the pressure exercised bydiscourses that highlight the social dimension of assessment is very strong and pervasive,making it difficult for more exhortative or developmental policies on assessment (Ball et al.,2012) to survive in the polyphonic discursive space of the school. PA3, a policy authority whohas worked as a school teacher, also sees schools as spaces where contradictory discourses onassessment circulate in a paradigm conflict, where the current structure of schools does notfacilitate reform processes either:

Mikhail Bakhtin observes discursive spaces as being in permanent contestation, andutterances as processes of ideological positioning of the self in a historical and cultural context.