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A-Level Sociology > Educational Policy and Inequality > Flashcards

Educational Policy and Inequality Flashcards

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1
Q

Define Educational Policy

A

Educational policy refers to the plan and strategies of education introduced by the Government such as the 2010 Academies Act which made it possible for all state schools to become academies.

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2
Q

Educational policies are a response to issues regarding what?

A
  • Equal opportunities
  • Selection and choice
  • Control of Education
  • Marketisation and Privatization
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3
Q

What were Education like prior to 1988?

A
  • late 1800s and early 1900s there were no state schools, just fee paying schools which predominately only benefitted the upper and middle class
  • Before 18333, the state spend no public money on education
  • Industrialization increased the need for an educated workforce and the state started to become more involved in education by making school compulsory for those of ages 5-13 in 1880
  • type of education children received depended on their class background- e.g. M.C were given an academic curriculum that prepares them for careers, W.C = basic numeracy and literacy skills (needed for routine factory work)
  • in 1938, only 20% of all children received a formal education after the age 14 (predominately rich children and male)
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4
Q

Since WW2, the aims of educational policies have been to/ how:

A
  • widen access and participation via raising the school leaving age and expanding higher education
  • Promote Equality of opportunity via the introduction of the comprehensive system
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5
Q

What is the 1944 Act, what did it do, and What did it introduce as a result (describe)?

A
  • The Butler Act
  • made secondary education universal and free for the first time
  • introduced the Tripartite System wherein students are selected and allocated to 1 of 3 different types of schools depending the results of their 11 + test
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6
Q

What is the Tripartite System based on (supposedly)?

A

based of the principles of meritocracy as student’s secondary school option are determined by their aptitude and abilities via the 11 + exam

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7
Q

what are the 3 different types of secondary school with description?

A
  • Grammar Schools- offered an academic curriculum and access to non-manual jobs and higher education. They were for pupils with academic abilities who passed the 11+ which were mainly M.C
  • Secondary Modern Schools- offered non-academic, practical curriculum and access to manual labor for pupil who failed the 11+ which are mainly W.C
  • Technical Schools- for pupils with a particular specialist talent in a particular vocation. Therefore, learn a specific trade like mechanic, engineering skills. Although, there were only a few technical schools
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8
Q

Criticisms of Tripartite System:

A
  • Marxists: rather than promoting meritocracy the system reproduces class inequality by channeling the 2 social classes into 2 different types of schools that offered unequal opportunities
  • Feminists: The system also reproduces gender inequality by requiring girls to gain higher marks than boys in the 11+ to obtain a grammar school place
  • legitimizes inequality through the ideology that ability is innate. it was thus argued that ability could be measured earlier on in life via the 11 + when in reality children’s environment greatly affected their chances of success
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9
Q

what is the comprehensive schooling system, its aim and when was it introduced?

A
  • 1965
  • Aimed to be more more egalitarian and overcome the class division created by the tripartite system by abolishing the 11 + along with grammar and secondary modern.
  • are local schools which do not select pupils on the basis of academic ability or class background
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10
Q

Define egalitarian?

A

Providing equal opportunities for all

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11
Q

What political party introduced Comprehensive schooling?

A

The Labor Party

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12
Q

what are Functionalist view on Comprehensive Schooling/why?

A
  • Functionalist view education as fulfilling essential functions such as social integration and meritocratic selection for future job roles thus view comprehensive as bringing children of different social class together in one school.
  • see comprehensive schooling as more meritocratic because it gave pupils longer periods in which to develop and showcase their ability unlike the tripartite system which sought to select the most able at 11
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13
Q

What are Marxists view on Comprehensive Schooling?

A
  • Argue not meritocratic but instead reproduce class inequality from one generation to the next through the continuation of the practice of streaming and labelling
  • The “myth of meritocracy” legitimates class inequality by making unequal achievement seem fair and just, because the failure is made to appears to look like it is the individuals fault rather than the system (through not selecting children at 11)
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14
Q

What is Meritocracy about?

A
  • Equal opportunities and everyone starting from a same playing field in educational environment
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15
Q

What study Rebukes Functionalists view on comprehensive schooling?

A
  • Study by Ford (1969) found that there is little social mixing between W.C and M.C because of streaming
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16
Q

Describe Catchment Zone?

A

An area from which an institution or service attract a population that uses it services. Therefore, it is the geographic area from which students are eligible to attend a local school.

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17
Q

what political party introduced Marketisation Policies and under who?

A

Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher

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18
Q

What is the Education Reform Act of 1988?

A

Introduced Marketisation to the education system which is favored by New Right sociologists

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19
Q

What is Marketisation?

