DJs - Education policies. Flashcards
What four issues is educational policy a response for?
- Equal opportunities
-Selection and choice
-Control of education
-Marketisation and privatisation
Explain what the 1944 Tripartite system was:
- Shaped by the idea of a meritocracy, this schooling system was based on the notion every child should be able to develop their talents to the full, and meant that children were to be selected and allocated to one of three schools based on the aptitudes and abilities they showed in the 11+ test.
What were the three types of schools within the 1944 Tripartite System?
-Secondary grammar schools: For children who ‘passed’ the 11+ exam. These children were mainly middle class. It offered an academic curriculum and access to non-manual jobs and higher education.
-Secondary modern schools: offered a non-academic, ‘practical’ curriculum and access to manual work for pupils who ‘failed’ the 11+ exam. These pupils were mainly working class.
-Technical schools. These existed in very few areas.
Provide three criticisms the labour government had of the 1944 Tripartite system:
1- Rather than promoting meritocracy and eradicating social class divisions, the TS was judged to be ‘socially diverse’ by reproducing class inequality. They argued it was an obstacle to equality and opportunity, as it channelled the two classes into two very different schools offering unequal opportunities.
2-They argued that the schools did not have ‘parity of esteem’
3- They said the TS legitimated inequality from the ideology that ability is inborn and that it can be measured in a single test.
A) When and why was the Comprehensive system brought in?
B) What was it?
C) Did every school become comprehensive?
A) In 1965, The labour government instructed LEAs to convert into a comprehensive system of secondary schooling. This aimed to overcome the class divide of the tripartite system and make education (and thus society) more meritocratic and egalitarian.
B) The 11+ exam was abolished and all pupils within the same catchment area would attend the same mixed ability comprehensive.
C) It was left to the LEA to decide if they wanted to ‘go comprehensive’ and so not all did. This particularly applied to conservative ran LEAs who favoured the TS.
What do functionalists think about the comprehensive system?
Give a criticism of this functionalist view:
- Functionalists argue that comprehensives promote social integration by bringing children of different social classes and abilities together in one school. They also see comprehensives as more meritocratic as it gives pupils a longer period of time to develop and show their abilities, rather than selecting pupils at the age of 11.
However, early research by Ford (1969) found little evidence of social integration as a result of setting and streaming.
A) What do Marxists think about the comprehensive system?
B) provide a criticism of this
A) They are critical of comprehensives, saying that they are not meritocratic. Rather, they reproduce class inequality from one generation to the next through streaming and labelling. By not selecting pupils at 11, it contributed towards the ‘myth of meritocracy’, by making failure look like it is fault of the individual rather than the system. They claim that the CS did not radically alter the education system because “tripartism continued under one roof’.
B) Still to do
Explain the link between marketisation and a certain government party:
-Marketisation in general, refers to the process of introducing forces of consumer choice and competition between suppliers into areas run by the state, such as education.
-Marketisation within the education system refers to the process of creating an ‘education market’ by reducing direct state control over education and increasing competition between schools.
-Marketisation has become a central theme of government education policy since the 1988 education reform act introduced by the conservative government of Thatcher
Conservative ERA policies:
A) What was the National curriculum policy?
B) How did this policy reflect marketisation.
A) This was an attempt to lay down a standardised national curriculum to ensure that schools and pupils concentrate on what they saw as the core and foundational subjects
B) By introducing a national curriculum, the government created a uniform set of learning standards that schools had to follow. This created measurable outcomes that could be used to access and compare school performance. This fostered competition between schools.
Give two criticisms of the National Curriculum policy:
1-Lawton (1989) argued that the NC undermined local democratic control of education and the independence of the teaching profession by centralising power in the hands of the government. He argued that the content of the NC was very traditional and unimaginative in its exclusion of certain subjects claiming that it neglected important areas of learning such as political understanding, economic awareness and many other cross-curricular themes.
2-Johnson (1991) also criticised it on the grounds that it denied certain types of knowledge as worthy of study while excluding others. He argued that the use of a single curriculum for all pupils based on a common culture (ethnocentrism) did not encourage equality of opportunity.
Conservative ERA policies:
A) What was the ‘Testing and Attainment Targets’ policy?
B) How did this policy reflect marketisation?
A) Attainment targets were established and SATs introduced to ensure targets were being met and maintained.
B) This created a framework where schools were directly accountable for student outcomes, much like businesses are accountable for their performance in a competitive market.
School’s performance in these tests could be compared, allowing parents to assess which schools were ‘better’.
Provide a criticism of SATs:
-Critics argue that SATs have turned education into a rat race. They claim that frequent formal testing of children at a young age can lead to labelling and that it changes the nature of education in a detrimental way.
Conservative ERA policies:
A) What was the ‘Publication of league tables and Ofsted inspection reports’ policy?
B) How did this policy reflect marketisation?
A) These tables and reports rank each school according to its exam performance e.g. SATs, GCSEs and A-Levels.
B) As exam performances became easily comparable, schools were now competing with each other for higher positions in these tables, as a higher ranking could attract more students. In a market context, businesses seek to improve their standing to gain a longer share of the market; schools were doing the same by aiming to improve their rankings.
Provide two critiques of the ‘Publication of league tables and Ofsted inspection reports’ policy:
1-Bartlett et al (1933) found that competing for high status positions in league tables encourages schools to engage in: ‘cream skimming’ - where good schools can afford to select the ‘best’ students (often high achieving, middle class pupils), and ‘silt-shifting’ - where ‘good’ schools can avoid taking less able pupils who may damage status, due to their abundance of applicants.
2- Critics say that league tables may not show how much value has been added by the school. In the past, table position was based on crude exam data, leading critics to argue that they revealed more about the social class backgrounds of the pupils rather than the quality of the school itself.
Conservative ERA policies:
A) What was the ‘Parental choice’ policy?
B) How did this policy reflect marketisation?
A) Parents were given the right to send their children to the school of their choice. To facilitate this, schools produced prospectuses including comparisons of their SATs and exam results with the national average.
B) This policy aligned closely with market principles. It fostered competition among schools to mimic a market system, and placed parents in the role of ‘consumers’ of education.
