Educational Policy

Question 1

What are the key aims of educational policy?

Answer 1

=> Raising Educational Standards.
=> Creating equality of educational opportunity in a meritocratic society.
=> Economic Efficiency (developing the talents of youngsters to improve skills of the labor force by emphasizing vocational education - e.g., through provision of apprenticeships - to make the education system meet the needs of industry/employers.)

Question 2

Which policies are aimed at reducing social class inequality?

Answer 2

=> The pupil premium (e.g. free school meals).

=> Education action zones.

Question 3

Which changes were made to reduce gender inequality?

Answer 3

=> Abolition of the tripartite system (girls had to score higher than boys on 11+ to get into a grammar school).
=> GIST

Question 4

Which policies are aimed at reducing ethnic inequality?

Answer 4

=> Assimilation.
=> Multicultural education.
=> Social inclusion.

Question 5

What is the tripartite system?

Answer 5

=> Introduced in 1944.
=> Young people only had access to basic elementary education up until the age of 14.
=> Secondary schooling required fees which WC parents couldn’t afford.
=> 1944 Education Act provided free secondary education for all pupils, removing inequalities in educational opportunity.

Question 6

What are comprehensive schools?

Answer 6

=> Abolished the tripartite system.

=> Most children go to secondary school at age 11 with no selection by 11+, regardless of ability.

Question 7

What are the changes to the schools admission code?

Answer 7

=> Discrimination in admitting pupils to schools on the grounds of ability or socio-economic status of the parents is forbidden.
=> Designed to prevent schools from denying access to the most disadvantaged pupils.
=> Amendment proposed in 2014 to allow schools to discriminate in favor of the most disadvantaged pupils by giving priority to those eligible for pupil premium.

Question 8

What is ‘selection by ability’?

Answer 8

=> Schools intake is selected on the basis of academic ability, assessed in an 11+ exam.
=> Used to be the main form of selection for secondary school education under the tripartite system.
=> Now forbidden for all state-funded schools.

Question 9

What is ‘selection by aptitude’?

Answer 9

=> Pupils are selected on the basis of their aptitude (their potential to be good in certain subjects).
=> Specialist schools (which now include nearly all state-funded secondary schools)) are allowed to select up to 10% of students on the basis of their aptitude in some specialist subjects.

Question 10

What is ‘selection by faith’?

Answer 10

Religious schools may select a proportion of the pupils on the basis of religious beliefs and commitment of their parents.

Question 11

What arguments exist in support of selection by ability?

Answer 11

=> Classrooms containing pupils of all abilities, brighter children are held back by the slower pace of learning of the less able.
=> Brighter students can be ‘stretched’, rather than being held back by slow learners who are unable to cope with the work.

Question 12

What arguments exist against selection by ability?

Answer 12

=> Late developers benefit.
=> Fewer social divisions and more social cohesion through mixing.
=> Reduced risk of labelling and SFP.
=> Benefits for pupils of all abilities.

Question 13

What is the ‘open enrolment and parental choice’ policy?

Answer 13

=> A parent can apply for a place for their child at any state funded school in any area; if the school is under subscribed, it must accept that child.
=> Often described as a system of parental choice
=> Really a case of parents expressing a preference rather than a real free choice since most popular schools fill up quickly and are over subscribed, resulting in many parents not getting their first choice.

Question 14

What is the ‘admissions policy in over-subscribed schools’?

Answer 14

If a school is over-subscribed, pupils are admitted according to over subscription criteria which should comply with the school’s admissions code.

Question 15

What is the ‘covert selection’ policy?

Answer 15

=> Arguments exist that schools use backdoor social selection to cherry pick those pupils who they think are likely to be of higher ability and or from a higher social class.
=> Involves discouraging parents from poorer socio-economic backgrounds from even applying in the first place by giving them the impression the school is more suited and more appealing to m/c than w/c.

Question 16

Which government policies may have reduced social inequalities in education?

Answer 16

=> Abolition of the tripartite system; meant all pupils would go to the same type of secondary school.

=> Education maintenance allowances; provided financial support to enable poorer students to continue into further education.

=> Pupil premium; earmarks funds for schools to spend on meeting the needs of disadvantaged pupils.

=> Education action zones; targeted funds on schools in socially deprived areas to raise achievement.

=> Grants for higher education; make it easier for poorer students to attend university.

=> City academies were created; give a fresh start to struggling inner city schools with mainly w/c pupils.

=> Introduction of national literacy strategy; literacy and numeracy hours and reduction of primary school class sizes.

Question 17

What are the key aims of marketization?

Answer 17

=> Competition; making schools and colleges compete with one another for customers (students).

=> Choice; giving customers (parents and students) a choice of schools, enabling them to choose whatever education they feel is best suited to them.

=> Independence; allowing schools to operate like private businesses, and to control their own affairs.

