Educational Policy and Inequality

• Industrialisation increased need for an educational workforce - type depended on background (class)

• M/C = academic curriculum - careers in professions

• W/C = basic skills needed for factories - obedience to higher classes

• 1944 education act - children selected and allocated to 1 of 3 schools - aptitudes and abilities (11+ exams)

• Grammar schools = academic - non-manual jobs/HE - passed 11+ - mainly M/C

• Secondary modern = non-academic, ‘practical curriculum’ - access to manual work - fail 11+ - mainly W/C

• Technical college - existed in few areas - practice for unskilled jobs

• Reproduced class inequality - 2 different types of school

• Legitimated inequality through ideology that ability is inborn - child’s environment greatly affects chances of success

• Introduced from 1965 onwards

• Aimed to overcome class division - meritocratic

• 11+ abolished with grammar and secondary moderns - replaced (all pupils to attend same school)

• LEA to decide whether to ‘go comprehensive’ and not all did - divide still exists in many areas

• The process of introducing market forces of consumer choice and competition between suppliers into areas run by the state

• Education market - reducing direct state control, increases competition between schools and parental choice

• Central theme - 1988 Education Reform Act (conservative gov)

• 1977 - New Labour - standards, diversity and choice

• 2010 - coalition gov - academies and free schools

• Neoliberals and New Right - schools attract customers by competing in a market - success in exams means they’ll thrive, ones who don’t will ‘go out of business’

• Publication of league tables/Ofsted reports - give parents info they might need

• Business sponsoring of schools

• Open enrolment - successful schools can recruit more pupils

• Specialist schools - widen choice

• Formula funding - schools receive same amount of funding for each pupil

• Schools allowed to opt out of local authority control

• Competition to attract customers

• Intro of HE fees

• Allowing parents and others to set up free schools

• David (1993) - ‘rule by parents’ - shift of power from teachers and authorities to the parents - encourages diversity among schools and gives parents more choice to raise standards

Reproduction of inequality:

• Ball and Whitty (1998) - exam league tables and funding formula reproduce inequalities by creating them between schools

League tables and cream-skimming:

• Policy of publishing exam results ensures good schools are more in demand - parents more attracted to them

• Cream-skimming - ‘good’ schools more selective - choose customers and recruit high-achieving (mainly M/C) pupils - pupils gain more of an advantage

• Silt-shifting - ‘good’ schools can avoid taking less able pupils - likely to get poor results/damage table position

• For poor schools - opposite applies

The funding formula:

• Allocated funds based on how many pupils they attract - popular schools get more funding so can afford better-qualified teachers/better facilities

• Unpopular schools lose income - difficulties to match demands - failure to attract more pupils

• Public Policy Research (2012) - competition-oriented education systems e.g. Britain’s produce more segregation between children of different social backgrounds

• Allocated funds based on how many pupils they attract - popular schools get more funding so can afford better-qualified teachers/better facilities

• Unpopular schools lose income - difficulties to match demands - failure to attract more pupils

• Public Policy Research (2012) - competition-oriented education systems e.g. Britain’s produce more segregation between children of different social backgrounds

• Increasing parental choice - marketisation benefits M/C parents whose economic and cultural capital puts them in a better position to choose ‘good’ schools

• Study of 14 London Sec schools -parent’s economic/cultural capital lead to class differences in how far they can exercise choice - 3 main types

• Privileged-skilled choosers - professional M/C used capital to gain educational capital for children - took full advantage of opportunities (knew how the system worked) - could also move around to get best deals out of it (extra travel costs to get their children to better schools)

• Disconnected-local choosers - W/C who were restricted - difficulties in understanding the systems - less confident in dealing with schools, less aware of options, less able to manipulate the system to own advantage - importance of safety and quality than league tables - distance/cost restricted - funds limited = nearest school often only realistic option

• Semi-skilled choosers - mainly W/C but ambitious - lacked cultural capital - difficulties in understanding market - relied on opinions of schools - frustrated at inabilities to get children into schools they wanted

• Marketisation legitimates inequality by concealing true causes and justifying its existence

• Ball - parentocracy = myth - makes it appear all parents have abilities to send their children to the school they want but in reality M/C parents are able to take advantage of choices available - disguises facts

• Designating deprived areas as EAZ - provide additional resources

• Aim Higher - raise aspirations of groups who are under-represented in HE

• EMAs - payments to students from L-I to encourage them to stay on after 16 to get better educated

