NAPLAN and the commodification of parenting

Examining submissions to the 2010 Senate Inquiry regarding the administration and reporting of the National Assessment Program's Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), this research considers the way parenting perceptions and practices towards standardized testing in Australian schools reflects the heightened insecurity and uncertainty pervading modern society. Findings reveal a cultural production of performance expectation leads some parents to contribute and participate in a growing and thriving NAPLAN industry. Qualitative findings demonstrate fear of NAPLAN inadequacy prompted parents to engage in a range of educational consumption practices, such as purchase practice-books, engage private tutors and/or enrol their children in private coaching colleges, in an effort to maximise their child's NAPLAN performance. Findings suggest the commodification of NAPLAN culturally frames parents as consumers who can, and indeed ought, to buy improved NAPLAN results. The commodification of parenting, and moreover schooling, ignores social and structural determinants predictive of educational performance, and thus is argued to feed a market dismissive of recognised sources of ongoing social inequality.