Neoliberlaism And The New Right Perspective On Education

Question 1

What is neoliberalism

Answer 1

• Neoliberalism is an economic doctrine that has had a major influence on education policy. Neoliberalism argues that the state should not provide services such as education, health and welfare. Neoliberal ideas have influenced governments since 1979
• neoliberalism is based on the idea that the state must not dictate to individuals how to dispose of their own property, and should try to regulate a free market economy. So run businesses and deregulate markets
• they argue that the value of education lies in how well it enables the country to compete in the global marketplace. They claim that this can only be achieved if schools become more like businesses, empowering parents and pupils as consumers and using competition between schools to drive up standards

Question 2

The new right

Answer 2

• the new right is a conservative political view that incorporates neoliberal economic ideas. A central principle of new right thinking is the belief that the state cannot meet peoples needs and that people are nest left to meet their own needs through the free market. For this reason, the new right favour the marketisation of education
• there are similarities between the new right and functionalist views:
• both believes that some people are naturally more talented than others
• both favour an education system run on meritocratic principles of open competition, and one that serves the needs of the economy by preparing young people for work
• both believe that education should socialise pupils into shared values, such as competition, and instil a sense of national identity

Question 3

The difference between functionalism and the new right

Answer 3

• a key differences with functionalism is that the new right do not believe that the current education system is achieving these goals. The reason for its failure, in their view, is that it is fundamentally by the state
• the new right argue that state education system take a ‘one size fits all’ approach, imposing uniformity and disregarding local needs. The local consumers who use the schools - pupils, parents and employers - have no say. State education systems are therefore unresponsive and inefficient. Schools that waste money get poor results are not answerable to their consumers. This means lower standards of achievement for pupils, a less qualified workforce and a less prosperous economy

Question 4

What’s the new right solution

Answer 4

• the new rights solution to these problems is the marketisation of education - creating an ‘education market’ . They believe that competition between schools and empowering consumers will bring greater diversity, choice and efficiency to schools and increase schools ability to meet the needs of pupils, parents and employers

Question 5

Chubb and moe: consumer choice

Answer 5

• an example of the new right perspective on education comes from Chubb and moe, they argue that state run education in the United States has failed because:
• it has not created equal opportunity and has failed the needs of disadvantaged groups
• it is ineffective because it fails to produce pupils with the skills needed by the economy
• private schools deliver higher quality education because, unlike state schools, they are answerable to paying consumers - the parents

Question 6

Where did Chubb and moe base their arguments

Answer 6

• on a comparison of the achievements of 60,000 pupils from low income families in 1,015 state and private high schools, together with the findings of a parent survey and case studies of ‘failing’ schools apparently being ‘turned around’. Their evidence shows that pupils from low income families consistently do about 5% better in private than in state schools
• based on these findings, Chubb and moe call for the introduction of a market system in state education that would put control in the hands of the consumers. They argue that this would allow consumers to shape schools to meet their own needs and would improve quality and efficiency

Question 7

What do Chubb and moe propose

Answer 7

• to introduce a market into state education, Chubb and moe propose a system in which each family would be given a voucher to spend on buying education from a school of their choice. This would force schools to become more responsive to parents wishes, since the vouchers would be the schools main source of income. Like private businesses, schools would have to compete to attract ‘customers’ by improving their ‘product’
• these principles are already at work in the private education sector. In Chubb and moes view, educational standards would be greatly improved by introducing the same market forces into the state sector

Question 8

Two roles for the state

Answer 8

• however, while the new right stresses the importance of market forces in education, this does not mean they see no role for the state at all. In the new right view, there remain two important roles for the state:
  1. The state imposes a framework on schools within which they have to compete. E.g, by publishing ofsted inspection reports and league tables of schools exam results, the state gives parents information with which to make a more informed choice between schools
  2. The state ensures that schools transmits a shared culture. By imposing a single national curriculum, it seeks to guarantee that schools socialise pupils into a single cultural heritage
• the new right believe that education should affirm the national identity. E.g, the curriculum should emphasise Britain’s positive role in world history and teach British literature, and there should be a Christian act of worship in the school each day because Christianity is Britain’s main religion. The aim is to integrate pupils into a single set of traditions and cultural values. For this reasons, the new right also oppose multicultural education that reflects the cultures of the different minority groups in Britain

Question 9

Evaluation of the new right perspective

Answer 9

• gewirtz and ball both argue that competition between schools benefits the middle class, who can use their cultural and economic capital to fain access to more desirable schools
  -critics argue that the real cause of low educational standards is not state control but social inequality and inadequate funding of state schools
• there is a contradiction between the new rights support for parental choice on the one hand and the state imposing a compulsory national curriculum on all its schools on the other
• Marxists argue that education does not impose a shared national culture, as the new right claim, but imposes the culture of a dominant minority ruling class and devalues the culture of the working class and ethnic minorities