Podcast Summary: James Elwick on Making a Grade: Victorian Examinations and the Rise of Standardized Testing

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Jacob Ward
Guest: James Elwick
Episode Date: November 2, 2025

Overview

This episode centers on James Elwick’s new book, Making a Grade: Victorian Examinations and the Rise of Standardized Testing (University of Toronto Press, 2025). Elwick and host Jacob Ward explore the emergence of mass examinations in 19th-century Britain and how they catalyzed the rise of standardized testing, with overarching consequences for education, credentialism, and meritocracy. The discussion also addresses the infrastructure of exams, the incentives and unexpected effects generated by standardized systems, and the historical and present dynamics of academic integrity and cheating. Key figures such as T.H. Huxley, H.G. Wells, Robert Goffin, and education reformers like Emily Davies are highlighted, with the episode tying Victorian innovations to persistent modern debates about assessment and legitimacy in education.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

James Elwick’s Academic Journey and Book Genesis

• Background: Elwick describes his teaching in Science, Technology and Society at York University, and how his prior historical research on biology led him into the study of examinations ([01:35]).
• Origin Story: Analyzing Huxley’s success over Herbert Spencer shifted his focus from technical success to how examinations create scientific authority:

  “His competitor…T.H. Huxley…wins by redefining what a biological individual is, not by winning technically, but by training the new generation of biologists to use his terms. And the way he did that was through examinations.” ([02:42])

• Humor in Education: Elwick adopts a skeptical, sometimes darkly comic stance towards exams and their effectiveness, referencing the unchanged nature of comically poor exam answers over time ([03:50]).

Book Overview & Arguments

([05:11])

• Central Questions:
  • Instead of simply critiquing standardized tests, Elwick asks: “How do exams become standardized?”
  • Applies infrastructural analysis (drawing on STS scholars like Bowker and Star) to see exams as routines and tools.
• Distinction Between Education & Schooling:

  “When people mean education, they usually mean schooling. And they're not. They're not identical things….schools are not just places where we learn things, but where we're certified for things.” ([06:06])

• Structure and Themes:
  1. Macro-level: Long-term (50-year) changes in examination frameworks.
  2. Meso-level: Focus on Department of Science and Art exams that examined millions on what would now be “STEM”.
  3. Micro-level: Forensic recreation of a Huxley-run exam, tracing the “arms race” between examiners and examinees.
• Merit and Credentialism:
  Critique of “merit” as an abstract idea, tracing how exams operationalize and define merit in society.

  “Michael Sandel…never once questions the tools by which we define what merit means, but also how you get there in the first place.” ([09:17])

• Exams as Currency:
  Credentials compared to currency, susceptible to inflation and used as signals in labor markets ([10:32]).

Credentialism and Self-Reproducing Testing Systems

([11:28])

• Self-referential Logic:
  Examinations lead to tutoring for exams, leading to more exams—a system feeding itself.
• Case Studies:
  • H.G. Wells: Used exams to build a tutoring career and then wrote an “examiner-defeating” textbook.
  • Robert Goffin: Cheated by intercepting exams and drilling students, prompting a scandal.
• Quote:

  “Standardized testing…almost seems like the birth of a self-reproducing system.” (Jacob Ward, [12:14])

Wells and Goffin: Ethics and Cheating

([13:23]; in-depth until [21:56])

• H.G. Wells:
  • On the cynical but rule-abiding side; instrumental in gaming exams ethically. Coined the term “examiner defeating mechanism” ([14:10]).
  • Taught students to reproduce textbook knowledge verbally, no practical work, maximizing scores (see Knowledge as Food metaphor, [16:23]).
  • “He records how he would teach his students. As a science educator, he would not do any lab experiments at all. It was all about writing words on blackboards…” ([15:52])
• Robert Goffin:
  • Outright cheated by obtaining exams in advance (“the Goffin technique”).
  • Managed to stave off discipline despite being caught, relying on networks and institutional confusion.
  • “He’s a gifted teacher, but he doesn’t buy into the inherent idea that exams test for morality.” ([20:52])
• Arms Race:
  Examiners and examinees in continual adaptive conflict, anticipating and responding to each other's strategies ([10:53]).

