Sociology-Education-Educational Policy and Inequality

Question 1

What was the first education system?

Answer 1

The tripartite system from 1944 (1944 Education Act)

Question 2

What did the education system begin to focus on?

Answer 2

The idea of meritocracy

Question 3

What is the tripartite system?

Answer 3

Where children were selected and allocated into one of three types of secondary school (grammar, secondary modern and technical), according to their aptitudes and abilities based on the 11+ exam

Question 4

What were the grammar schools?

Answer 4

Offered an academic curriculum and access to non-manual jobs and higher education. They were for pupils with academic ability who passed the 11+. Pupils were mainly middle class

Question 5

What were secondary modern schools?

Answer 5

Offered a non-academic ‘practical’ curriculum and access to manual work for pupils who failed the 11+. These pupils were mainly working class

Question 6

What were technical schools?

Answer 6

They only existed in a few areas, so it was more of a bipartite system than a tripartite system

Question 7

How did the system fail at promoting meritocracy?

Answer 7

It reproduced class inequality by channeling the two social classes into two different types of school and offered unequal opportunities, and reproduced gender inequality by requiring girls to gain a higher pass mark to get into a grammar school

Question 8

How did the tripartite system legitimise inequality?

Answer 8

Through the ideology that ability is born. It was argued that ability could be measured early on in life through the 11+ when in reality children’s environment greatly affects their chances of success

Question 9

what education system came after the tripartite system?

Answer 9

The comprehensive system from 1965

Question 10

What did the comprehensive system aim to do?

Answer 10

Overcome the class divide of the tripartite system and make education more meritocratic, and so abolished the 11+, grammar schools and secondary modern schools

Question 11

What schools did the comprehensive system introduce?

Answer 11

Comprehensive schools that all pupils within the area would attend. However it was left to the local education authority to decide whether to change to comprehensive schools and not all did, so the grammar-secondary modern divide still exists in some areas

Question 12

How do functionalists view the comprehensive system?

Answer 12

As promoting social integration by bringing children of different social classes together in one school, and is more meritocratic as it gives pupils a longer period in which to develop and show their abilities

Question 13

How does Ford 1969 criticise the functionalist view of the comprehensive system?

Answer 13

Found little social mixing between working class and middle class pupils, mainly because of streaming

Question 14

How do marxists view the comprehensive system?

Answer 14

Argue it isn’t meritocratic and instead reproduces class inequality through generations through continuation of streaming and labelling, which denies working class children equal opportunity. By not selecting children at 11, there is a myth of meritocracy by making unequal achievement seem just and fair, as it makes failure seem to be the result of the individual, not the system

Question 15

What is marketisation?

Answer 15

It refers to the process of introducing market forces of consumer choice and competition between suppliers into areas run by the state, such as education

Question 16

How has marketisation created an ‘education market’?

Answer 16

By reducing direct state control over education, and increasing both competition between schools and parental choice of school

Question 17

When did marketisation become a central theme of government education policy?

Answer 17

Since the 1988 education Reform Act, introduced by the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher

Question 18

What happened from 1997?

Answer 18

New Labour government followed similar policies, emphasising standards, diversity and choice

Question 19

What happened from 2010?

Answer 19

Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government took marketisation further by creating academies and free schools

Question 20

Why do neoliberals and the new right favour marketisation?

Answer 20

Argue that it means schools have to attract customers by competing with each other in the market. Schools that provide customers with what they want will thrive, and those that don’t will ‘go out of business’

Question 21

What policies promote marketisation/parentocracy?

Answer 21

Publication of league tables and Ofsted reports, business sponsorship of schools, open enrolment, specialist schools, formula funding, schools being allowed to opt out of local authority control, schools having to compete to attract pupils, tuition fees for higher education, allowing parents/others to set up free schools

Question 22

What does David 1993 describe?

Answer 22

Describes marketised education as a parentocracy

Question 23

What do supporters of marketisation argue?

Answer 23

That in an education market, power shifts away from the producers to the consumers. They claim this encourages diversity among schools, giving parents more choice and raises standards

Question 24

What do critics of marketisation argue?

Answer 24

It has increased inequalities

Question 25

What do Ball 1994 and Whitty 1988 note?

Answer 25

How marketisation policies such as exam league tables and formula funding reproduce class inequalities by creating inequalities between schools

Question 26

How can publishing school’s exam results in league tables be a good thing?

Answer 26

Ensures that schools that achieve good results are more in demand, because parents are attracted to those with good league table rankings

Question 27

What does Bartlett 1993 note about publication of league tables and exam results?

Answer 27

It encourages cream-skimming and silt-shifting

Question 28

What is cream-skimming?

