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What are educational policies?
The plans and strategies for education introduced by government along with instructions and recommendations to schools and local authorities.
What are the main issues that educational policy try to tackle?
Equality
Selection and choice
Control of education
Marketisation and privatisation
What was the main reason why the government started to invest money into state education?
Industrialisation
What was education like after 1880?
The education children received was dependent on the child’s class.
Middle-class pupils received an academic curriculum that prepared them for professional jobs.
Working-class students received a very basic education needed for routine factory work.
When was the tripartite system introduced?
1944
What law led to the tripartite system?
The Education Act/The Butler Act (1944)
What did the Education Act (1944) lead to?
The tripartite system
What was the tripartite system made up of?
Three types of secondary schools: Grammar schools Secondary modern schools Technical schools
Describe grammar schools
They offered an academic curriculum, often leading to higher education and professional jobs. They were for students who passed the 11+ exam, often middle-class students.
Describe secondary modern schools
They offered a more practical curriculum that ledway to manual work.
Describe technical schools
They prepared students to work in certain trades by focusing on specific technical subjects.
Why did the tripartite system fail at creating meritocracy in schools?
The tripartite system failed to accomplish its aim as middle-class pupils ended up in the top grammar schools whilst the working-class didn’t, which meant that it just reproduced class inequality.
It also legitimated class inequality by suggesting that it was based on ability, rather than other social and environmental factors that may have affected the pupil’s achievement.
What type of schools were introduced in 1965?
Comprehensive schools
When was the comprehensive school system introduced?
1965
What is a comprehensive schools?
Non-selective schools that admit all children regardless of their ability.
What is the main criticism of the comprehensive school system?
It was up to LEAs to decide whether or not they became comprehensive, which meant that many grammar schools still exist.
What is the functionalists opinion on the comprehensive school system?
Comprehensive schools create social integration by bringing students of different backgrounds and abilities together.
How did Ford (1969) criticise the functionalist perspective on comprehensive schools?
Very little mixing between pupils of different classes actually happened. This was mainly due to streaming.
Who found that very little mixing between pupils of different classes actually happened due to streaming?
Ford (1969)
What is marketisation?
The process of introducing market forces of consumer choice and competition between suppliers into areas run by the state.
How has marketisation created an education market?
Reducing direct state control over education.
Increasing competition between schools and parental choice of schools.
What law made marketisation a big part of educational policies?
The Education Reform Act (1988)
What were some policies introduced under the Education Reform Act (1988)? [8]
The publication of league tables and Ofsted inspection, encouraging schools to raise standards and allowing parents to choose schools based on their performance.
Business sponsorship of schools.
Specialist schools widened parental choice.
Formula funding, meant that schools receive the same amount of funding for each pupil.
Schools were allowed to opt out of local authority control to become academies, for example.
Schools aren’t entitled to pupils, but have to compete for them.
The introduction of tuition fees for higher education.
Allowing parents to set up free schools.
Who described the education market as a parentocracy?
David (1993)
What word did David (1993) use to describe the education market?
Parentocracy
What did Bartlett (1993) say about marketisation policies?
The publication of league tables means that schools at the top were more popular.
This leads to two processes: Cream-skimming and silt-shifting.
The opposite is true for schools at the bottom of the league tables, so they are stuck with poor results.
These are known as sink schools.
Who studied the effects of marketisation on 14 London secondary schools?
Gewirtz (1995)
What did Gewirtz (1995) find about the effects of marketisation on schools?
The parent’s differences in economic and cultural capital affected to what extent they were free to choose their child’s secondary school.
Who identified the three types of parents when it came to choosing a secondary school for their child?
Gewirtz (1995)
According to Gewirtz, what are the three types of parents when it came to choosing a secondary school for their child?
Privileged-skilled choosers
Disconnected-local choosers
Semi-skilled choosers
Who argued that there was a myth of parentocracy?
Ball (1994)
What were some of the education policies that the New Labour government brought in? [6]
Labelling some deprived areas as Education Action Zones and providing them with additional resources.
The Aim Higher programme was designed to raise the aspirations of under-represented groups.
Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) paid students from low-income backgrounds so that they were encouraged to pursue further education.
The National Literacy Strategy aimed to reduce inequality by reducing the size of primary school classes and increasing the number of literacy and numeracy hours.
City academies were created to rebrand struggling inner city schools that were mainly populated by working-class pupils.
Increased the funding for state schools.
Who criticised the New Labour's policies for being paradoxical?
Benn (2012)
How did Benn (2012) criticise the New Labour's educational policies?
She criticise Labour’s policies as they were trying to tackle inequality, whilst being strongly in favour of marketisation policies.
She called this the New Labour paradox.
For example, they introduced EMAs whilst also increasing university tuition fees.
According to David Cameron, what were the aims of the Coalition Government?
“excellence, competition and innovation.”
What were schools encouraged to become?
Academies
What is the process of schools becoming academies known as?
Academisation
What were the benefits of being an academy?
Funding was given straight to the school, rather than through the LEAs, and they had more freedom over how the school was run.
What is a criticism of the Coalition's academisation policy?
Unlike Labour’s original policy that created city academies, this one didn’t work to tackle inequality.
What other type of school did the Coalition government introduce?
Free schools
What are free schools?
State-funded schools set up and run by parents, teachers, faith organisations or businesses, rather than the local authority
What are some criticisms of free schools?
