The English Examining Boards: Their route from independence to government outsourcing agencies

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system is detected in William Blacklock’s 2003 doctoral thesis (Blacklock 2003). His
work on the theory of examination regulation, using QCA as a case study, provides
invaluable insights into the phenomenon of the increasing number of such quasi-
independent ~Non-depart mental bodies’' and the centralising influence they wield.

4 The Social Impact of Examinations

As I indicated above, education sociologists have shown a growing interest in the
social effects of examinations, if not in the organisations that provide them. In my
quest for a sociological perspective, I consulted firstly what Richard Pring rated as the
four leading educational journals: (Pring 1998)

• The British Journal of Educational Studies (со-edited by Pring and David
Halpin)

• The Oxford Review of Education-,

• The British Journal of the Sociology of Education-,

• The British Educational Research Journal

Of the qualitative studies, by far the majority in these journals, some focus on the
growing power of examinations over young people’s life chances. They address issues
of access and the opening of higher education to a wider range of students. With more
attention devoted to primary education and national curriculum testing, I found
disappointingly little on examinations per se and nothing on the examining boards.
The article by Mathieson cited above was an exception, but was not a sociological
study.

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