Question 18

What are some examples of marketization policies?

Answer 18

=> Publication of league tables and OFSTED inspection reports that rank each school according to its exam performance and give parents the information they need to choose the right school.

=> Formula funding, where schools receive the same amount of funding for each pupil.

=> School diversity e.g. Specialist schools (e.g. specializing in IT, languages, etc) helps to widen parental choice.

=> Schools being able to opt-out of local authority control e.g. to become academies.

=> Allowing parents to set up free schools (marketized schools).

=> Business sponsorship of schools and private financing in building, maintaining, and running of some state schools (privatised schools).

Question 19

What are the criticisms of marketization?

Answer 19

=> League tables and cream-skimming/silt shifting.
=> Funding formula.
=> Marketization benefits m/c parents who are in a better position to choose ‘good’ schools for their children as a result of their economic and cultural capital.

Question 20

In what two ways has globalization impacted on educational policy?

Answer 20

=> Privatization/marketization of education; education is a multi-billion pound global market and large, multi-national companies are seeking to gain access to these vast markets.
=> International comparisons; huge range of international data available on all aspects of education, including various international student achievement surveys, comparing the educational performance of a a range of countries.

Question 21

What is PISA?

Answer 21

=> Programme for International Student Assessment.

=> Involves conducting tests in mathematics, science and reading amongst representative samples of between 325,000 and over 600,000 9-15 y/o students drawn from around 50-65 countries every 3-5 years. Data is then ranked in the form of league tables to show the relative performance of different countries.

=> Results are used by participating countries to monitor their education systems in a global context, and to help inform social policy.

Question 22

Why do governments introduce educational policies?

Answer 22

=> To improve the education system for all.

=> To promote meritocracy in society.

Question 23

What are most educational policies a response to?

Answer 23

=> Equal opportunities.
=> Selection and choice (types of schools/types of pupils/parents involvement)
=> Control of education (should it be controlled by the governments, parents, local councils, schools, businesses or teachers?)
=> Marketization and privatization (should they operate like businesses within an ‘education market’?)

Question 24

Why do many sociologists criticise educational policies?

Answer 24

They see educational policies as playing an important part in recreating and justifying educational inequality.

Question 25

What are the key aims of educational poicy?

Answer 25

=> Economic efficiency.
=> Raising educational standards.
=> Creating equality of educational opportunity in a meritocratic society.

Question 26

What do Marxists argue about the role of comprehensive schools?

Answer 26

=> They are not meritocratic.
=> They reproduce class inequalities from one generation to the next through the continuation of the practice of streaming and labelling.
=> They continue to deny w/c children equal opportunity.

Question 27

What do Functionalists argue about the role of comprehensive schools?

Answer 27

=> They promote social integration by bringing children of different social classes together in a single school.
=> See them as more meritocratic as they give 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 11.

Question 28

What did Ford’s study find about comprehensive schools?

Answer 28

It found little social mixing between w/c and m/c pupils, largely due to streaming.

Question 29

What are the pros and cons of the tripartite system?

Answer 29

+ Different ability students get the support they need for their ability e.g., academic students are prepared for university.
+ Resources can be better targeted towards students’ needs.
+ Less able don’t feel inferior and the more able aren’t held back.
+ Exposure to different ‘cultural traditions’.
- 80% of students felt like ‘failures’ at the age of 11 which could be detrimental to their emotional and academic development.
- Most children develop after the age of 11.
- Exams were biased in favor of m/c students and males (because girls had to achieve a higher result).
- Divided children from different backgrounds.

Question 30

What are the pros and cons of the comprehensive system?

Answer 30

+ One education for all - fairness! No entrance exam so all are treated fairly.
+ Brings together children from different social classes.
+ Larger schools which were cheaper to run.
+ Schools serve their local catchment area.
- No choice for parents, children have to attend a local school.
- The curriculum has been dumbed down.
- Some catchments are more m/c than others; so social mixing doesn’t always happen.
- The most able tend to suffer as teachers ‘teach to the middle’. Sets are used in some subjects, which divide children by ability.

Question 31

What are the benefits of marketization?

Answer 31

=> Government/state control over education is reduced.
=> Schools are forced to attract customers by competing with each other, forcing them to operate like independently managed private businesses.
=> Schools become more independent, self-governing institutions, competing with one another for students in an educational market, based on consumer choice; those that provide consumers with what they want - i.e. success in exams - will thrive, while those that don’t will fail/’go out of business’.

Question 32

How has marketization led to school diversity?

Answer 32

=> There has been a growing range of different state-funded school types since the 1980s, to satisfy consumer (parent) choice.
=> Promotion of school diversity is accompanied by encouraging ‘partners’ like private businesses, universities and colleges, community and parent groups, and education charities to become more involved in running schools, and to help raise standards by using their expert knowledge or enthusiasm.