Answer 28

‘Good’ schools can be more selective, choose their own customers and recruit high achieving, mainly middle-class pupils. As a result, these pupils gain an advantage

Question 29

What is silt-shifting?

Answer 29

‘Good’ schools can avoid taking less able pupils who are likely to get poor results and damage the school’s league table position

Question 30

What happens for schools with poor league table positions?

Answer 30

The opposite applies-can’t afford to be selective, have to take less able and mainly working class pupils, so their results are poorer and remain unattractive to middle class parents

Question 31

What is therefore the overall effect of league tables?

Answer 31

They produce unequal schools that reproduce social class inequalities

Question 32

What is the funding formula?

Answer 32

Schools are allocated funds by a formula based on how many pupils they attract-popular schools with good results and middle class pupils thrive, and unpopular schools fail to attract pupils and their funding is further reduced

Question 33

What does the funding formula mean for popular schools?

Answer 33

As a result, popular schools get more funds and so can afford better-qualified teachers and better facilities. Their popularity allows them to be more selective and attracts more able or ambitious, generally middle-class applicants

Question 34

What does the funding formula mean for unpopular schools?

Answer 34

They lose income and find it difficult to match the teacher skills and facilities of their more successful rivals

Question 35

What did a study of international patterns of educational inequality by the institute for public policy research 2012 find?

Answer 35

Competition oriented education systems such as Britain’s produce more segregation between children of different social backgrounds

Question 36

What do marketisation policies do, apart from benefiting middle class by creating inequalities between schools?

Answer 36

By increasing parental choice, marketisation also advantages middle class parents, whose economic and cultural capital puts them in a better position to choose ‘good’ schools for their children

Question 37

What did Gewirtz’s 1995 study show?

Answer 37

Study of 14 London secondary schools found that differences in parents’ economic and cultural capital leads to class differences in how far they can exercise choice of secondary school, and identifies three main types of parents

Question 38

What three types of parent does Gewirtz identify?

Answer 38

Privileged skilled choosers, disconnected local choosers and semi skilled choosers

Question 39

Who are privileged skilled choosers?

Answer 39

Mainly professional, middle class parents who used economic and cultural capital to gain educational capital for their children. Being prosperous, confident and well educated, they were able to take full advantage of choices open to them. Possessed cultural capital and knew how admissions systems work, and had time to visit schools and have skills to research available options. Economic capital means they could afford to move to better catchment areas or pay travel costs

Question 40

Who are disconnected local choosers?

Answer 40

Working class parents whose choices were restricted by lack of economic and cultural capital. Found it difficult to understand admissions procedures. Less confident in dealings with schools, less aware of available options, less able to manipulate system. Many attached more importance to safety and quality of facilities rather than league tables and long term ambitions. Distance and travel costs were also major restrictions

Question 41

Who are semi skilled choosers?

Answer 41

Parents are mainly working class, but unlike disconnected local choosers, they were ambitious for children but lacked cultural capital and found it hard to understand education market, often relying on other people’s opinions on schools. Often frustrated at their inability to get their children into schools they wanted

Question 42

What does Gewirtz conclude?

Answer 42

In practice middle class parens possess cultural and economic capital and have more choice than working class parents, although in theory the education market gives everyone greater choice

Question 43

What else does marketisation do, apart from reproducing inequality?

Answer 43

It also legitimises it by concealing its true causes and by justifying its existence

Question 44

What does Ball believe about marketisation?

Answer 44

It gives the appearance of a parentocracy, however Ball argues that parentocracy is a myth, not a reality. It makes it appear that all parents have the same freedom to choose which school to send their children to eg Gewritz

Question 45

What do Leech and Campos show?

Answer 45

That middle class parents can move to areas so that their children can get into better schools

Question 46

How is the myth of parentocracy created?

Answer 46

By disguising the fact that schooling continues to reproduce class inequality, the myth of parentocracy makes inequality in education appear to be fair and inevitable

Question 47

What policies did the New Labour Government 1997-2010 introduce to aim to reduce inequality?

Answer 47

Designating some deprived areas as Education Action Zones to provide additional resources, Aim Higher Programme to raise ambitions of those under represented in higher education, Education Maintenance Allowances, Introduction of National Literacy Strategy, City academies to give fresh start to struggling inner city (mainly working class) schools, and increased funding for state education

Question 48

Who criticises the New Labours policies?

Answer 48

Benn 2012

Question 49

What does Benn 2012 say?

Answer 49

Sees a contradiction between Labour’s policies to tackle inequality and its commitment to marketisation-something she calls the ‘New Labour Paradox’

Question 50

What is an example of the ‘new labour paradox’?

Answer 50

Introducing EMAs to encourage poorer student to stay in education, but then introducing higher education tuition fees

Question 51

How has the 2010 coalition government been influenced?

