involves teachers' accountability to colleagues. An examination of the situated interpretations and explanations of unsatisfactory school marks also showed how various discursive devices were used for building a factual account. Confirmed expectations, extreme case formulations, introducing corroborating witnesses, the deployment of cited others, defining exceptional cases, detailed descriptions and narratives, and the use of different accounts all served to emphasize the role of the students and hide the teachers from view. In addition, teachers' joint constructions had practical consequences for remedial interventions. Decisions for intervention were dependent on the accounts given.