Educational Policy and Inequality

Question 1

Educational Policy in Britain before 1988

Answer 1

The state spent no public money on education.

Question 2

Compulsory schooling

Answer 2

Industrialisation increased the need for an educated workforce. The state made schooling compulsory from the ages of 5 to 13 in 1880.

Question 3

The tripartite system

Answer 3

1944 Education Act - students were to selected and allocated to three different types of secondary schools.

Question 4

Selection by 11+ exam

Answer 4

Grammer school = middle class
Technical school = lower middle
Secondary school = working class

This reproduces class inequality as it legitimated inequality though the ideology that ability is inborn

Question 5

The comprehensive school system

Answer 5

From 1965 the tripartite system was abolished and replaced with this. Functionalist sees as providing functions for future work roles. Marxists argue this reproduces class inequality.

Question 6

Functionalists : Role of comprehensives

Answer 6

Promotes social integration by bringing children of different social classes together. Ford found little social mixing between the classes due to streaming. They also see it as meritocratic as it gives pupils a longer period to develop and show their abilities

Question 7

Marketisation

Answer 7

Marketisation has created an education market by reducing direct state control over education and increasing both competition between schools and parental choice of schools.

Question 8

1988 Education Reform Act

Answer 8

Central theme of government education policy, introduced by the conservative government of Margaret Thatcher

Question 9

Neoliberals & New Right

Answer 9

They favour marketisation they argue schools have to attract consumers by competing with each other in the market.

Question 10

Parentocracy

Answer 10

David (1993) describes marketised education as a rule by parents, they claim that this encourages diversity among schools, gives parents more choice and raises standards.

Question 11

Policies to promote marketisation include:

Answer 11

Publication of league tables and Ofsted inspection reports.

Business sponsorship of schools

Schools competing to attract pupils

Introduction of tuition fees for higher education

Question 12

The reproduction of inequality

Answer 12

Ball & Whitty (1998) notes how marketisation policies such as exam league tables reproduce class inequalities by creating inequalities between schools

Question 13

Cream-Skimming & Slit-Shifting

Answer 13

Bartlett (1993)
Cream-Skimming involves schools becoming more selective and recuriting high achievers and pupils gain advantage

Slit-Shifting involves schools avoiding taking less able pupils who are likely to get poor results and damage schools league tables position

Question 14

The funding formula

Answer 14

Schools are allocated funds by a formal based on how many pupils they attract. As a result, popular schools get more funds and so can afford better qualified teachers and facilities

Question 15

Parental choice

Answer 15

Gewirtz argues that increasing parental choice, marketisation also advantages middle-class parents whose cultural capital advantages them.

Question 16

Myth of Parentocracy

Answer 16

Ball argues that parentocracy is not a reality and all parents have the same freedom to choose which school to send their children.

Question 16

Gewirtz : three different types of parents

Answer 16

Privileged-skilled choosers : these parents used their cultural capital o gain educational capital for their children and economic capital to afford to move their children around the educational system and go to ‘better schools’

Disconnected-local choosers : these parents were working-class who were restricted by their lack of economic and cultural capital

Semi-skilled choosers : Mainly working-class, who were ambitious for their children but lacked cultural capital.

Question 17

New Labour & Inequality

Answer 17

The New Labour governments of 1997 & 2010 introduced Education Maintenance Allowances which were payments to students from low-income backgrounds to encourage them to stay in schools after 16 to gain better qualifications. They also introduced increased funding for state education.

Question 17

Free schools

Answer 17

In England, evidence shows that free schools take fewer disadvantaged pupils than nearby schools, for example in 2011 only 6.4% of pupils at Bristol Free School were eligble for free school meals, compared with 22.5% of pupils across the city as a whole

Question 17

Academies

Answer 17

The coalition government, allowed any school to become an academy, removed the focus on reducing inequality

Question 18

Fragmented Centralisation

Answer 18

Ball (2011) argues that promoting academies and free schools has led to both increased fragmentation and centralisation of control over education provision in England

Question 18

Progress 8

Answer 18

Progress 8 measures the progress that students have made from the end of primary school to the end of secondary school, and it predicts students’ GSCE results on the basis of their Key Stage 2 results

Question 18

Curriculum Reforms

Answer 18

Ball suggests that Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition policy was underscored by Conservative beliefs in ‘real subjects’ and ‘the old methods are the best’ when it comes to teaching this was show by the national curriculum being rewritten, with more demanding programmes of study in English, Maths etc

Question 18

Coalition Policies and Inequality

Answer 18

Ofsted (2012) found that in many cases the pupil premium is not spent on those it is supposed to help.

Question 19

Privatisation of Education

Answer 19

Education has become a source of profit for capitalists, Ball calls the ‘education services industry’ According to Ball (2007) companies involved in such work expect to make up to 10x more than on other contracts.

Question 20

Privatisation and the globalisation of education policy

Answer 20

The exam board Edexcel is owned by the US educational publishing and according to Ball some Pearson GSCE exam answers are now marked in Sydney.

Question 21

The Cola-isation of schools

Answer 21

Ball

Question 22

Schools as product endorsement

Answer 22

Molnar (2005) argues schools are targeted by private companies because ‘schools by their nature carry enourmous goodwill and can thus confer legitimacy on anything associated with them’

Question 23

Policies on Gender

Answer 23

In 19th century, females were largely exlcuded from higher education, and under the tripartite system, girls often had to achieve a higher mark than boys in 11+ in order to obtain a grammer school.