Answer 51

Strongly by neoliberal and New Right ideas about reducing the role of the state in the provision of education through marketisation and privatisation

Question 52

What did David Cameron state the aim of the coalitions education policy was?

Answer 52

To encourage ‘excellence, competition and innovation’, by freeing schools from the ‘dead hand of the state’ through policies such as academies and free schools

Question 53

What are academies?

Answer 53

From 2010, schools encouraged to leave local authority control and become academies. Funding is then given directly to academies by central government, and they were given control over curriculum. By 2012, over 1/2 secondary schools converted. Some are run by private educational businesses and some funded directly by state. Instead of just targeting disadvantaged schools, and encouraging any school to change, it removes the focus on reducing inequality

Question 54

What are free schools?

Answer 54

Funded directly by the state, but are set up and run by parents, teachers, faith organisations or businesses rather than the local authority

Question 55

What do supporters of free schools claim?

Answer 55

They improve educational standards by taking control away from the state and giving power to parents. Free schools claim to give parents and teachers opportunity to create a new school if they are unhappy with the state schools in their local area

Question 56

What does Allen 2010 however argue about free schools?

Answer 56

Research from Sweden (20% of schools are free schools) shows that they only benefit children from highly educated families

Question 57

What do other critics of free schools claim?

Answer 57

They are socially diverse and lower standards (Swedens international educational ranking fell since their introduction of free schools) And they only appear to raise standards because they have stricter pupil selection and exclusion policies

Question 58

What does research into free schools in England show?

Answer 58

They take fewer disadvantaged pupils, eg in 2011, only 6.4% pupils at Bristol Free school were eligible for FSM, compared to 22.5% of pupils across the whole city

Question 59

What does Ball 2011 say that promoting academies and free schools have led to?

Answer 59

Increased fragmentation and increased centralisation of control over educational provision in England

Question 60

What is fragmented?

Answer 60

Comprehensive system is being replaced by a patchwork of diverse provisions, much of it involving private providers, that leads to greater inequality in opportunities

Question 61

What is centralisation of control?

Answer 61

Central government alone has the power to allow or require schools to become academies, or allow free schools to be set up. These are funded directly by government. Their rapid growth has greatly reduced the role of elected local authorities in education

Question 62

How did the coalition government aim to reduce inequality?

Answer 62

Policies such as free school meals (all children in reception, year 1 and year 2) and pupil premium (money that schools receive for each pupil from a disadvantaged background)

Question 63

What did Ofsted 2012 fund about pupil premium?

Answer 63

In many cases it isn’t spent on those it is supposed to help. Only 1 in 10 headteachers said it had significantly changed how they supported pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds

Question 64

What happened as part of the coalition government’s ‘austerity programme’?

Answer 64

Spending on many areas of education has been cut (spending on school buildings cut by 60%, Sure Start centres closed, EMA abolished and tuition fees tripled to £9000 a year)

Question 65

What do critics argue about these changes?

Answer 65

Cutting the sure start and EMA has reduced opportunities for working class pupils, and increased university fees may discourage them from higher education

Question 66

What is privatisation?

Answer 66

It involved the transfer of public assets such as schools to private companies, and there has been a trend in recent years towards the privatisation of important aspects of education, where education becomes a source of profit for capitalists

Question 67

What does Ball call this?

Answer 67

The education service industry (ESI)

Question 68

What are private companies in the ESI involved in?

Answer 68

Increasing range of activities in education, including building schools, providing supply teachers, work based learning, careers advice and Ofsted inspection services, and even running entire local education authorities

Question 69

What do large scale school building projects often involve?

Answer 69

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) in which private sector companies provide capital to design, build, finance, and operate educational services, typically with contracts lasting 25 years or more, during which time the local council pays a monthly lease and management fee out of public funds

Question 70

What did Ball 2007 find?

Answer 70

Many of these activities are very profitable. Companies involved in such work expect to make up to ten times as much profit as they do on other contracts. However local authorities are often obliged to enter into these agreements as the only way of building new schools because of lack of funding by central government

Question 71

What do many officials in the public sector, such as directors of local authorities and head teacher, now do?

Answer 71

Leave to set up or work for private sector education businesses. These companies then bid for contracts to provide services to schools and local authorities eg 2 companies set up in this way hold 4 of the 5 national contracts for school inspection services

Question 72

What does Pollack 2004 note?

Answer 72

The flow of personnel allows companies to buy ‘insider knowledge’ to help win contracts, as well as side-stepping local authority democracy

Question 73

How has education policy been globalised?

Answer 73

Many private companies in the ESI are foreign-owned, eg Edexcel the exam board is owned by the US educational publishing and testing giant, Pearson, and according to Ball, some Pearson GCSE exam answered are now marked in Sydney and Iowa

Question 74

What did Buckingham and Scanlon 2005 find?

