Why Can't We All Do Well? Grading Curves, Psychology, and the Ethics of Academic Scarcity
In an undergraduate psychology classroom at a well-known Indian university, no student is permitted to score above 80%. It isn’t because we all failed—but because we weren’t allowed to succeed. The grading system operates on a curve, meaning only a predetermined percentage of students can achieve certain bands of grades. Whether ten students write with nuance, clarity, and originality or only one does, the outcome is already fixed. This is not education—it’s allocation.
This essay critiques the systemic use of norm-referenced grading (grading on a curve) in psychology education. Drawing on statistical evidence, ethics, cultural studies, and the philosophy of justice, I argue that this approach is not only pedagogically flawed but also ethically compromised and culturally exclusionary. It punishes intellectual risk-taking, undermines empathy—the very core of psychology—and upholds caste and class-based academic hierarchies.
To understand what’s at stake, we must ask: Why is academic excellence rationed like a scarce resource? What kind of psychologists are we training under such a system? And how do we move from performance to transformation in education?
Using data from one psychology student’s academic record, we observe a clear clustering of marks around a central point: 6 out of a possible 8. Statistical analysis shows a mean of 6.11, median and mode of 6, with a very tight standard deviation (0.66). This implies enforced normality—not natural variation. In other words, the data reflects policy more than performance.
In a norm-referenced system, students are evaluated against each other, not against a learning standard. So even if all students demonstrate deep understanding, only a few can receive top marks. This is not meritocratic; it’s numerically constrained scarcity.
The illusion of fairness in such a system is betrayed by its mechanics. As the statistician William Edwards Deming once noted: "If you grade on a curve, you are teaching students to compete, not to learn."
Grading curves do not measure how well you learned the material—they measure how much better or worse you performed than your peers. In effect, learning becomes a relative performance, not a shared goal. Students are discouraged from collaboration, and the classroom becomes a zero-sum arena.
Ethically, norm-referenced grading violates principles of transparency, fairness, and dignity. John Rawls’ theory of justice holds that inequalities are only justifiable if they benefit the least advantaged. Here, they actively harm them.
Under the curve, students don’t know what standard they must meet—only that their success depends on others' failure. This unpredictability breeds anxiety and erodes intrinsic motivation. Worse, it turns educators into reluctant gatekeepers rather than facilitators of growth.
Drawing from Kantian ethics, the practice treats students as means to institutional ends (such as maintaining "prestige") rather than ends in themselves. By contrast, a just evaluation would aim to measure growth, understanding, and ethical awareness, not conformity.
Norm-referenced grading also fails the test of procedural justice. Students are evaluated not based on how well they meet criteria, but on a quota that is set in advance. This distorts the purpose of education: from cultivating understanding to securing rank.
Psychology, unlike engineering or law, deals with ambiguity, complexity, and context. It claims to honour personal narrative, intersectionality, and interpretive depth. Yet its dominant grading model demands standardisation.
Students are told, "There’s always more to write," as a justification for never awarding full marks. This logic undermines intellectual confidence and discourages risk-taking. What’s the incentive to challenge dominant theories or bring in lived experience if conformity is the only path to success?
This contradiction is what Michel Foucault warned about in "Discipline and Punish": schools as sites of docility production. bell hooks calls for “education as the practice of freedom”—but curved grading is the practice of discipline.
Psychology education should be the last place we see such punitive structures. If the discipline teaches empathy, then the pedagogy must reflect it. Instead, it too often reflects the bureaucratic violence of evaluation systems, detached from the ethical core of the subject itself.
In the Indian context, merit is deeply entangled with caste. Grading systems often reflect dominant cultural codes—fluency in English, familiarity with Western theorists, ability to mimic academic tone. Students from marginalised backgrounds are thus disadvantaged not by intellect but by cultural capital.
Norm-referenced grading, far from being objective, reproduces systemic inequality. It ensures that the "best" students (read: most assimilated) are always a minority. This is eerily aligned with brahminical systems of hierarchy and exclusion.
As Dalit scholar Gopal Guru writes, “Experience has no epistemic value in Indian academia unless spoken through the tongue of power.” The curve ensures that this power remains concentrated. Who gets to be seen as excellent, and who gets seen as ‘average,’ has less to do with ability and more to do with proximity to dominant codes of conduct and expression.
What results is a subtle reinforcement of caste hierarchies—where excellence is rationed not by capacity, but by proximity to power.
Alternative models of assessment exist and thrive. Criterion-referenced grading evaluates students against a fixed standard—not each other. Portfolio-based assessment values growth over time. Peer review and self-assessment build community and reflexivity.
These models align with the ethics of psychology itself: they respect individual development, acknowledge diversity, and promote trust. They are not about lowering standards but rethinking what “standard” even means.
In Finland’s education system, grades are rare and qualitative feedback is the norm. In some liberal arts colleges, students write learning contracts. These systems are rigorous, but also humane.
A shift to these models requires institutional will and cultural humility. It requires faculty to trust students, and systems to trust faculty. But the outcome is a more democratic, inclusive, and transformative education.
What kind of psychologists—and citizens—are we producing if education is framed as a zero-sum game? If learning becomes about securing your rank rather than expanding your understanding, then we are building performers, not thinkers.
A just education does not fear the success of many. It celebrates collective growth. It makes space for diverse forms of knowledge and multiple ways of being excellent.
We must move from scarcity to solidarity in academic evaluation. From competition to collaboration. From the curve to the care ethic.
As bell hooks wrote, "The classroom remains the most radical space of possibility in the academy." Let’s not flatten that possibility with a curve.
Suggested Reading:
bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Gopal Guru, How Egalitarian are the Social Sciences in India?
Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice
Alfie Kohn, "The Case Against Grades" (available online)
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (entries on Kant, Rawls)
Foucault, Discipline and Punish