Experimenting with uncertainty, advancing social justice: placing Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and access centre stage in language assessment

The language assessment field has seen growing interest in matters of fairness, ethics and social responsibility, leading to increased concern for equity, access and inclusion for all test takers. In this paper I discuss how we might reframe thinking and practice to advance social justice. I explore specific EDI-related challenges, e.g. context relevance, stakeholder engagement, and lingua-cultural diversity, considering how to address and resolve such challenges in an ethically principled and evidence-based way. I also pay tribute to Professor Alan Davies as a pioneer in advancing ethical practice and social justice in the field–someone who was willing to “experiment with uncertainty.”¹.