Educational policy and inequality

Question 1

Selection: The tripartite system

Answer 1

From 1944 - education began to be influenced by the idea of meritocracy.
- Where individuals should achieve their status in life through their own efforts and abilities rather than it being ascribed at birth.

• 1944 Education act brought in the tripartite system.
  However reproduced class inequality by channelling the two social classes into two types of schools.
• SECONDARY AND GRAMMER SCHOOL (11+ EXAM)

Question 2

The comprehensive school system

Answer 2

Introduced from 1965 onwards.
Aimed to overcome the class divide of the tripartite system and make education more meritocratic.
- 11+ was abolished along with grammars and secondary moderns.
Replaced with comprehensive schools - all pupils would attend.

Question 3

Two theories of the role of comprehensives

Answer 3

— 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.

Question 4

Marketisation

Answer 4

Refers to the process of introducing market forces of consumer choice and competition.

Question 5

Marketisation - Parentocracy

Answer 5

— 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

Question 6

Marketisation - League tables and cream- skimming

Answer 6

BALL AND WHITTY - note how league tables and funding formula reproduce class inequality by creating inequalities between schools.

• BARTLETT notes league tables encourages:
• cream skimming - ‘good’ schools can be more selective, choose their own customers, high achieving students.
• Slit- shifting - ‘good’ schools can avoid taking less able pupils who are likely to get poor results.

Schools with poor league tables cant be selective - WC pupils

Question 7

Marketisation - funding formula

Answer 7

Schools are allocated funds by formula based on how many people they attract.
- popular schools = more funds, better teachers.
Unpopular schools - lose income, WC.

Question 8

Gewirtz: Parental choice.

Answer 8

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.

Question 9

The myth of parentocracy

Answer 9

Not only does marketisation reproduce inequality- conceals true causes.

BALL - believes that marketisation gives the appearance of a ‘parentocracy’
Education system seems as if it is based on parents having a free choice of school.
Middle class can and have an advantage and better choice available.

Question 10

New labour and inequality

Answer 10

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

Question 11

Conservative government policies from 2010 - Academies

Answer 11

From 2010, all schools were encouraged to leave local authority control and become academies.
- Funding was taken from local authority budgets and given to academies.
- 2017, 68% of all secondary schools had converted to academy status.

Question 12

Conservative government policies from 2010 - Free schools

Answer 12

Free schools are set up ad run by parents, teachers, faith organisations or businesses rather than local authority.
- Supporters of free schools claim that they improve educational standards by taking control away from the state - power to parents.

ALLEN - argues that research from Sweden. 20% of free schools , show that it only benefits children from highly educated families.

Question 13

Fragmented centralisation

Answer 13

BALL - argues that promoting academies and free schools have lead to increased fragmentation and increased centralisation of control of 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 greater inequality in opportunities
— centralisation of control : Central government alone has the power to allow schools to become academies or allow free school to be set up, the schools are funded directly by central government, The rapid growth has greatly reduced the role of local authorities in education

Question 14

Policies to reduce inequality

Answer 14

Introduced policies to reduce inequality:

-Free school meals - for all children in reception, year 1 and 2
-Pupil premium - Money that school receive for each student from a disadvantaged background.

Question 15

Privatisation of education - Blurring the public/private boundary

Answer 15

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 educational businesses
— these companies then bid for contracts to provide services to schools and local authorities
— for example 2 companies set up in this way hold 4/5 national contracts for School inspection services

POLLACK 2004 this flow of personnel allows companies to buy insider knowledge to help win contracts.

Question 16

Privatisation of education - Privatisation and the globalisation of education policy

Answer 16

Many private companies in the education services industry are foreign owned, The exam board Edexcel is owned by the US educational publishing and testing giant Pearson, according to Ball Son Pearson GCSE exam answers are marked in Sydney and Iowa.
— According to Buckingham and Scanlon, similarly the U.K.’s four leading educational software companies are all owned by global multinationals ( Mattel, Disney, Hambro, Vivendi) many contracts for educational services are sold on by the original company to others such as banks and investment funds — these are often bought by overseas companies.
— Nationstates are becoming less important in policy-making which is shifting to a global level and which is often privatised.

Question 17

Privatisation of education - Cola-isaion of schools

Answer 17

The private sector is also penetrating education indirectly.
— for example through vending machines on school premises and the development of brand loyalty through displays of logos and sponsorships this has been called the cola-isation of schools
— MOLNAR argue schools are targeted by private companies because schools by their nature carry enormous goodwill and can confer legitimacy on anything associated with them.
— benefits to school and pupils of this private sector involvement are very limited

Question 18

Privatisation of education - Education as a commodity

Answer 18

BALL concludes that a fundamental changes taking place in which privatisation is becoming a key factor shaping educational policy
— policies increasingly focused on moving educational services out of the public sector out of control of the nation-state to be provided by private companies instead.

Question 19

Privatisation of education - Policies on gender and ethnicity

Answer 19

Gender: in the 19th century females were largely excluded from higher education, more recently girls had to obtain a higher mark compared to the boys in the 11+ to obtain a grammar school place.

Ethnicity: policies aimed at raising the achievements of children from ethnic backgrounds have gone through several phases
Assimilation: policies in the 60s and 70s focused on the need for pupils from minority groups to assimilate into mainstream British culture as a way of raising the achievement, especially by helping those for who, English is not their first language

— multicultural education policies through the 80s into the 90s end of children from minority ethnic groups by valuing all cultures in the school curriculum.

STONE argues that black pupils do not feel due to lack of self-esteem so MCE is misguided
The new right criticise MCE for perpetuating cultural divisions.