Education Policy In Britain

Question 1

What are the Five major policy issues

Answer 1

1 Selection and Choice
2 Inequality/ Equality
3 Comprehensivisation
4 Marketisation and Privatisation
5 Who should Influence education policy

Question 2

Describe Education Policies Pre-1944

Answer 2

Basic education for all was only provided by the state from the 19th century- and then only up to the age of 13. Most working-class children only received this very basic education. This was all that was needed for working in factories and mines. Middle-class children, boys in particular, could afford to attend private schools

Question 3

Which Education policy act was created in 1944?

Answer 3

The 1944 Education Act

Question 4

What did the 1944 Education act bring in?

Answer 4

The Tri-partite system of post-11 education

Question 5

Describe the Tri-partite system

Answer 5

There were two types of schools funded by the state and run by local councils. Which type a pupil attended was determined by whether they passed an 11+ exam.
The two types were:
- Grammar schools
- Secondary Modern school

Question 6

Describe Grammar schools

Answer 6

Gave an academic education to those who passed the 11+ - mainly middle-class pupils.

Question 7

Describe Secondary Modern schools

Answer 7

Had a non-academic curriculum which led to manual work jobs- mainly attended by working-class pupils.

Question 8

What % of pupils attended grammar schools?

Answer 8

20%

Question 9

What are the five criticisms of the grammar/secondary modern school system?

Answer 9

• 11+ culturally biased towards white, middle-class pupils
• Intelligence is impossible to measure objectively
• Idea of ‘academic’, ‘technical’ and ‘practical’ intelligences is very dubious.
• Wealthy parents could still obtain an academic education for their children even if they had failed the 11+ exam.

Question 10

What do Marxists claim the 11+ and the tripartite system did?

Answer 10

• Reproduced class inequality by channelling the two social classes into two social classes into two different types of school that offered unequal opportunities
• Legitimated inequality through the ideology that ability is inborn. It was thus argued that ability could be measured early on in life, through the 11+. However, in reality children’s environment greatly affects their chances of success.

Question 11

How did the Tripartite system reproduce gender inquality?

Answer 11

It required girls to gain higher marks than boys in the 11+ to obtain a grammar school place (because there were less all girls grammar schools than all boys grammar schools and all grammar schools were single sex only)

Question 12

What was the tripartite system largely replaced by and when?

Answer 12

By comprehensive education from the mid-1960s in most areas. However, not all schools went comprehensive

Question 13

Approximately how many schools decided not to go comprehensive in Britain?

Answer 13

About 160 grammar schools and 500 secondary moderns

Question 14

Describe the introduction of comprehensive schools

Answer 14

• Most of the pressure for comprehensives came from the Labour governments which saw that the tripartite system just reproduced educational and social inequalities.
• All pupils in an area would attend the same school and have the same educational opportunities.
• There would be no selection or different types of schools/education
• Pupils would have more opportunities to gain qualifications

Question 15

What are the criticisms of comprehensive education?

Answer 15

• The New Right claimed that comprehensives have resulted in the ‘dumbing down’ of educational provision, with academically stronger students being ‘held back’.
• Inequality continued within comprehensive schools through setting and streaming- ‘the tripartite system under one roof’

Question 16

What did Functionalists argue about the role of comprehensives?

Answer 16

• Argue that comprehensives promote social integration by bringing children of different social classes together in one school.
• Also see the comprehensive system as more meritocratic because it gives pupils a longer period in which to develop and show their abilities, unlike the tripartite system, which sought to select the most able pupils at the age of eleven.

Question 17

Which sociologists conducted an early study which countered functionalist theory on the role of comprehensives?

Answer 17

Julienne Ford (1969)

Question 18

What did Julienne Ford (1969) find in her study of comprehensive schools?

Answer 18

Found little social mixing between working-class and middle-class pupils, largely due to streaming.

Question 19

What did Marxists argue about the role of comprehensives?

Answer 19

• Argue that comprehensives are not meritocratic. Rather, they reproduce class inequality from one generation to the next through the continuation of the practice of streaming and labelling, which continue to deny working-class children equal opportunity.
• Legitimates class inequality by making unequal achievement seems fair and just, because failure is the fault of the individual rather than the system.

Question 20

Describe how the governments of 1979-97 saw education?

Answer 20

• As failing to provide a sufficiently skilled workforce.
• Britain’s’ lack of industrial competitiveness was partly blamed of schools.
• Also believed that the schools were failing pupils and needed to raise the standard of education.

Question 21

What were the five things the Conservative’s education policy wanted to do?

Question 21

What were the five things the Conservative’s education policy wanted to do?

Answer 21

• Raise standards by making schools compete with each other- creating an ‘education market’
• Increase parental choice
• Establish greater government control over what was taught in schools.
• Reduce the influence of Local Education Authorities (LEAs)
• Introduce vocational education

Question 22

Define Marketisation

Answer 22

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 23

What two things did marketisation do?

Answer 23

• reduced direct state control over education

- Increased both competition between schools and parental choice over which school their child should attend