Educational Policy And Inequality

Question 1

What was school like before the industrial revolution?

Answer 1

• There were no state schools.
• Education was only available to a minority of the population.
• Education received was dependent on class.

Question 2

What were the 3 types of schools in the tripartite system?

Answer 2

1. ) Grammar schools, mainly for middle class pupils who passed the 11+, it offered an academic curriculum and access to non-manual jobs and higher education.
2. )Secondary modern schools, mainly for the working-class who failed the 11+, offered a non academic or ‘practical’ curriculum and access to manual work.
3. )Technical schools

Question 3

How did the tripartite system cause greater inequality?

Answer 3

• Rather than promoting meritocracy, the tripartite system reproduced class inequality by channeling the two social classes into two different types of school that offered unequal opportunities.
• It also reproduced gender inequality by requiring girls to gain higher marks than boys in the 11+ to obtain a grammar school place.
  -It also legitimised inequality through the ideology that ability is inborn from as early as 11 year olds taking the 11+.

Question 4

What was the comprehensive school system (1965)

Answer 4

• The 11+, grammars and secondary moderns were all abolished and replaced them with comprehensive schools.
  -Although some areas still kept their grammar schools (council decision).
  -The aim was to reduce class inequality.

Question 5

Define marketisation

Answer 5

Marketisation refers to the process of introducing market forces of consumer choice + competition between suppliers into areas run by the state, such as education.

Question 6

How has marketisation created an ‘education market’

Answer 6

-Reduced direct state control over education.
-Increasing both competition between schools and parental choice of school.

-Marketisation has become a central theme of government education policy since the 1988 Education Reform Act.
-From 2010, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government took marketisation even further, e.g. by creating academies + free schools.
-The NR favour marketisation as it means schools have to attract customers by competing with each other in the market.

Question 7

What is parentocracy?

Answer 7

A parents ability to choose where their children go to school.

Question 8

Parentocracy; List some policies that promote marketisation?

Answer 8

• Publication of league tables and Ofsted inspection reports
• Business sponsorship of schools
• Open enrolment
• Specialist schools
• Formula funding

Question 9

The reproduction of inequality; What do Ball (1994) and Whitty (1998) say about marketisation?

Answer 9

They note how marketisation policies such as exam league tables and formula funding reproduce class inequalities by creating inequalities between schools.

Question 10

What does ‘cream-skimming’ suggest?

Answer 10

‘Good’ schools can be more selective, choose their own customers, mainly high achieving middle class pupils who then gain a further advantage.

Question 11

What is ‘silt-shifting’ ?

Answer 11

‘Good’ schools can avoid taking less able students who are likely to get poor results.

Question 12

According to Gerwitz, what are Privileged-skilled choosers?

Answer 12

-Mainly professional m/c parents who used there economic and cultural capital to take use of opportunities to get their students into the best schools.
-They knew how school admissions systems work, for example the importance of putting a particular schools first choice.
-Had time to visit schools.
-Economic capital meant they could pay extra for travel to reach ‘better’ schools.

Question 13

According to Gerwirtz, who are Disconnected-local choosers?

Answer 13

-W/C parents whose choices were restricted by their lack of economic and cultural capital.
-Found it hard to understand school admissions procedures.
-Less confident in their dealings with schools, less aware of choices open to them, + less able to manipulate the system to their own advantage.
-Many of them attached importance to safety + the quality of sports facilities than to league tables.
-Distance + cost of travel were major restrictions on their choice of school.

Question 14

According to Gerwirtz, what are Semi-skill choosers?

Answer 14

-Mainly W/C parents who were ambitious for their children but often relied on other opinions due to lack of economic and cultural capital to make their own definitive decision.
-Often frustrated at their inability to get their children into the schools they wanted.

Question 15

Why does Ball argue that parentocracy is a myth?

Answer 15

-The education system seems as if it is based on parents having a free choice of school.
-Ball argues parentocracy is a myth.
-In reality, as Gewirtz shows, m/c parents are better able to take advantage of the choices available.
-By disguising the fact that schooling continues to reproduce class inequality in this way, the myth of parentocracy makes inequality in education appear fair and inevitable.

Question 16

What New Labour policies from 1997 to 2010 reduced inequality? (Include criticism)

Answer 16

• Education Action Zones
• The aim higher programme, to raise aspirations of under-represented groups.
• Education Maintenance Allowances, payments to students from low-income backgrounds to encourage them to stay on after 16
• City academy’s
• Increased funding for state education

❌However, Benn (2012) sees a contradiction between Labour’s policies to tackle inequality + it’s commitment to marketisation.
❌For example, despite introducing EMAs to encourage poorer students to stay in ed, Labour also introduced tuition fees for higher education that may deter them from going to uni.

Question 17

What policies did the Coalition government bring about from 2010?

Answer 17

1. ) -Academies; From 2010 all schools were encouraged to leave local authority control and become academies.
   -Funding was given straight to academies by central government, giving them control over their own curriculum.
   -However, whereas Labour’s original city academies targeted disadvantaged schools + areas, the Coalition government, by allowing any school to become an academy, removed the focus on reducing inequality.
2. ) -Free schools; Schools set up and run by parents, teachers, faith organisations or businesses.
   -Supporters of free schools claim that they improve educational standards by taking control away from the state + giving power to parents.

❌Although stats from Sweden shows that they only benefit children from highly educated families.

Question 18

Fragmented centralisation; What is fragmentation?

Answer 18

Ball argues that promoting academies and free schools has led to both increased fragmentation + increased centralisation of control over educational provision in England.

Fragmentation: The comprehensive system is being replaced by a patchwork of diverse provision, much of it involving private providers, that leads to a greater inequality in opportunities.

Question 19

What is ‘Centralisation of control’?

