Educational Policy & Inequality
- Created by: Serenajoyl
- Created on: 12-04-16 19:23
Educational Policy in Britain before 1988
Industrialisation increased need for an educated WF
State began to become more involved in education
State made school compulsory from 5 to 13 1880
Type of education children received was determined by their class background
Schooling did little to change children's ascribed status
MC pupils = given an academic curriculum to prepare them for their careers in professions or office work
WC pupils were given a schooling to equip them with basic numeracy & literacy skills needed for routine factory work
Instil in them an obedient attitude to their superiors
Selection: Tripartite System
Education began to be influenced by idea of meritocracy
- Individuals should achieve their status through their own individual efforts & abilities rather than being ascribed at birth
- 1944 Education Act brought TS
- Children were to be selected & allocated to one of three different types of secondary schools according to aptitudes & abilities
- Through 11+ exam
- Grammar schools = offered academic curriculum & access to non-manual jobs & higher education
- Academic ability who passed 11+ exam
- Mainly MC pupils
- Secondary Modern = offered an non-academic curriculum & access to manual work
- Those who failed 11+ exam
- Mainly WC pupils
The Comprehensive System
- Aimed to overcome class divide of TS
- All pupils would attend
- 11+ exam was abolished along with grammars & SM
- Left to local education authority to decide whetther to 'go comprehensive' not all did
- Therefore grammar secondary modern divide still exists today
- Functionalists = promotes integration by bringing children of different social classes together
- Marxists = not meritocratic & reproduces class inequality from 1 gen to the next
- Through streaming & labelling
- Continues to deny WC children an equal opportunity
Marketisation
- Process of introducing market forces of consumer choice & competition between suppliers into areas run by the state
- Has created an education market
- - Reducing direct state control over education
- - Increasing both competition between schools & parental choice
- Neo-liberals & NR favour marketisation
- Argue marketisation means schools have to attract customers by competing with schools
Parentocracy
- Policies have been introduced to promote marketisation
- Publication of League Tables & Ofsted Inspection Reports which gives parents info they need to choose the right school
- Opemn enrolement = allowing successful schools to recruit more pupils
- Specialist schools = widen parental choice
- Formula funding = schools receive same amount of funding for each pupil
- Introduction of tuittion fees for higher education
- Allowing schools to opt out of local authority control e.g. to become academies
Reproduction of Inequality
- Marketisation reproduces inequality
- Ball (1994) & Whitty (1998)
- Marketisation policies such as exam league tables & formula funding
- Reproduces class inequality by creating inequalities between schools
League Tables & Cream-Skimming
- Policy of publishing league tables ensures schools that achieve good results are in demand
- Parents are attracted to those with good rankings
- Bartlett (1993)
- Encourages cream skimming - good schools can be more selective & choose their own customers (mainly MC)
- These pupils will gain an advantage
- Silt-shifting - good schools can avoid taking less able pupils
- They are likely to get poor results
- Damage the school's league table position
- Schools with poor league table results = cannot afford to be selective & have to take less able wc pupils
- Results are lower & remain unnattractive to MC
- Overall effect of league tables is to produce unequal schools & reproduce social class inequalities
Funding Formula
- Schools are allocated funds by a formula based on how many pupils they attract
- Popular schools get more funds & can afford better qualified teachers & facilities
- Popularity allows schools to be more selective
- Popular schools can thrive
- Unpopular schools lose income & it is difficult to match their rivals
- Funding will be further reduced
- Britain produces more segregation between children of different social backgrounds
- Institute for Public Policy Research (2012)
Gerwitz: Parental Choice
- Increasing parental choice advantages MCP
- Economic & Cultural capital puts them in a better position to choose good schools for their children
- Study of 14 London secondary schools
- Differences in parents' economic & cultural capital lead to class differences in how they can exercise choice of secondary school
- Privileged-skilled choosers
- - Mainly professional MC parents
- - Used economic & cultural to gain educational capital for their children
- - Had time to visit schools & skills to research options available
- Disconnected-Local Choosers
- - WCP whose choices were restricted by lack of economic & cultural capital
- - Found it difficult to understand school admissions etc
- - Less confident in dealings with the school
- Semi-Skilled Choosers
- - WC but ambitious for their children