• Intro of National Literacy Strategy - reduce primary school class sizes - greater benefit to disadvantaged groups - reduce inequality

• City academies - fresh start to inner-city schools - W/C pupils

• Increased funding for state education

• Critics - Benn (2012) - contradiction between policies and commitment of marketisation ‘New Labour Paradox’

• Neither abolished fee-paying private schools nor removed charitable status

• Conservative-liberal democrat - accelerated move away from comprehensive based system run by LA

• Policies influenced by neoliberal and New Right ideas about reduced role of state in the provision of education through marketisation and privatisation

• Encourage ‘excellence, competition and innovation’ by freeing schools from ‘dead hand of the state’

• All schools encouraged to leave LA control to become academies

• Funding taken from LA and given directly to academies - given control over the curriculum

• 2012 - over ½ schools were academies - run by private educational businesses - funded directly by state

• Reduced focus on reducing inequality

• Set up and run by parents, teachers, faith organisations or businesses rather than LA

• Improve educational standards by taking control away from state and giving power to parents

• Opportunities to create a new school if they’re unhappy with the state school in their local area

• Allen (2010) - Sweden - 20% of schools free - only benefited from highly educated families

• Socially diverse - lower standards

• Strict pupil selection and exclusion policies - appears to raise higher standards

• 2011 - 6.4% of Bristol Free School were eligible for FSM compared with 22.5% of pupils across the whole city (DoE 2012)

• Ball (2011) - promoting Acads and FS led to increased fragmentation and increased centralisation of control over education provision in England

• Fragmentation = comprehensive system replaced by patchwork of diverse provision - private providers - greater inequalities

• Centralisation of control - Central gov has power to allow/require schools to become academies/allow FS to be set up - rapid growth reduced role of elected LA in schools

• FSM  for all children in reception, years 1 and 2

• Pupil Premium - money schools receive for each disadvantaged pupil

• Ofsted (2012) - PP not spent on those it is supposed to help - only 1 in 10 said it had significantly changed how they supported children

• Many areas of education cut - buildings cut by 60% - EMA abolished - uni fees tripled to £9000, Sure Start closed

• Privatisation = transfer of public assets e.g. schools to private companies - source of profit for capitalists

• ESI - increased range of activities - some involve PPPs - private sector companies provide capital to design, build and finance services - very profitable

• LA obliged to enter into these agreements as the only way of building new schools because of a lack of funding by the central gov

• Companies bid for contracts to provide services to schools and LA

• Pollack (2004) - flow of personnel allows companies to buy ‘insider knowledge’ to help win contracts as well as side-stepping LA democracy

• Many educational contracts sold on by the original company to others e.g. banks and investment funds - often brought overseas

• Uk edu-business work overseas - providing the services to deliver them = non-states becoming less important in policy making - shifts to global level - more privatised

• Policy focus on moving educational services out of the public sector controlled by nation-state to be provided by private companies instead

• Education turning into a “legitimate object of private profit-making” (Ball)

• State losing its role as the provider of educational services

• Marxists see coalition govt policies as part of the ‘long march of neoliberal revolution’

• Neoliberal - drive up standards - MArxists see this as a myth used to legitimate turning of education into source of private profit

• Neoliberals and New Right agree with Functionalists but critical of the role of state in turning to these functions

• Private sector - vending machines and development of brand loyalty through logos

• Schools targeted - carry enormous goodwill - confer legitimacy on anything associated with them

• Benefits often limited - Beder (2009) - UK families spent £110,000 in return for 1 computer

• 19th century - females largely excluded from HE

• Tripartite system - girls had to achieve a higher mark than boys in 11+

• 1970s - GIST introduced to try and reduce gender differences

• Assimilation - 60s&70s assimilate into mainstream culture to raise achievement

• Some EM groups already speak Eng and real cause of underachievement is racism/poverty

• Multicultural education - 80s - aimed to promote achievements of children from EM groups by valuing all cultures the same raising self-esteem

• Criticised on several grounds:

• Stone (1981) - MCE misguided

• Critical race theory - MCE tokenism - picks out stereotypical features for inclusion in the curriculum fails to tackle institutional racism

• NR - perpetuating cultural divisions - should be assimilated

• Social inclusion - detailed monitoring, amending the Race RElations Act - legal duty on schools to promote equality, help voluntary ‘Sat Schools’, Eng as additional language programmes

• Mirza (2005) - little genuine change - education still takes the soft approach to racism - focuses on culture and behaviour at home

• Gillborn - institutional racism, streaming still very much about