Backstage pedagogy : Compulsory school pupils’ informal social strategies when dealing with formal individual writing assignments for assessment

Sammanfattning: Over the last decades, formal schooling has changed towards an enhanced focus on theindividual pupil’s achievements. This comprises formative assessment such as visualizingpupils’ learning processes, as well as summative assessment in terms of increased numberand importance of National tests. However, little is known, from a pupils’ perspective,about how pupils together with classmates relate to the extensive focus on assessment ofthe individual’s achievements in formal education; what do today’s pupils, who havegrown up with digital technology and social media, say and do out of the teachers’supervision when dealing with individual assignments? In line with ethnographiceducational research, this thesis explores and analyses how educational structures areimposed upon subordinate groups. This thesis gives an account of, from a pupils’perspective, the pupils’ backstage pedagogy regarding formal schoolwork inside andoutside school.The applied analytical tool is Goffman’s (1990) theater metaphor of social life; in thisstudy, pupils’ interactions with peers out of the teachers’ supervision when doingschoolwork are regarded as carried out backstage, preparing an intended impression oftheir abilities and know-how to present to the assessing teacher. Based on observations, aninnovative and discreet staging of audio-visual recordings, and semi-structured interviewswith the pupils in one class at a Swedish municipal lower secondary school whereapproximately 50 % of the pupils had a foreign background, the results show that pupilsapplied a backstage pedagogy. Outside the teachers’ supervision and awareness, theyinformally interacted with classmates and used social strategies when dealing with formalindividual assignments. The pupils’ regard for grades was the linchpin of their activities;some pupils a) swapped computers with peers and wrote original texts for classmates, b)copied peers’ assignments, c) logged into classmates’ Google classroom accounts andwrote original texts for peers, and d) shared leaked National tests on the class’s Snapchatgroup. These actions led to dilemmas in the teachers’ assessing and grading of individualpupils as well as in implementing fair, impartial grading. In looking forward, the thesisdiscusses the phenomenon and impact of backstage spaces comprising parents, siblings,Artificial Intelligence and ChatGPT to improve grades.