On 23rd January 2025, the Comparative Education Research Centre (CERC) at the University of Hong Kong hosted a seminar titled Democratic Value Resistance: Deweyan Future of Measurement in Education, delivered by Professor Ka Ya Lee.

In this talk, Professor Lee presented her latest book chapter from an upcoming volume on John Dewey and Amartya Sen. She explored the idea of “value resistance,” highlighting how Sen’s Capability Approach challenges the value systems underlying traditional measurement practices, a problem described as “value capture” by C. Thi Nguyen.

Professor Lee argued that education today faces similar challenges and requires a form of value resistance to rethink existing assessment practices. Drawing on the philosophies of Sen and Dewey, she called for alternatives to standardized testing through democratic, iterative, and educative forms of inquiry.

The seminar offered fresh insights into how normative frameworks can reshape the way success is measured in education, emphasizing the importance of democratic values in building more meaningful and inclusive assessments.