Allen (2010): conducted research in Sweden, where 20% of schools are free schools, and found that they only benefited children from highly educated families. Some claim that they lower the standards of schools.
What did Ball (2010) say about academisation and the introduction of free schools?
It has led to more fragmentation and increased centralisation.
Fragmentation - the comprehensive system has now been replaced by a patchwork of different supplies -> more inequality.
Centralisation of control - only the central government has the power to allow schools to become academies or to open up free schools, reducing the power of Local Authorities.
Who said that academisation and free schools lead to both fragmentation and increased centralisation?
Ball (2010)
What policies did the Coalition Government implement to reduce inequality?
Free School Meals for all children from reception to year 2.
Pupil Premium - money that schools receive for every student from a disadvantaged background that they had.
What are some criticisms of the policies that the Coalition government introduced to reduce inequality?
Ofsted (2012): found that in many schools, Pupil Premium was not spent how it was intended and only 1 in 10 headteachers said that it had significantly impacted how they supported disadvantaged children.
The coalition government were very austere with their state spending, leading to cuts in the education system.
E.g. spending on school buildings was cut by 60%
Many Sure Start centres were closed and they got rid of the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA)
They also tripled university tuition fees to over £9,000 a year.
What is privatisation?
The transfer of public assets to private companies.
What did Ball say the privatisation of education creates?
It creates a source of profit for capitalists in the education services industry (ESI).
What's one way in which privatisation and globalisation are connected?
Several private companies in the ESI are foreign-owned.
E.g. Pearson Edexcel is an American companies and some of their exams are marked in other countries.
Buckingham and Scanlon (2005): they found that the UK’s four biggest education software compares are all owned by global multinationals (Disney, Mattel, Hambro and Vivendi).
Similarly, some UK businesses that operate in the ESI have also worked overseas.
E.g. Prospects have worked in China, Macedonia and Finland.
Who came up with the term cola-isation?
Ball
What is the cola-isation of schools?
The way in which private companies infiltrate schools.
Who said that schools are targeted by companies because they are seen as inherently good, therefore making companies that sponsor them seem good?
Molnar (2005)
What did Molnar (2005) say about privatisation of education and sponsorships?
Schools are targeted by companies because they are inherently seen as good and therefore grant legitimacy to anything associated with them, meaning that they act as a type of product endorsement.
What is a criticism of companies sponsoring schools?
Schools and pupils don’t benefit nearly as much the companies do from brand endorsements.
Beder (2009): UK families spent £110,000 in Tesco’s in return for a single computer for school.
What did Ball (2007) say about education as a commodity?
Overall argues that privatisation is now becoming a massive factor shaping educational policy. More policies are now focused on moving educational services out of the public sector and instead be provided by private companies.This turns education into a legitimate object of private profit making.
What did Hall (2011) say about privatisation policies?
He sees the Conservative government policies as part of the “long march of the neoliberal revolution.” He sees the claim that privatisation drives up the standards of education as a myth to turn the education system into a source of profit
What policies have been introduced to create gender equality?
Since the 1970s, policies such as GIST and Wise have been enforced to reduce gender differences in subject choices, gearing more girls towards careers in STEM.
What educational policies were introduced to tackle ethnic diversity in the 70s?
In the 1960s and 70s assimilation policies were commonplace and focused on getting ethnic minority pupils to adopt the mainstream British culture, with the attention that it would raise their achievement.
This was especially true for pupils who had English as a second language.
What is a criticism of the assimilation educational policies of the 1970s?
Many BAME students who tend to underachieve already have English as a native language (e.g. Afro-Caribbean pupils) and the real issues actually lie in poverty and racism.
What educational policies were introduced to tackle ethnic diversity in the 1980s and 1990s?
In the 1980s and 1990s multicultural education (MCE) policies were introduced to raise the self-esteem of BAME students by promoting their achievements and showing a value for their culture in the curriculum.
What are some criticisms of multicultural education policies?
Stone (1981): she argues that MCE policies are misguided as low self-esteem isn’t a reason for failure in black pupils.
Critical race theorists see MCE as tokenism that fails to tackle bigger issues such as institutional racism.
The New Right argue that MCE creates perpetuates cultural divisions, rather than promoting a shared cultural heritage which minority ethnic students can assimilate to and feel a part of.
What educational policies were introduced to tackle ethnic diversity from the 1990s onwards?
In the late 1990s policies of social inclusion became the main focus.
Intense monitoring of the exam results by ethnicity.
Reforming the Race Relations Act that obligated schools to promote racial equality.
Voluntary Saturday Schools in the Black community.
English as an Additional Language programmes.
What does Mirza (2005) say about educational policies tackling ethnic diversity?
She criticises these policies for taking a soft approach that only focuses on culture, behaviour and the home, rather than broader problems such as racism and poverty.
What said that educational policies that deal with ethnic diversity take a soft approach that only focuses on culture rather than structural issues?
Mirza (2005)
In 2018, how many Multi-Academy Trusts were there?
738 operating in at least 5 schools
What are some critcisms of the privatisation of education?
These large companies may be able to influence what is taught in schools and steer it more towards skills for employment.
Ball: Cola-isation of schools
Academies can use untrained and unqualified schools.
Valuable but costly courses may be cut.
Academies are allowed to opt out of the National Curriculum (although most of them don't).
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