A

Marketisation refers to the aim of making schools compete with one another for government funding because as the better the school does the previous year, the more funding the school receives the following year

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20
Q

How has Marketisation created an “education market”?

A

By reducing direct state control over education, increasing competition amongst schools and parental choices of school.

21
Q

What do New Right Sociologists belief that Marketisation mean?

A

That school will now be operated more like a business wherein they must compete amongst each other to attract consumers (parent) by establishing a good exam result reputation.

22
Q

Parentocracy: who coined it, what does it refer to, what does it do and what does it mean literally?

A
  • David (1993) coined the term parentocracy
  • refers to the idea that parents are in charge of the education system.
  • parentocracy is the power shift from schools to parents
  • rule by parents
23
Q

Marketisation Policies includes:

A
  • Exam League tables
  • Formula Funding
  • Standardized Testing
  • Ofsted Reports
  • National Curriculum
  • Open Enrolment
  • City Academies
  • Tuition Fees/ Bursaries
  • Expansion of faith schools/ specialist school
  • Choice to opt out of LEA control
24
Q

What are Ball and Whitty thoughts on Marketisation?

A

They believe that Marketisation reproduces and Legitimizes inequality in three main ways by creating inequalities between school.

25
Q

What are the 3 main ways Marketisation legitimizes inequality/ how?

A
  • League Table : publishing exam results in a league table ensures that achieving schools are more in demand and desired by parents. This then enables them the power to be more selective and recruit the best pupils via cream-skimming and silt-shifting, which are statistically middle class pupils, who as a result get the better education. Vice versa happens for schools with low league table ranking. They cannot afford to be selective and have to take the less able which consist of mainly working class pupil, so their results are poorer thus remain unattractive to middle class parents. The overall effect of league tables is thus to produce unequal schools and in turn reproduces social class inequalities.
  • The Formula Funding : School are allocated funds by a formula based on how many pupils they attract. Therefore more funds results in better facilities and qualified teachers. This causes inequalities as popular, over subscribed schools obtain more funds due to producing better results via their middle class pupils. The opposite occurs for unpopular, sink schools who instead loose funds because of failing to attract middle-class applicants. Hence producing class division once more.
  • The myth of Parentocracy : makes inequality in education appear to be fair and inevitable by appearing to give parents more choice. in reality, it is only middle class parents have the choices.
26
Q

Describe Gerwitz Study?

A

Gerwitz studies 14 London secondary schools and found that marketisation advantages middle class parents who were in better positions, due to their capital, to choose “good” for their children

27
Q

Name the 3 types of parents Gerwitz identified in her study?

A
  • Privileged-skilled choosers
  • Disconnected-Local choosers
  • Semi-skilled choosers
28
Q

What are Privileged-skilled Choosers?

A
  • professional middle class parents who use their economic and cultural capital to gain educational capital for their children. for example, they had the time to visit schools and the skills to research option and negotiate the best deals for their children.
  • Being prosperous, confident and well educated as well as knowing how the admission system worked enables them to exercise the choices available to them
29
Q

What are Disconnected-local choosers?

A

Working class parents whose choices were restricted by the lack of economic and cultural capital. They were less confident in knowing how the admissions worked and were less aware of the choices available to them. The lack of economic capital meant that their children were restricted to going to the local school due to travel expenses

30
Q

What are Semi-skilled choosers?

A

Working class parents who were ambitious for their children but lacked cultural capital and were frustrated by their inability to obtain a good school for their children

31
Q

When were the New Labor Years and Conservative Years?

A
  • The Conservative Era was between 1979-1997

- New Labor reigned 1997-2010

32
Q

What were the aims of Educational Policy during The New Labor Years and why?

A
  • Reducing inequality in achievement
  • Promoting greater diversity, choice and competition
  • it was believed that this would make Britain more competitive in the global economy and would turn the nation into a high skill, high waged economy
33
Q

what is Allen rebuke about Free School and what does UK evidence suggest along with it?

A
  • Allen (2010) argued that research from Sweden, where 20% of schools are free school, shows that they only benefit children from highly educated families.
  • UK: free schools takes fewer disadvantaged pupils than over nearby schools. For example, in 2011 only 6.4% of pupils at Bristol Free School were eligible for FSM compared with 22.5% of pupils across the city as a whole
34
Q

Coalition Government (New Labor) policies designed to reduce inequality:

A
  • Education Action Zone : Provide Additional resources to schools in areas of deprivation
  • Aim Higher Program : raises the aspiration of groups who are under represented in higher education
  • Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) : payment of £30 to students from low income families to encourage them to stay on in education post 16
  • Sure Start : 12 hours a week of free Nursery provision for children aged 2-4
  • City Academies : created to give a fresh start to struggling inner-city schools with mainly W.C pupils. Mostly funded by the state but are set up and run by parents, teachers, faith organization or businesses rather than local authority
35
Q

