Social Policy and Education (1) Flashcards
Education and Social Policy definition
A set of plans or actions put into place by governments, local authorities or other organisations in order to address particular social problems.
What is social policy?
Social policy is a policy for dealing with social issues such as education, welfare, health care etc.
What are the aims of education policy?
- Economic efficiency (Britain maintains a successful workforce so they can compete in the global market).
- Raising educational standards (Pushing students to achieve their potential).
- Creating equality of opportunity (by judging people on their talent and ability rather than class, gender or ethnicity, this is called meritocracy) this would include equality of access, circumstances and participation.
What are the Left Wing views (New Labour) on education?
Aim to widen access and participation.
Aim to provide equality of opportunity/reduce inequalities.
Key policies: Compensatory education policies such as EMA, Sure Start, Curriculum 2000.
What are the New Right/Conservative/Coalition views on education?
Selection by schools is acceptable.
Aim to drive up standards (through competition).
Increase parental choice (parentocracy).
Key policies: ERA (1988) League tables, Free schools, Linear A-levels, A focus on British Values.
1870 - Forster Education Act
Aim: to formally educate children and create a competitive workforce.
Introduction of free compulsory education for children 6-12.
Before this act children were education in voluntary church schools or informally by the family.
1944 - Butler Education Act
Aim: to provide equality of opportunity. To suit a pupil’s education to their ability.
The 11+ exam/test
An IQ test on verbal, non-verbal and mathematic ability at age of 11.
The performance led to streaming into 3 types of secondary schools.
The Tripartite System
A system of splitting up of children from working class or middle class into three different types of schools; grammar, secondary modern and technical schools.
Criticisms of the Tripartite System
- Only 1 in 5 children passed the 11+ exam and went on to grammar schools.
- It is very difficult, if not impossible, to measure intelligence.
- 11 years of age is far too early to decide about a child’s future - late developers didn’t have a chance.
- Middle class children most likely to pass the 11+ and obtain grammar schools places as they can have more tutoring and read more.
Therefore the Tripartite System reinforced social class inequality and didn’t provide equality of opportunity.
1965 - comprehensive Education
Aims: provide equality of opportunity for all.
One secondary school for all.
Access based on catchment area - all abilities together.
Criticisms of the Comprehensive Education
- Branding and streaming - social class differences. Top band = MC. Bottom band = WC.
- Catchment areas tend to be the same type of class.
- Schools can end up being two big.
What are the differences between the Tripartite System and the Comprehensive System?
There is not ability differences in Comprehensive schools.
Also Comprehensive schools don’t have a exam in order to get in.
What are the advantages of the Comprehensive System over the Tripartite System?
It is more equal.
Children are all the same - ‘unity’.
What are the problems with Comprehensive schools? Why doesn’t it solve class inequality?
The catchment areas weren’t divided equally so they tried to keep all of the type of classes together.
If the catchment areas didn’t work they were branded and streamed meaning that MC would be in the top band and the WC would be in the bottom band.
Also some grammar schools still exist so people can still come.
1983 - Vocational Education
Examples.
Prepares trainees for jobs that are manual and practical - traditionally non-academic.
E.g. - Youth Training Scheme (YTS).
- National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) - qualifications that laid down standards in particular occupations. These were often studied part time in colleges which students worked in an occupation.
- General National Vocational Qualifications (GNVQs) - boarder alternatives to academic courses that prepared pupils for work in a general occupation area such as leisure and tourism.
- The Youth Training Scheme (YTS) - a 2 year course that combined work experience with education. It was aimed at unemployed young people who were thought to lack basic skills. Employers were pain to take, and train, unemployed youths.
- Modern apprenticeships - combined work based training with attendance at a college to help young workers achieve NVQ’s.
What are the criticisms of Vocational training?
- Vocational training has produced a group of workers who are easily exploited. The skills taught on these schemes only prepare people for low paid and low skilled jobs.
- Some people argued that school leavers were ready to work as the majority of them already had part time jobs.
- Finn (1987) believes that these where just schemes designed to keep unemployment figures down at the time. By putting people into training they no longer were a statistic.
- There were no jobs available for these people even when they gained their qualifications - it was worthless.
- Provides nothing more than cheap labour.
- Seen as inferior to academic work.
1988 - Education Reform Act (ERA)
Aim: to improve educational standards.
It was felt that the best way to do this was to introduce a “market-place” in education. This would be achieved though completion and choice - MARKETISATION!
What is the Education Reform Act (ERA) also known as?
Baker act.
What do the Education Reform Act do?
Put pupils under pressure to get the best results.
Helped teachers improve their quality of teaching.
It improved results, facilities and management.
What did the Education Reform Act introduce?