- - Lacked cultural capital & difficult to make sense of education market
Myth of Parentocracy
- Marketisation reproduces inequality by concealing its true cause & by justifying its existence
- Ball believes marketisation gives the appearance of parentocracy
- Education system seems to be based on parents having free choice of school
- Parentocracy = a myth
- Parents do not have the same freedom to choose which school to send their children
- Gerwitz shows MCP are able to take advantage of choices available
- Leech & Campos show how they can afford to move into a catchment areas of desirable school
- Disguising fact schooling continues to reproduce class inequality
- Myth of parentocracy makes inequality ineducation seem fair & inevitable
New Labour & Inequality
New Labour govs 1997-2010 introduced various policies aimed at reducing inequality
- Education Action Zones = provided deprived areas with additional resources
- Aim Higher Programme = raise aspirationsof groups who are under-represented in higher education
- Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA'S) - payment to students from low income families to encourage them to stay on after 16
- Increased funding for state education
- City academies were created to give a fresh start to struggling inner-city schools
- Critics see a contradiction between Labour's policies to tackle inequality & committment to marketisation (Benn 2012)
- New Labour Paradox
- Despite introducing EMAs Labour also introduced fees for higher education
Coalition Government (2010-2015) Policies
- Academies = given control over their curriculum & encouraged to leave local authority control
- Free schools = Funded by the state but run by the parents, teachers businesses etc
- Takes control away from the state & gave power to parents
- Allen (2010) - Only benefit children from highly educated families
Fragmented Centralisation
- Ball (2011) - increased fragmentation & centralisation from promoting academies & free schools
- - Fragementation = Comprehensive system is replaced by diverse provision much of it involving private providers
- - Centralisation of control = central gov has power to allow schools to become academies or free schools
- - Rapid growth has reduced role of elected local authorities in education
Coalition Policies & Inequality
- Marketisation policies are said to increase inequality
- Introduced policies to reduce it
- FSM
- Pupil Premium
- Pupil premium is said not be spent on those it is supposed to help
- Part of coalition gov's austerity programme - spending on mnay areas of education has been cut
- Spending on school buildings was cut by 60%
- Critics argue that cutting Sure Start & EMA's has reduced opportunites for WCP
Privatisation of Education
Privatisation & the Globalisation of Education Policy
- UK's four leading educational software companies are all owned by global multinationals Disney etc
- Many contracts for educational services in the UK are sold on by original company to banks etc
- Globalised world = bought by overseas companies
- Often private companies are exporting UK educational policy to other countries
- Nation states are becoming less important in policymaking which is shifting to a policy level that is often privatised
The Cola-isation of Schools
- Penetrating education indirectly
- Through vending machines on school premises & development of brand loyalty throough displays of logos & sponsorship
- Process = cola-isation
- Molnar(2005) = schools are targeted by private companies & confer legitmacy on anything associated with them
- They are a kind of product endorsement
- Cadbury's sports equipment promotionwas scrapped after children had to eat 5,440 bars of chocolate just to qualify for a pair of volleyball posts
Education as a Commodity
- Privatisation is becoming the key factor in educational policy
- Policy = increasingly focused on moving educational services out of public sector to private sector
- Education is turning into 'legitimate object of private profit-making'
- Privatisation means state is losing its role as provider of educational services
- Marxists = Hall (2011) = see Coalition gov policies as part of long march of neoliberal revolution
- Free schools are an example of handing over public services to private capitalists such as educational businesses
Policies of Gender & Ethnicity
Gender
- GIST & WISE
Ethnicity
- Assimilation = minority ethnic groups to assimilate into British culture
- Way to raise achievement
- Critica argue those minority groups who already speak English & real cause is poverty or racism
- MCE = policies through 1980s & 1990s aimed topromote achievements of children from ethnic backgrounds by valuing their culture in school curriculum
- However Stone (1981) argues black pupils do not fail for lack of selfesteem so MCE is misguided
- - Critical race theorists argue MCE picks out stereotypical features of minority cultures
- - NR criticise MCE for perpetuating cultural divisions
- Education should promote a shared national culture & identity which minorites should be assimilated
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