Evaluation policies and educational quality. A critical analysis in the context of external evaluation of schools, in Portugal

Abstract

In this article we aim to explore the notion of quality, invoking not only the ideas of Lipovestky and Gil, but also the discourses that are created about institutional evaluation. Firstly, we stress the logics of personification and social control, regarded as complementary in the process of evaluation; secondly, we consider the notion of quality by means of an analysis of the model for school's external evaluation, currently being implemented in the Portuguese educational system. The article acts as a critical analysis of policies borrowing and lending, which are becoming increasingly important in the regulation of national politics and in the structuration of evaluation models.

Quality; Individualization; Social control; Institutional evaluation