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This review essay describes in detail two recent publications: "Formative Assessment: Improving Learning in Secondary Classrooms" (Centre for Educational Research and Innovation [CERI], 2005, Paris, OECD) and "Towards Coherence Between Classroom Assessment and Accountability" ("The 103rd Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part 2," Mark Wilson [Ed.], 2004, Chicago, IL, Chicago University Press). This reviewer identifies the key themes and focus of each book, and provides a critique of the main aspects of the work. He concludes that these two books illustrate in very different ways the impact on teachers' practice of the acceptance and use of new assessment methods as part of their pedagogy. Although written for very different audiences, both books advocate the possibilities that formative assessment can bring to assessment regimes and add to the body of literature on this topic. (Contains 2 notes.)

Issues surrounding boys'"underachievement" have been at the center of public debate about education and the raising of standards in recent years. Media and political responses to the "problem of boys" have tended to be simplistic, partial, and owe more to quick fixes than investigation and research. This book provides a detailed, nuanced case study of the issues in the United Kingdom, which will be of international relevance, as the moral panic is a globalized one, taking place in diverse countries. The book is divided into four parts: (1) "Boys' Underachievement in Context"; (2) "Different Constructions of the Debate and Its Undercurrents"; (3) "Boys, Which Boys?"; and (4) "Curriculum, Assessment and the Debate." Papers grouped under Part 1 are: (1) "Schoolboy Frictions: Feminism and 'Failing' Boys" (D. Epstein, J. Elwood, V. Hey, and J. Maw); and (2) "'A Habit of Healthy Idleness': Boys' Underachievement in Historical Perspective" (M. Cohen). Studies grouped under Part 2 are: (3) "Girls Will Be Girls and Boys Will Be First" (P. Mahony); "'Zero Tolerance': Gender Performance and School Failure" (L. R. Reed); (5) "Breaking out of the Binary Trap: Boys' Underachievement, Schooling and Gender Relations" (D. Jackson); and (6) "Real Boys Don't Work: 'Underachievement,' Masculinity, and the Harassment of 'Sissies'" (D. Epstein). Studies grouped under Part 3 are: (7) "Loose Canons: Exploding the Myth of the 'Black Macho' Lad" (T. Sewell); and (8) "Boys' Underachievement, Special Needs Practices and Questions of Equity" (V. Hey, D. Leonard, H. Daniels, and M. Smith). Studies grouped under Part 4 are: (9) "Language and Gender: Who, If Anyone, Is Disadvantaged by What?" (J. Swann); and (10) "Gendered Learning outside and inside School: Influences on Achievement" (P. Murphy and J. Elwood). (BT)