New Right Policies designed to improve standards:

A
  • Reduction of class size (primary) to 30
  • Literacy and Numeracy Hours - 1 hour per day of reading and math
  • Increased funds for State Education
36
Q

Positive Evaluation of New Labor Policies:

A
  • standards have improved and there is greater choice and diversity
  • SATS and GCSE scores have improved significantly
  • There are now greater diversity of Schools ( Specialist schools, Faith schools, City Academies)
  • Greater Variety of Subjects on can study = more choice
  • Established Learning Society (learning is more highly valued)
  • Created opportunities for Adults to relearn new skills
37
Q

Criticisms of New Labor are:

A
  • Benn argues that New Labor had contradictory policies - e.g. introduced EMA to encourage W.C pupils to stay in further education but increasing university tuition fee which may have deterred them from going to university
  • Despite Labor’s opposition to selective grammar schools and private schools, they have not abolished them
  • Have not improved equality of educational opportunities
  • The gap between M.C/W.C achievement continue to grow cuz of selection by mortgage, cream skimming/silt shifting, etc.
  • Gillborn and Youdell argue that more students have a negative experience of education in the A-C economy
  • Students are taught to the test, less able to think critically
  • Schools have become too test focused reducing real diversity of educational experience

-City Academies enable those with money to shape the curriculum

38
Q

Define Privatization and why local authorities enter into these agreements?

A

Involves the transfer of public assets such as schools to private companies.

  • Local Authorities are often obliged to enter into these agreements as the only way of building new schools because of a lack of funding by the government
39
Q

What did Cameron state the aim of the coalition’s educational policies was?

A
  • to encourage excellence, competition and innovation by freeing schools from state control
40
Q

Critique of privatization:

A
  • Hall (Marxist) sees academies as an example of handing over public services to private capitalists, such as educational businesses
  • The Neoliberal claim that privatization and competition drives standards is a myth used to legitimate the turning of education into a source of private profit
  • Ball highlights that the benefit of private sectors involvement in schools is very limited. For example, a Cadbury’s sports equipment promotion was scraped after it was revealed that pupils would have to eat 5440 chocolate bars just to qualify for a set of volleyball posts
41
Q

What is Cola-isation of Schools?

A

Private sectors penetrating education through vending machines on school premises and the development of brand loyalty through displays of logos and sponsorships.

42
Q

The Globalization of Educational Policies (fact):

A
  • Many private companies in the education services industry are foreign-owned. For example, Edexcel is owned by the US educational publishing and testing giant Pearson
  • Buckingham and Scanlon (2005) report that the UK’s four leading educational software companies are all owned by global
    multinationals such as Disney, Mattel, Hambro and vivendi
  • Some UK education businesses work overseas such as Prospects has worked in China, Macedonia and Finland
  • some Pearson GCSE Exam are Marked in Sydney and Lowa
43
Q

What are the Coalition Policies that reduce Inequality;

A
  • Free School Meals : for all children in reception, Y1/Y2

- Pupil Premium : money that schools receives for each disadvantage pupil they accept

44
Q

What has Education Become and what does Ball call this?

A
  • A source of profit for capitalist

- Educational service industry (ESI)

45
Q

Private companies in ESI are involved in what?

A
  • providing supply teachers
  • Building new schools
  • providing Ofsted Inspection services
  • Work-based learning
  • Careers advice
46
Q

What are Compensatory Education and what do they do?

A
  • programme designed to tackle problems of cultural deprivation by providing extra resources to school and communities in deprived areas
  • intervene early in the socialization process to compensate children for the deprivation they experience at home
47
Q

Examples of Compensatory Education schemes:

A
  • Operation Head Start (60s) : a pre-school scheme set up in deprived areas of USA to provide nursery classes, home visits by health visitors and improving parenting skills
  • Educational Action Zones (90s): set up in deprived inner city areas of the UK and involved local businesses providing cash for resources (e.g. computers) and work experience placement
  • Sure Start Centre (2010) : aim to provide education, support and health care to both parents and children in the most disadvantages areas of the UK
48
Q

outline 2 reasons why marketisation policies may produce inequality of educational achievement between social classes

A
  • Cream-skimming: successful can attract higher achievers who are more likely to be middle class whereas unsuccessful and failing school cannot be as selective as their opponent thus mostly attract working class pupils who have been silt-shifted to them
  • Parental choice of school. Middle class parents are able to use their cultural and economic capital to gain educational capital for their children.

A-Level Sociology (7 decks)

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