CARDS NEED TO BE MADE SHORTER Educational Policy and Inequality

Question 1

Briefly describe the main features of the tripartite system.

Answer 1

The 1944 Education Act brought the tripartite system, so called because children were to be selected and allocated to one of three different types of secondary schools. These were to be identified by the eleven plus exam.
The three schools included grammar schools, secondary modern schools and technical schools (although these only existed in a few areas, so it was more of a bipartite system).

Question 2

Briefly explain the main features of the comprehensive school system.

Answer 2

The comprehensive school system was introduced in 1965. It aimed to overcome the class divide of the tripartite system and make education more meritocratic. The 11+ exam was to be abolished along with grammar and secondary modern schools.
However, it was left to the local education authority to decide whether to 'go comprehensive'.

Question 3

What is the difference between what the Marxists and the functionalists think of the roles of comprehensive schools?

Answer 3

Functionalists argue that comprehensive schools promote social integration by bringing children different social classes together in one school. However, Ford found little social mixing between working class and middle class, largely because of streaming. 
Functionalists also argue that the comprehensive system is more meritocratic because it gives pupils a longer period to develop and show their abilities,  unlike the tripartite system, which sought to select the most able pupils at the age of 11. 
However, the Marxists argue that comprehensives are not meritocratic. Rather, they reproduce class inequality from one generation to the next through the continuation of streaming and labelling.  These continue to deny working class children equal opportunity.

Question 4

Define marketisation.

Answer 4

Marketisation 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 5

Which sociological perspectives favour marketisation?

Answer 5

Neoliberals and New Right

Question 6

What is parentocracy?

Answer 6

Parentocracy is ‘rule by parents’. Power is shifted from producers to consumers. They claim that this encourages diversity among schools, gives parents more choice and raises standards.

Question 7

Define cream-skimming.

Answer 7

‘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 8

Define silt-shifting.

Answer 8

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

Question 9

How do league tables enable cream-skimming and silt-shifting to take place?

Answer 9

Because schools with poor league tables have the opposite occur. They cannot afford to be selective and have to take less able, mainly working class pupils, so their results are poorer and they remain unattractive to middle-class parents.

Question 10

What is the impact of the funding formula on differences between schools?

Answer 10

The funding formula is when schools are allocated funds by a formula based on how many pupils they attract. As a result, popular schools get more funds and so can afford better-qualified teachers and better facilities.
On the other hand, unpopular schools lose income and find it difficult to match the teacher skills and facilities of their successful rivals.

Question 11

Describe the characteristics of the following types of parents identified by Gewirtz.
Priviliged-skilled choosers
Disconnected-local choosers
Semi-skilled choosers

Answer 11

Priviliged-skilled choosers - Professional middle class parents who use their economic and cultural capital  to gain educational capital for their children. 
Disconnected-local choosers - Working class parents whose choices were restricted by their lack of economic and cultural capital. 
Semi-skilled choosers - These parents were also mainly working class, but unlike the disconnected-local choosers, they were ambitious for their children. However, they lacked the cultural capital and found it difficult to make sense of the education market.

Question 12

Explain why Ball argues that parentocracy is a myth.

Answer 12

He says that it makes it appear that all parents have the same freedom to choose which school to send their children to.

Question 13

List the New Labour policies aimed at reducing inequality.

Answer 13

Designating some deprived areas as Education Action Zones and providing them with additional resources.
The Aim Higher programme to raise the aspirations of groups who are under-represented in higher education.
Education Maintenance Allowances: payments to students from low income backgrounds to encourage them to stay on after 16 to gain better qualifications.

Question 14

What is the ‘New Labour Paradox’?

Answer 14

A contradiction between Labour’s policies to tackle inequality and its commitment to marketisation.

Question 15

Give a brief outline of the following policies:
Academies
Free Schools

Answer 15

From 2010, all schools were encouraged to leave local authority control and become academies. Funding was taken from local authority budgets and given directly to academies by central government, and academies were given control over their curriculum.
Free schools are set up and run by parents, teachers, faith organisations or businesses rather than local authority.

Question 16

What criticisms have been made of free schools?

Answer 16

Allen argues that research from Sweden, where 20% of schools are free schools, shows that they only benefit children from highly educated families.
Other critics claim that free schools are socially divisive and that they lower standards.

Question 17

Define fragmentation.

Answer 17

The comprehensive system is being replaced by a patchwork of diverse provision, much of it involving private providers, that leads to greater inequality in opportunities.

Question 18

Define centralisation.

Answer 18

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

Question 19

What criticisms have been made of the Pupil Premium?

Answer 19

Ofsted found that the Pupil Premium is not spent on those it is supposed to help.

Question 20

What Coalition policies may have reduced opportunities for working class pupils?

Answer 20

SureStart and the EMA.

Question 21

Summarising blurring the public/private boundary.

Answer 21

Many senior officials in the public sector, such as directors of local authorities and head teachers, now leave to set up or work for private sector education businesses. These companies that bid for contracts to provide services to schools and local authorities.

Question 22

Summarise privatisation and the globalisation of education policy.

Answer 22

Many private companies in the education services industry are foreign owned. The exam board Edexcel is owned by the US educational publishing and testing giant Pearson, and according to Ball some Pearson GCSE exam answers are now marked in Sydney and Iowa.

Question 23

Summarise the cola-isation of schools.

Answer 23

The private sector is penetrating schools indirectly, for example through vending machines on school premises and the development of brand loyalty. Molnar sees schools as a kind of product endorsement.

Question 24

Summarise education as a commodity.

Answer 24

Ball concludes that a fundamental change is taking place in which privatisation is becoming the key factor of shaping educational policy. Policy is increasingly focused on moving educational services out of the public sector controlled by the nation-state, to be provided by private companies instead. In the process, education is being turned into a ‘legitimate object of profit making’, a commodity to be bought and sold in education market.

Question 25

List some policies relating to gender.

Answer 25

Since the 1970s, policies such as GIST have been introduced to try and reduce gender differences in subject choice.

Question 26

Summarise assimiliation policies.

Answer 26

In the 1960s and 70s they focused on the need for pupils from ethnic minority groups to assimilate into mainstream British culture as a way of raising their achievement , especially for those for whom English is not their first language.
However, critics argue that some minority groups are already at risk of underachieving because although they are already speak English, the real cause of their underachievement lies in poverty and racism.

Question 27

Summarise multicultural education.

Answer 27

Policies through the 1980s and the the 1990s that aimed to promote the achievements odf children from ethnic minority groups by valuing all cultures in the school curriculum, thereby raising minority pupils’ self esteem and achievements.

Question 28

Summarise social inclusions.

Answer 28

Social inclusion of pupils from ethnic minority groups, and policies to raise their achievement, became the focus in the late 1990s. Some policies include:
Detailed monitoring of exam results by ethnicity.
Amending the Race Relations Act to place legal duty on schools to promote racial equality.
Help for voluntary ‘Saturday Schools’ in the black community.
English as an Additional Language programme

Question 29

Name three policies to promote marketisation.

Answer 29

Schools having to compete to attract pupils.
Introduction of tuition fees for higher education.
Allowing parents and others to set up free schools.

Question 30

What is Pupil Premium?

Answer 30

Money that schools receive for each pupil from a disadvantaged background.