educational policy and inequality Flashcards
What 4 things led to educational policies?
Equal opportunities
Selection and choice
Control of education
Marketisation and privatisation
What are the 2 main purpose of the 1988 Education Reform Act (ERA)?
-Marketisation
-National education system
What are the 3 key features of the national education system in the 1988 ERA?
Explain
-League tables, academic achievement comparison between schools
-GCSEs, all schools required to teach core subjects at GCSE level
-National curriculum, all pupils learning the same subject content at the same time
What is marketisation in education?
How does this compare to general marketisation?
Making schools compete with one another for pupils and government funding
Like businesses do with customer sales and profit
What are the 3 main policies in education?
1988 Education reform act (ERA)
1997 Policies
2010 Policies
Prior to the 1988 ERA, what did education look like in the 1944 Education act
Schools were organised by the ‘tripartite system’:
-Grammar schools (high-achieving)
-Secondary technicals (creative)
-Secondary moderns (gen pop)
What are the 3 critisisms of marketisation in education?
Myth of parentocracy
Cream skimming
Skilled privileged choosers
What was the problem with the 1944 Education act? (2)
What does this create?
-Girls were at a disadvantage: weren’t as many places for girls and they had to get higher scores on 11+
-Middle class benefit most from the tripartite system because of their resources, cultural advantage e.g. speech codes
Creates a sense of failure or rivalry
What is parentocracy?
Why does Ball argue that this is a myth?
Explain
Rule of parents, power shifts from the teachers to parents e.g. league tables (parents can choose schools)
Not all parents have the same freedom to choose which school to send their children to
Middle class parents can afford to live in catchment areas (more desirable schools)
*Gewirtz reference
According to Gewirtz, what are ‘skilled privileged choosers’?
What 4 advantages do they have?
MC parents who used their economic background and cultural capital to gain education capital for their children
1. Know how school admission systems work
2. Have time to visit schools
3. Skills to research the options available
4. Can afford catchment areas, and to travel to meet their childs needs
What is the idea of cream skimming?
What are they avoiding by doing this? Why?
Overall, what does cream skimming attract?
Good schools can be more selective, choosing high achieving and MC students
Taking less able students, who will likely get poor results, they can damage the schools position in the league table
Parents to high ranking schools, likely MC
In what 3 ways did 1997 policies introduce diversity?
- Specialised schools (e.g. tech, maths schools)
- Faith schools
- Special needs schools
What 3 policies were aimed to reduce inequality in 1997 policies?
Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA)
AimHigher
Surestart
What was the aim of the AimHigher policy? Who was it aimed at?
How did this policy work?
How much did this cost the government in 2004?
Aimed at 6th form students, encouraging them to apply to higher education
Schools organised trips and encouraged them to apply
£136 million
What was the aim if the Education Maintenance Allowance policy? Who was it aimed at?
How did this policy work?
How much did this cost the government per year?
Aimed at those aged 16+, encouraging them to join 6th form
Given £30 a week to attend 6th form +bonuses
£500 million
What was the aim of the Surestart policy? Who was it aimed at?
How did the policy work?
In 2010, how much was each eligible child entitled to?
Aimed at pre-school children and their parents, encouraged cultural capital and helped with health benefits and housing
Set up 524 centres in areas with material depravation
£5000
Did the 3 policies aimed at reducing inequality work? Why? (2)
No
1. Funding was inadequate, not enough money
2. Money was poorly directed, money wasn’t spent well/monitoired
What are the 3 features of 2010 policies?
Academies
Free schools
Pupil premium
What were schools encouraged to do in 2010?
What happened by 2012?
How does this reduce inequality?
Leave local authority control and become academies
More than half of secondary schools had converted to academies
Reduces authority control>reduces marketisation
What are free schools?
How does this reduce inequality?
Who did this take control from?
Funded by the government but set up and ran by parents and teachers
They have the opportunity to create a new school if they are unhappy with the state schools
Local authority
What is pupil premium?
How much do primary and secondary schools recieve?
Money that schools receive for each pupil, from a disadvantaged background
Primary- £1345
Secondary- £955
What 3 ways is pupil premium spent? 2 examples each
- General teaching e.g. recruiting, training staff
- Support for disadvantaged children e.g. meals, tuition
- Wider areas e.g. trips, clubs
What is a strength of the impact of pupil premium?
The attainment gap has decreased in the last 10 years
What are 3 problems with pupil premium?
-Schools often spend it to plug gaps in school funding
-Schools aren’t receiving enough funding, which is the problem, so pupil premium cannot make this up
-Schools aren’t specific in outlining how they spend the money
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