The cultural role of assessment

The obsession to assess is an invention from the modern period, conceived in college around the 17th century. This practice became nowadays inseparable from education and it is admitted as part of the process of learning.
To assess can be defined as an approach or a process leading to a judgement or a decision-making. It can be a qualitative or quantitative judgement on the value of a person, an object, a process or a situation based on the comparison between its characteristics and established norms or explicit criteria. This practise aims at providing information in order to make a decision about a goal.
Then, we understand that to assess is a sociological way to build and negotiate representations since this process stands on cultural standards, that's to say on a specific system of orientation ( way of perceiving, thinking, valuing, acting that the majority of people within a culture considers as "normal") only shared by a cultural group. This practice is a permanent element of individual action as well as social interactions. Finally, we can stress the fact that established norms and the method of judgement are social stakes, usually leading to antagonistic situation.
Thus, we are led to wonder on which kind of cultural standard does the French type of assessment stands on and what the cultural role of such a practice is. Moreover, how assessment express particular cultural norms and has an impact on individual actions and social interactions.