“Thin Knowledge” and “Thin Descriptions”

([21:56] onward)

• Thin Knowledge:
  • Standardized exams reward superficial, compartmentalized knowledge, fit for certification but not deep understanding.
  • “These answers that students give show a form of thin knowledge…flat...compressed...presented perfectly for the purposes of a standardized test…” (Jacob Ward, [21:56])
• Thin Description ([23:31]):
  • Positions the exam process as generating “thin descriptions” (Ted Porter): minimal, surface-level certifications as opposed to nuanced “thick description” (Geertz).
  • Examiners as “anti-anthropologists,” forcing knowledge into simplified categories (Simon Schaffer, [23:45]).
  • Necessity of Simplification:

    “In order for us to participate in large social groups, to be able to know what other people know...they are forms of thin descriptions...not so much education, but schooling.” ([24:36])

Standardized Testing and Women's Admission to Higher Education

([28:23]–[36:25])

• Standardization as Tool for Equality:
  • Reformers like Emily Davies demanded equal testing standards for women, making “commensuration” possible.
  • Philippa Fawcett famously achieved top marks, proving women’s intellectual parity (but institutional change lagged).
  • Quote:

    “Davies insisted on this equality because it would give grounds for claiming the worthiness...the worthiness of the under represented group at being treated equally legally.” ([33:10])

• Institutional Drag:
  • Despite success in exams, women’s full admission to Cambridge lagged by decades.
  • Elwick: “The whole reason that this was shameful is because it had been demonstrated that women were commensurate with males.” ([34:31])

Administrative and Infrastructural Drivers

([39:52])

• Pragmatic Standardization:
  • Administrative resistance to running parallel exams for women resulted in defaulting to examining men and women together (“your marginal cost...just be added...setting up an entirely separate new exam...more time.” — [37:18])
  • Cost and bureaucracy, not principle, often drove policy.
• Exam Scale and Labor:
  • T.H. Huxley’s 1873 Animal Physiology exam: nearly 7,000 papers, team of six, three weeks of marking ([41:10]).
  • Massive marking effort invisible in histories yet central to “shaping society in a very, very new way.” ([44:21])

The Political Economy of Examination: Payment by Results and Robert Lowe

([46:21]–[54:57])

• Robert Lowe’s Role:
  • Central reformer who, along with Henry Cole, premised funding and teacher payment on student exam results.
  • Introduced “payment by results,” creating a feedback loop incenting exam performance.
  • “You will be celebrated as the Newton of...government reactive funding.” ([51:51])
• Self-reproducing System:
  • Success in exams leads to tutoring others, further spreading exam culture (likened to “Amway or multi level marketing” — [50:43]).
  • Model exported beyond England to Canada, Australia, India ([53:37]).

New Projects: Historicizing Cheating and Academic Integrity

([55:28])

• Focus on Cheating:
  • Elwick’s next project investigates the historical roots of cheating and academic integrity, especially in teacher examinations in Ontario.
  • Notes that contemporary panic over AI and assessment echoes Victorian debates over what counts as legitimate demonstration of knowledge.
  • “Why is it that we always come back to this idea that the only legitimate knowledge is that which is held in the sort of container like brain and the substance of knowledge is, is a kind of a food that we digest.” ([60:14])

Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Exam Infrastructure:

  “The book...says, well, people complain about standardized tests, but nobody ever asks how they get standardized.”
  — James Elwick ([05:11])

• On Standardization as a Pathway to Equality:

  “Davies insisted on this equality because it would give grounds for claiming the worthiness...of the under represented group at being treated equally legally.”
  — James Elwick ([33:10])

• On the Labor of Exams:

  “To look over a thousand sets of answers...by people you don’t care about is next door to penal servitude.”
  — James Elwick ([45:24])

• On Credential Inflation:

  “Credentials are seen as a kind of a currency.”
  — James Elwick ([10:32])

• On “Thin Description”:

  “...they are forms of thin descriptions...not so much education, but schooling. That schooling isn’t just about teaching us things, but it’s actually about...a certification that will stand for something that is trustworthy.”
  — James Elwick ([25:08])

• On Modern Resonance:

  “How do we develop that ability to appreciate it in the first place?...Where does academic...integrity...come from?”
  — James Elwick ([55:28])

• On Examiners as Bureaucrats:

  “Why do I have to set up a separate exam?...Can I have more money, because this is taking me twice as much time to set and mark these exams?”
  — James Elwick ([37:18])

Important Segment Timestamps

• [01:35] — Elwick’s academic background and motives
• [05:11] — High-level overview of the book’s argument
• [13:23] — Case studies: H.G. Wells and Robert Goffin, exam gamification
• [21:56] — “Thin knowledge” and examination for superficial learning
• [29:47] — Standardized testing and women’s access to higher education
• [39:52] — Administrative pragmatism and logistical drivers in exam standardization
• [41:10] — T.H. Huxley and the scale of Victorian examinations
• [47:33] — Payment by results, Robert Lowe, and the “political economy of examinations”
• [55:28] — Elwick’s next research focus: the history of cheating and academic integrity

Conclusion

Elwick’s conversation with Jacob Ward offers a lively, deeply-informed exploration of the rise of standardized testing. By dissecting its Victorian infrastructure, incentives, social effects, and continuing moral and epistemological challenges, Elwick emphasizes both the unexpected consequences and functional necessities of exams. The episode bridges history and contemporary dilemmas—merit, access, cheating, and the persistent tension between deep learning and social certification—making the Victorian era feel acutely relevant to today’s debates on schooling and evaluation.