Educational Policy And Inequality Flashcards
`Educational policy before 1988
Before the industrial revolution in the late 18th and early 19th century there were no state schools — education was only available to a minority of the population. — industrialisation increase the need for educated workforce and from the late 19 century the state going to become more involved. Reflecting the growing importance of education the the state made edu compulsory from the ages of 5 to 13 in 1880.  — The type of education children received in this period depended on the class background : working class pupils were giving us calling to equip them with basic numeracy and digital skills needed for routine factory work whereas middle-class pupils were given an academic curriculum to prepare them for careers in the professions office work.
Educational policy before 1988
Tripartite system
The 1944 education act but in the tripartite system, so-called due to children being selected and allocated to one of three different types of secondary school according to their abilities. This was decided through the 11+ exam.
— grammar schools offered an academic curriculum and access to non-manual jobs and higher education these with pupils with academic ability who had passed the 11+ (mainly middle-class)
— secondary modern schools offered a non-academic practical curriculum and access to manual work for pupils without the 11+ (working class)
— technical schools existed in a few areas only so it was more a bipartite system
— rather than promoting meritocracy the tripartite system and 11+ reproduce class inequality by channelling the two social classes in two different types of school that offered unequal opportunities — it also legitimised class inequality through the ideology that ability is inborn, and can be measured early on in life however in reality children’s environment greatly affects the chances of success.  
Educational policy before 1988
Comprehensive school system
Was introduced in many areas from 1965. need to overcome the class divide of the tripartite system and make education more meritocratic. — The 11+ was to be abolished along with grammars and secondary moderns, and replaced by comprehensive schools. Not all areas decided to go comprehensive cancel the grammar secondary modern divide still exists in many areas.
Two theories of the roles of comprehensive
— Functionalists argue that comprehensive promote social integration by bringing children of different social classes together into one school however an early study by Ford found little social mixing between working class and middle class pupils due to streaming — marxists argue that comprehensive meritocratic they reproduce class inequality from one generation to the next with a continuation of practice of streaming and labelling.
Marketisation
Supermarket : All competing to have the best product for the cheapest
Marketisation
Parentocracy
— David 1993 describes marketise education as a parentocracy (rule by parents)
— supporters of marketisation argue that in education market power shifts away from the producers (teachers/schools) to the consumers (parents).
— they claim this encourages diversity among schools, gives parents more choice and raises standards.
EXAMPLES
- publication of league tables results and OFSTED reports
- Business sponsorship of schools
- schools specialising in IT, languages et cetera to widen parental choice
- Schools having to compete to attract pupils
Marketisation
Reproduction of inequality
Despite the claim benefits of marketisation and critics argue that it has increased inequalities for example Paul and Whitty note how marketisation policies such as publishing league tables and funding formula reproduce class inequality by creating inequalities between schools.
Cream-Skimming
‘Good Schools’ could be more selective and choose their customers and recruit high achieving mainly middle-class pupils - as a result they gain an advantage
Silt shifting
Good schools can avoid taking less able pupils who are likely to get poor results and cause damage to schools league table position.
Schools W poor league table results
The opposite applies they cannot afford to be selective and have to take less able mainly working class pupils so their results are poor and they remain unattractive to middle-class parents — The overall effect of league tables is to produce unequal schools that reproduce social class inequalities
Marketisation
The funding formula
Schools are allocated funds by a formula based on how many people they attract
— popular schools get more friends and talking afford better qualified teachers
— unpopular schools lose income and find it difficult to match the teacher skills of the more successful rivals
— popular schools with good results thrive ; unpopular schools fail to attract pupils and the funding is reduced
Marketisation
Gewirtz parental choice
Gewirtz found that differences in parents economic and cultural capital lead to class differences in how far they can exercise choice of secondary school — privileged skill choosers : mainly professional middle-class parents who use the capital to gain educational capital for their children. they possessed cultural capital a new high school admission systems work, their economic capital also meant they could afford to move the children around the education system to get the best deal out of it for example by paying extra travel cost of the children could attend better schools out of the area. — disconnected-local choosers : these were working-class parents have choices were restricted by the lack of capital. They found it difficult to understand admission procedures, they were less confident in dealings with schools. Distance and travel cost for major restrictions on the choice of school due to limited funds a place at the nearest school is often the only realistic option for the children. — semi-skilled choosers : these parents but also mainly working class but unlike the disconnected they were ambitious for their children,  they lacked cultural capital and found it difficult to make sense of the education market they had to rely on other peoples opinions about schools.
Although in theory the education market gives everyone greater choice the conclusion that in practice middle-class parents possess cultural and economic capital and have more choice than working-class parents makes the most sense. 
Marketisation
Myth of parentocracy
Ball believes that marketisation gives the appearance of a parentocracy — it makes it appear all parents have the same freedom to choose which school to send a child to — in reality, middle-class parents are better able to take advantage of the choices made available due to the capital they possess. — by disguising the fact that schooling continues to reproduce inequality in this way the myth of parentocracy makes inequality seem fair and inevitable.
Marketisation
New labour and inequality
while marketisation policies have tended to increase inequality the new labour government of 1997-2010 also introduced a number of policies aimed at reducing it
— designated some deprived areas as education action zones and providing them with additional resource
— the aim higher program to raise the aspirations of groups who are under represented in higher education
— educational maintenance allowance is which are payments to students from low income backgrounds to encourage them to stay on after 16 to gain better qualifications. 
— despite introducing EMA is to encourage poor students to stay in education labour also introduced tuition fees for higher education that may deter them from going to university
Conservative govt policies from 2010
Academies
From 2010 all the schools are encouraged to leave local authority and become academies, funding was taken away from local authority budgets and given directly to academies, and academies were given control over the curriculum. 
— by 2017 almost 68% of secondary schools are converted to academies
— Whereas labours original academies targeted disadvantaged all the areas the new government by allowing any school to become an academy remove the focus on reducing inequality