The National Curriculum GCSEs replaced O levels and CSEs Coursework Parental choice (parentocracy) SATs League Tables Ofsted inspections
What did Marketisation produce and what does it mean?
Parentocracy - “ruled by the parents” - choice
What is parental choice?
Offers parents more choice about where to send their children; i.e. no longer automatically sending a child to their local schools. Leading to parentocracy.
What is the Myth of Parentocracy?
Parents don’t know how to access or know about things like league tables or ofsted reports - normally the working class.
What was the research Gewirtz did in 1995?
The research was to see if parental choice benefits the MC more than the WC. In short, it widens the gap between the WC and the MC in terms of achievement. She uses Bourdieu’s ideas of cultural and economic capital to argue that MC parents use this capital to take greater advantage of parental choice than WC parents.
What are the three types of parents Gewirtz can up with?
Privileged skilled choosers - MC ambitious parents using their cultural and economic capital.
Disconnected local choosers - WC parents whose choices are restricted by their lack of economic and cultural capital.
Semi-skilled choosers - mainly WC but ambitious parents.
1997 - New Labour
Wanted to maintain the competitiveness of the education system today but want to promote equality of opportunity for all children. To reduce class inequalities though Education Maintenance Allowance), Sure Start, Aim Higher, Academies and value added league tables (fairer).
What are the details of Sure Start?
Provided free nursery education in deprived areas. This would include parenting classes.
What is the purpose of Sure Start?
To create more equal opportunity through intervening early to boost long term educational performance.
What are the details of Academies?
New schools, partly sponsored by businesses and charities set up to replace failing comprehensive schools.
What is the purpose of Academies?
To ensure that no children, particularly those in poorer areas were educated in an ineffective school.
What are the details of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA)?
EMA was introduced to provide low-income families with with to £30 a week.
What is the purpose of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA)?
EMA was intended to reduce drop out rates by making it more affordable to stay on in education.
What are the details of the expansion of higher education?
Number of places in higher education was increased rapidly nearly doubling between 1990 and 2004.
What is the purpose of expansion of higher education?
To increase opportunity for people for all class, backgrounds, but particularly from the working class.
What is the purpose of excellence in cities also known as education action zones?
To improve the results for disadvantaged children.
What are the details of free school meals?
Children from low income families got free school meals and breakfast clubs started.
What are the details of excellence in cities also known as education action zones?
Extra resources given to inner city schools in deprived areas. These included IT facilitates, learning mentors, and social exclusion units.
What is the purpose of free school meals?
To reduce social class inequality.
What are the details of the Specialist schools policy?
Schools could specialise in one of 10 areas (e.g. computing, science, languages) and select up to 10% of pupils according to aptitude in the specialism.
What is the purpose of the Specialist school policy?
To increase choice to everyone going to a standard comprehensive schools. Increased specialism to meet the needs of individual pupils.
What are the details of the use of league tables?
League tables continued to be used and more details published, including ‘value-added’ scores based on progress.
What is the purpose of the use of league tables?
To drive up standards by fostering competition and to measure progress towards government targets. Value-added league tables intended to provide a fairer measure of school performance by taking some account of class differences.
What are the details of the New Deal?
The government gave companies money to employ/train and young person who was unemployed (NEETS) as well as support from personal advisers.
What were the New Labour Policies influenced by?
The New Right marketisation.
What is the purpose of the New Deal?
To prevent young people joining the ranks of the long term unemployed.
What are the details of vocational GCSE’s and A-levels?
NVQ’s were changed to vocational GCSE’s and A-levels in 2001.
What is the purpose of vocational GCSE’s and A-levels?
To improve the status of vocational qualifications, so they were not seen as second rate compared with academic qualifications.
What are the details of tuition fees?
Tuition fees introduced at £1000 per year and then rose again to £4000 per year.
What is the purpose of tuition fees?
To improve standards at universities enable more people to go as the state could no longer afford to send everyone for free.
What are the evaluating points of the New Labour Policies?
- The middle classes still got into the best schools; parents still used their cultural capital to get their children into oversubscribed schools.
- Too much emphasis on league tables led to a narrow focus within education.
- The government spent too much money on education that they couldn’t afford.
- The introduction of student fees may have discouraged people from going to university . Most were from a working class background.
- Growler (2003) argues that New Labour underestimated the amount of inequality within education and therefore didn’t fully tackle it.
- They introduced policies that decreased inequality e.g. EMA but at the same time introduced policies that increased inequality e.g. tuition fees.
However, overall standards did rise during this period in terms of GCSE and A-level results and there was a small reduction in class difference in achievement at school.
2010 - Coalition Government Policies
Concerned with raising standards through marketisation.
Key changes: EMA to be cut, tuition frees increased, English baccalaureate, emphasis on old-fashioned discipline, a pupil premium to replace EMA, inspections to be targeted on failing schools and academies.
