Representing student achievements in science

In what follows, we develop a conceptual argument for expanding current vis ions of performance assessment to include the following three ideals; that performance/assessment addresses the value-laden decisions about what and w hose science is learned and assessed and include multiple worldviews, that performance/assessment in science simultaneously emerges in response to loc al needs, and that the performance/assessment is a method as well as an ong oing search for method. To make this argument, we draw together ideas raise d by critical, feminist and multicultural science educators to describe an inclusive science education, one we refer to as critical science education, to raise questions about the nature and purpose of performance assessment in science education. We are particularly interested in how the science of assessment is challenged and transformed within a critical science educatio n perspective and the conditions needed to create an equitable and inclusiv e practice of science and science assessment across diversity. We present a case study from a youth-led community science project in the inner city to help contextualize our argument. (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.