6 Mark Education Q's

Question 1

Identify three policies that the governments have introduced to compensate for material deprecation (6)

Answer 1

• Education action zones (an area where they have identified low attainment)
• Free school meals
• Pupil Premiums

Question 2

Identify three ways in which informed parents can take advantage of the selection process (6)

Answer 2

• May be able to understand the appeals process
• Relocating to the desired catchment area
• Direct contact with head teachers and governors

Question 3

Identify three ways that the education system may contribute to the economy (6)

Answer 3

• Students develop basic numeracy, literacy and ICT skills which employers want
• Different students develop a range of specialist sills which are all needed in a post- Fordist economy
• Vocational education teaches students a trade

Question 4

Suggest three ways in which increased selection and competition in education may raise levels of achievement (6)

Answer 4

• Ofsted pressures schools into raising standards because they want to get the best report and therefore attract the best students
• Open enrolment encourages schools to select the highest achieving students
• Schools competing to move up the league stables by raising GCSE grades

Question 5

Suggest three education policies which may reduce social- class inequality (3)

Answer 5

• Mixed ability teaching
• Education Action Zones
• Abolition of grammar schools

Question 6

Identify three policies that the government have introduced to overcome children’s ‘cultural deprivation’ (6)

Answer 6

• Popular music and literature in the curriculum
• Increased use of ICT facilities to allow greater access to culture
• Course work adds a new type of testing which suits a rage of people

Question 7

Identify Three criticism that could be made of the Marxist view of education (6)

Answer 7

• Ignores the achievement and social mobility made by working class students
• Assumes students just accept the Bourgeois agenda of education
• Schools create social solidarity not alienation

Question 8

Identify three criticisms that Marxist make of the education system. (6)

Answer 8

• It promotes hierarchy (as identified in the correspondence principle)
• It legitimises social class inequality
• Meritocracy is a myth as middle class parents use education to benefit their children over poorer children

Question 9

Identify three features of the ‘hidden curriculum’. (6)

Answer 9

• Hierarchy instead of equality
• Conformity rather than independent thought
• Competitiveness rather than freedom and choice

Question 10

Suggest three ways in which the education system could be considered meritocratic. (6)

Answer 10

• It rewards hard work and skill
• Exams like GCSEs are the same and so are equal to all students
• Collage and university places are offered on the basis of grades not money

Question 11

Suggest three reasons why Marxists consider meritocracy in education to be a myth. (6)

Answer 11

• Middle class parents can take advantage of selection procedures like selection by mortgage
• Effort and skill is not enough without the elaborated speech code and cultural capital
• Material deprivation means there isn’t an equal change of succeeding e.g. unable to afford private tuition

Question 12

Suggest three criticisms of labelling theory and the self-fulfilling prophecy in education. (6)

Answer 12

• It is deterministic and assumes the teacher has the power to define a student
• It ignores material and cultural factors in explaining underachievement
• Studies have shown that students often actively resist the late and so prevent the self- fulfilling prophecy

Question 13

Identify three ways in which teachers may label students (6)

Answer 13

• By placing students in a lower band because of bad behaviour
• By patronising a student with simple language die to the rustiest assumptions
• As a potential high achiever (so placed in a higher band) because the student is polite and respectful

Question 14

Suggest three ways in which factors outside the education system can contribute to the underachievement of working class pupils. (6)

Answer 14

• Material deprivation
• Cultural deprivation
• Fatalism as a negative atitude with in working class culture

Question 15

Suggest three ways in which parents may fail to attend parents evenings (6)

Answer 15

• Because of work commitments like part time evening work
• Fear of hearing bad news about their son or daughter
• Worries about feeling inferior and of being patronised by teachers

Question 16

Suggest three reasons why working class students are less likely to go on to study at university. (6)

Answer 16

• Cost of tuition fees
• More likely to get poor GCSE and A level results and therefore preventing access to University
• Fatalism, a lack of ambition and so fear of failure

Question 17

Suggest three possible effects of being placed in a bottom band. (6)

Answer 17

• Damages self- esteem and confidence
• Being drawn into an anti-school subculture as a strategy for coping with the loss of status
• A sense of being labeled by teachers resulting in the self- fulfilling prophecy of academic failure

Question 18

Suggest three material factors that might cause working-class educational underachievement. (6)

Answer 18

• Poor diet and heath and therefore effecting concentration and classroom performance
• Unable to purchase school equipment like calculators, books and sports equipment
• Not having internet access at home to help with studies

Question 19

Suggest three reasons why girls now outperform boys in education (6)

Answer 19

• The feminisation of the teaching profession providing more female educational role models
• Decline in marriage and the fertility rates altering female ambition beyond motherhood and in favour of a professional career
• The in increase in the number of female role models in powerful positions e.g. Margret Thatcher, Deborah Meaden