Answer 74

The Uk’s four leading educational software companies are all owned by global multinationals (Disney, US toy companies Mattel and Hambro, and French media corporation Vivendi)

Question 75

How do educational services become globalised?

Answer 75

Many contracts for educational services in the UK are sold on by the original company to others such as banks and investment funds, then in a globalised world, they are often bought by overseas companies. Also some UK education business work overseas and provide services to deliver policies, making nation states less important in policymaking, which is shifting to a global level that is often privatised

Question 76

How does the private sector become involved in education indirectly?

Answer 76

Eg through vending machines on school premises and the development of brand loyalty through displays of logos and sponsorships

Question 77

What is the process of indirect private sector involvement known as?

Answer 77

The cola-isation of schols

Question 78

What did Molnar 2005 find?

Answer 78

Schools are targeted by private companies because ‘schools by their nature carry enormous goodwill and can thus confer legitimacy on anything associated with them’ (they are a kind of product endorsement)

Question 79

What are the benefits to schools and pupils of the private sector involvement?

Answer 79

They are very limited

Question 80

What did Ball find?

Answer 80

A Cadbury’s sports equipment promotion was scrapped after it was revealed that pupils would have to eat 5,440 chocolate bars to qualify for a set of volleyball posts

Question 81

What did Beder 2009 find?

Answer 81

UK families spent £110,000 in Tesco supermarkets in return for a single computer for schools

Question 82

What does Ball conclude?

Answer 82

A fundamental change is taking place in which privatisation is becoming the key factor shaping educational policy

Question 83

How is educational policy changing?

Answer 83

It is increasingly focused on moving educational services out of the public sector controlled by the nation-state, to be provided by private companies instead

Question 84

What is this process of privatisation doing to education?

Answer 84

Education is being turned into a ‘legitimate object of private profit making’, a commodity to be bough and sold in an education market

Question 85

What do marxists such as Hall 2011 see coalition government policies as?

Answer 85

Sees coalition government policies as part of the ‘long march of the neoliberal revolution’. See academies as examples of handing over public services to private capitalists such as educational businesses

Question 86

How do marxists view privatisation?

Answer 86

In their view, the neoliberal claim that privatisation and competition drive up standards is a myth used to legitimate the turning of education into a source of private profit

Question 87

How have educational policies affected gender?

Answer 87

In 19th century females were largely excluded from higher education. Under tripartite system girls had to get higher pass mark than boys for a grammar place. However since 1970s policies such as GIST have been introduced to try to reduce gender differences in subject choice

Question 88

How have educational policies affected ethnicity?

Answer 88

There have been several phases: assimilation, multicultural education and social inclusion

Question 89

What is assimilation?

Answer 89

Policies in 1960s-70s focused on need for ethnic minorities to assimilate into mainstream British culture as a way to raise achievement, especially to help those who didn’t have English as a first language. Examples of this are compensatory education programmes

Question 90

What did critics argue about assimilation?

Answer 90

Some minority groups who are at risk of underachieving, such as African Caribbean pupils already speak English, and that the real cause of their underachievement lies in poverty or racism

Question 91

What are multicultural education policies?

Answer 91

Policies through 1980s and into 1990s that aimed to promote achievement of ethnic minority pupils by valuing all cultures in school curriculum, and so raising minority pupils’ self esteem and achievements

Question 92

How have MCE been criticised?

Answer 92

Critical race theorists argue it is a tokenism, and picks stereotypical features of minority cultures for inclusion in curriculum but fails to tackle institutional racism. New Right say is perpetuates cultural divisions as they take the view that education should promote shared national culture and identity into which minorities should be assimilated

Question 93

How does Stone 1981 criticise MCE?

Answer 93

Argues that black pupils don’t fail due to lack of self esteem, so MCE is misguided

Question 94

What is social inclusion?

Answer 94

Social inclusion of pupils from minority ethnic groups, and policies to raise their achievement in late 1990s

Question 95

What did policies of social inclusion include?

Answer 95

Detailed monitoring of exam results by ethnicity, amending race relations act to place legal duty on schools to promote racial equality, help for voluntary ‘Saturday schools’ in black community, and english as an additional language programmes

Question 96

How does Mirza 2005 criticise social inclusion policies?

Answer 96

Sees little genuine change in policy and argues that instead of tackling structural causes of ethnic inequality such as poverty and racism, educational policy takes a ‘soft’ approach that focuses on culture, behaviour and the home

Question 97

What does Gillborn argue?

Answer 97

Institutionally racist policies in relation to the ethnocentric curriculum, assessment and streaming continue to disadvantage minority ethnic group pupils