Answer 19

Central government alone has the power to allow or require schools to become academies or allow free schools to be set-up. These schools are funded directly by central government. Their rapid growth has greatly reduced the role of elected local authorities in education.

Question 20

What coalition policies aimed to reduce inequality? (Include criticisms)

Answer 20

• FSM; for all children in reception, year one and year two.
• The Pupil Premium; money that schools receive for each pupil from a disadvantaged background.

❌However, Ofsted found that Pupil Premium is not always spent on those it is mean’t to help.
❌The co-alition also cut sure start centres and EMA’s + cut spending to schools.

Question 21

What are the 4 ways education has been privatised?

Answer 21

1. ) Blurring the public/private boundary
2. ) Privatisation and the globalisation of educational policy
3. ) The cola-isation of schools
4. ) Education as a commodity

Question 22

What policies are there on gender?

Answer 22

-The tripartite system, has led to girls achieving higher marks in the 11+ than boys in order to obtain a grammar school place.
-Policies such as GIST have been introduced to reduce gender differences in subject choice.

Question 23

What are the 3 phases of policies on ethnicity + achievement?

Answer 23

1.) Assimilation
2.) Multicultural education
3.) Social inclusion

Question 24

The 1944 Education Act

Answer 24

The 1944 Education Act brought in the tripartite system, so called because children were to be selected + allocated to one of three different types of secondary school.
-This was supposedly according to their aptitudes + abilities.
-These were to be identified by the 11+ exam.

Question 25

How do functionalists see comprehensive schools? (include criticism)

Answer 25

-Argue they promote social integration by bringing 2 classes together.
-See it is as more meritocratic because it gives pupils a longer period in which to develop + show ability, unlike the tripartite system that picked the most able students at age 11.

❌An early study by Julienne Ford (1969) found little social mixing between w/c + m/c pupils due to streaming.

Question 26

How do marxists see comprehensive schools?

Answer 26

-Argue they are not meritocratic, and instead reproduce class inequality from one gen to the next through the continuation of streaming + labelling.
-These continue to deny w/c children equal opportunity.
-By not selecting children at eleven, comprehensives appear to offer equal chances - ‘myth of meritocracy’

Question 27

The funding formula

Answer 27

-Schools are allocated funds by a formula based on how many pupils they attract.
-As a result, popular schools get more funds and so can afford better teachers + facilities.
-Again, their popularity allows them to be more selective + attracts more able/ambitious generally m/c applicants.

-Unpopular schools lose income + find it difficult to match teachers skills + facilities to rivals.
-Fail to attract pupils = funding further reduced.

Question 28

Gewirtz; parental choice

Answer 28

-By increasing parental choice, marketisation also advantages m/c parents, whose economic + cultural capital puts them in a better position to choose ‘good’ schools for their children.
-In Gewirtz’s study she found three main types of parents, who she calls privileged-skilled choosers, disconnected-local choosers, semi-skilled choosers.

Question 29

1.) Blurring the public/private boundary

Answer 29

-Many senior officials in the public sector, such as directors of local authorities and head teachers, now leave to set up or work for private sector education businesses.
-These companies then bid for contracts to provide services to schools.

Question 30

2.) Privatisation and the globalisation of educational policy

Answer 30

-Many private companies in the education services industry are foreign-owned.
-Edexcel is owned by US firm Pearson.
-Many contracts for educational services in the UK are sold on by the original company to others such as banks + investment funds.

Question 31

3.) The cola-isation of schools

Answer 31

-Vending machines on school premises + the development of brand loyalty through displays of logos and sponsorships.
-Molnar (2005) says schools are targeted by companies because ‘schools by their nature carry enormous goodwill and can thus confer legitimacy on anything associated with them.’
- Although the benefits to schools/pupils are often limited (Cadbury’s sports equipment, 5440 bars for a set of volleyball posts)

Question 32

4.) Education as a commodity

Answer 32

-Ball; Policy is increasingly focused on moving educational services out of the public sector controlled by the nation-state, to be provided by private companies instead.
-Marxists like Stuart Hall (2011) see Coalition government policies as a part of the ‘long march of the neoliberal revolution’. Hall sees academies as an example of handing over public services to private capitalists.

Question 33

Policies on ethnicity; 1.) Assimilation (Include criticism)

Answer 33

-In the 60s and 70s policies focused on the need for pupils from minority ethnic groups to as assimilate into mainstream British culture as a way of ^ achievement.
-Especially by helping those whom English was not their first language.

❌Some minority groups who are at risk of underachieving, such as African Caribbean pupils, already speak English + that the real cause of their underachievement = poverty or racism.

Question 34

Policies on ethnicity; 2.) Multicultural education (Include criticisms)

Answer 34

-MCE policies through the 80s and 90s aimed to promote the achievements of children from minority ethnic groups by valuing all cultures in the school curriculum.
-Thereby raising minority pupils’ self-esteem + achievements.

❌Stone (1981) argues that black pupils do not fail for lack of self-esteem.
❌Critical race theorists argue that the MCE picks out stereotypical features of minority cultures for inclusion in the curriculum, but fails to tackle institutional racism.
❌The NR criticise MCE for taking the view that education should promote a shared national culture + identity into which minorities should be assimilated.

Question 35

Policies on ethnicity; Social inclusion (include criticisms)

Answer 35

-Became the focus in the late 90s.
-Detailed monitoring of exam results by ethnicity.
-Amending the Race Relations Act to place a legal duty on schools to promote racial equality.
-Help for voluntary ‘Saturday schools’ in the black community.
-English as an Additional Language programmes.

❌However, Mirza (2005) argues that instead of tackling the structural causes of ethnic inequality (poverty + racism), educational policy still takes a ‘soft’ approach.