A Critical Sociocultural View of Accountability

Abstract

This critical sociocultural view of accountability illuminates heretofore hidden, obscured, or neglected aspects of accountability—its meanings, intended and unintended consequences, and the processes by which it was institutionalized. This perspective exhumes the social and cultural processes—power, democracy, policy making, schooling, and language games—implicated in contemporary notions of accountability. Our unique positioning allows us to critically examine the “Texas model” of accountability from the inside, with implications for other regimes of accountability presently in place or being considered elsewhere.