2017 Int. J. of Pedagogies & Learning, 12(1), 63-74. 63 ASSESSMENT AND RECOGNITION IN THE MUSIC AND HISTORY CLASSROOM: A CHALLENGE FOR TEACHER AUTONOMY Eva Insulander Stockholm University, Sweden Anna Ehrlin Mälardalen University, Sweden Staffan Stranne Mälardalen University, Sweden ABSTRACT As a consequence of the international movement of school accountability, the Swedish school system has gone through comprehensive changes over the last two decades. New curricula, a new grading scale, earlier use of grades, and more explicit assessment standards show this. The purpose of the research was to investigate how teachers of two different school subjects – music and history – deal with the emphasized insistence on evaluations. How do teachers balance between assessment of learning for administrative purposes, and assessment for learning for development purposes? The question also raises issues of recognition of learning and the teachers’ chances of adhering to the learner’s interests. What is recognizeds as signs of learning? Observational and interview data was obtained from a series of lessons in Year 6. Besides the differences between the two subjects, the research implications are that summative assessment dominates and multimodal signs of learning tend to be neglected, when increased assessment is demanded. Keywords: Assessment; Designs for learning; Multimodality; Recognition; Teacher autonomy BACKGROUND AND AIM Over the last two decades, Sweden has witnessed far-reaching changes in its school system resulting in new curricula in 1994 and in 2011, and in a new grading scale in 2012. In 2012, Swedish compulsory school teachers also used grades in Year 6 for the first time. The new curriculum uses more explicit standards to assess pupils’ learning than the earlier curricula. Grades are set from A to F and they express to what extent the pupil has met the standards for each subject and course. The Swedish example can be seen in relation to the ongoing, international movement of school accountability, which refers to the process of evaluating school performance on the basis of pupils’ performance. An overall question that we pose concerns the challenges that teachers struggle with when it comes to assessment and how they deal with the translation from the levels of formulation to realization (Lindensjö & Lundgren, 2000). A genuine dilemma for teachers is that administrative and didactic needs seem difficult to unite, especially when it comes to assessment (Davies & Neitzel, 2011; Hirsh & Lindberg, 2015; Räihä, 2008; Smith, 2011). On the one hand, there is an insistence on knowledge measurements and evaluations for administrative purposes. On the other hand, there is a more open approach to assessment with the purpose of developing pupils’ learning; in most cases called formative assessment or assessment for learning (Black & Wiliam, 1998; Sadler, 1989). Teachers thus find it difficult to balance the different purposes of assessment. Summative assessment often becomes the dominant form, and the multitude of core content and subject matter in the syllabus is