Question 20

Suggest three reasons why boys have higher school exclusion rates than girls (6)

Answer 20

• Laddish and macho subcultures for males encourage confrontational and disruptive behaviour
• A hostility to reading and quite study. Theses are still often perceived as famine activities
• Teachers are more likely to feel threatened by male hostility than female and so these confrontations often lead to exclusions

Question 21

Suggest three reasons why ethnic minority students may form subcultures (6)

Answer 21

• To strengthen ethnic identity and enhance status
• To reject conforming to the school’s expectations because to do so would mean accepting its institutional racism
• To challenge white teacher’s prejudices with outward displays of ethnic pride

Question 22

Suggest three reasons why students from particular ethnic minorities are more likely to be excluded form school (6)

Answer 22

• Teacher racism
• Schools may remove Caribbean males as a form of silt-shifting as they assume they’ll underachieve
• Labelling by teachers resulting un a self- fulfilling prophecy of disruptive behaviour by ethnic minority boys

Question 23

Suggest three factors outside the education system that may lead to the educational underachievement of pupil from some minority ethnic groups (6)

Answer 23

• Lack of educational and cultural capital of the ethnic minority of the parents who aren’t familiar with the British education system
• The restricted speak code and having English as a second language creating literacy problems
• Cultural deprivation/ cultural difference among ethnic minority families which makes the ethnocentric curriculum alienating

Question 24

Identify three ways in which the education system is considered institutionally racist (6)

Answer 24

• Disproportionately high levels of expulsions of caribbean males
• Christian collective worship coupled with a lack of recognition of Muslin, Hindu and Sikh customs in schools
• The ethnocentric curriculum, white, anglo, western culture dominating the curriculum

Question 25

Identify three types of school subcultures. (6)

Answer 25

• Ethnic minority subcultures
• Anti- school subculture
• Lads and Ladettes subcultures

Question 26

Suggest three processes in schools which may contribute to students forming subcultures. (6)

Answer 26

• Negative labelling by teachers
• Educational competitiveness and a fear of failure
• Banding/ streaming; placing students in lower bands which encourages anti- school attitudes

Question 27

Identify three features of ‘anti-school subcultures’. (6)

Answer 27

• Using slang and the restricted code
• Anti- academic behaviour like not completing homework
• Mocking and ridiculing hard- working students

Question 28

Explain what is meant by the term A- C economy

Answer 28

It is a system in which schools complete on the basis of the amount of students who get at least 5 A- C grades at GCSE

Question 29

Explain what is meant by the term Banding

Answer 29

It is a form of streaming pupils according to their academic ability

Question 30

Explain what is meant by the term streaming

Answer 30

Putting students in sets on the basis of ability as opposed to mixed ability teaching

Question 31

Explain what is meant by the term comprehensivisation

Answer 31

It is creating a single, unified system in which all schools are equal across all of society

Question 32

Explain what is meant by the term Fordism

Answer 32

People learning the basic skills for basic production e.g. Ford production line

Question 33

Explain what is meant by the term Post Fordism

Answer 33

Developing multiple skills and flexible specialisation to equipped people for a high skilled technical economy

Question 34

Explain what is meant by the term Hidden Curriculum

Answer 34

Aside from the academic curriculum, schools are indirectly teaching the values of capitalism e.g. conformity and hierarchy

Question 35

Explain what is meant by the term Legitimisation of inequality

Answer 35

A school system which makes the gap between rich and poor justified because schools appear to be meritocratic, (where students are told they have equal chances to move up the social ladder of success)

Question 36

Explain what is meant by the term Marketisation

Answer 36

Education policy which encourages schools to compete like a business where parents and students are treated like customers

Question 37

Explain what is meant by the term Myth of Meritocracy

Answer 37

This is the idea that the education system is not fair and students don’t have have an equal start in life

Question 38

Explain what is meant by the term Parentocracy

Answer 38

Parental choice and power

Question 39

Explain what is meant by the term Polarisation

Answer 39

When able kids get stronger and stronger while the less able kids get weaker and weaker

Question 40

Explain what is meant by the term Gender domains

Answer 40

Areas dominated by certain genders such as construction and hair and beauty

Question 41

Explain what is meant by the term Ascribed status

Answer 41

A status in which you are born not achieved on merit

Question 42

Explain what is meant by the term Achieved status

Answer 42

A status which you achieved on merit not one you are born with

Question 43

Explain what is meant by the term Social solidarity

Answer 43

When people begin to link and make connections with others in society who have things in common

Question 44

Explain what is meant by the term Value consensus

Answer 44

A functionalist idea that society has made a set of norms and values that everyone in society accepts

Question 45

Explain what is meant by the term Multicultural education

Answer 45

It is where you study a range of cultures and backgrounds and subject matter of different histories and religions