EDUCATION - policies on gender and ethnicity

Question 1

gender - pre-1975 and post-1975 (intro of the comprehensive by Lab)

Answer 1

pre-1975 - women largely excluded from higher education and under the tripartite system, girls had to achieve higher than boys in the 11+ to gain a seat at a grammar school.

since the 1970s, policies like GIST have been introduced to try and reduce gender differences in subject choice.

Question 2

ethnicity

assimilation

Answer 2

1960s + 1970s - policies focused on POC groups to assimilate them into mainstream British culture to raise their achievement by helping those who don’t speak English as their first language.

eval - many POC who are at risk of underachieving already speak English and the real cause of their underachievement at school is racism.

Question 3

ethnicity

multicultural education (MCE)

Answer 3

1980s + 1990s - aimed to promote on celebrating diversity and the achievements of POC students from all minority ethnic backgrounds by valuing all cultures in the school curriculum which would raise POC self-esteem etc.

Question 4

ethnicity

eval of MCE

Answer 4

Critical Race Theorists argue MCE is tokenism and that it picks stereotypical features of minority cultures for inclusion of the curriculum but fails to tackle institutional racism.

Question 5

ethnicity

social inclusion

Answer 5

late 1990s - policies to include POC more and see where they may be falling short; detailed monitoring of exam results by ethnicity, amending Race Relations Act 1976 to place a legal duty on schools to promote equality etc.

Question 6

ethnicity

eval of social inclusion

Answer 6

Gillborn argues that institutionally racist policies like ethnocentric curriculum, assessment of streaming all continue to disadvantage POC.