Educational Policy In Britain Before 1988

Before the industrial revolution in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, what type of schools did not exist?

State schools. Education was only available to a minority of the population. It was provided by fee-paying schools for the well off, or by the churches and charities for a few of the poor. Before 1833, the state spent no money on education.

What did industrialisation increase?

The need for an educated workforce, and from the late 19th century the state began to become more involve din education.

When did the state make schooling compulsory?

Reflecting the growing importance of education, the state made schooling compulsory from the ages of 5 to 13 in 1880.

In this period (1880), what did the type of education children received depend on?

Their class background. Schooling did little to change pupils’ ascribed status. Middle class pupils were given an academic curriculum to prepare them for careers in the professions or office work while working class pupils were giving a schooling to equip them with the basic numeracy and literacy skills needed for routine factory work and to instil them in an obedient attitude to their superiors.

From 1944, what did education begin to be influenced by?

The idea of meritocracy - that individuals should receive their status in life through their own efforts and abilities, rather than it being ascribed through their class background.

What did the 1944 Education Act bring in?

The tripartite system, so called because children were to be selected and allocated to one of three different types of secondary school, supposedly according to their aptitudes and abilities.

In the tripartite system, what determined what secondary school children would go to?

The 11+ exam.

In the tripartite system, what were the three different schools children could go to?

• Grammar schools - offered an academic curriculum and access to non-manual jobs and higher education. They were for pupils with academic ability who passed the 11+.

• Secondary modern schools - Offred a non-academic ‘practical‘ curriculum and access to manual work for pupils who failed the 11+.

• The third type, technical schools, only existed in a few areas.

What social class did the grammar schools mainly consist of?

Middle-class pupils.

What social class did the Secondary modern schools mainly consist of?

Working-class pupils.

Rather than promoting meritocracy, what did the tripartite system and 11+ promote?

Class inequality by channelling the two social classes into two different types of school that offered unequal opportunities.

What else did the tripartite system reproduce?

Gender inequalities by requiring girls to gain higher marks than boys in the 11+ to obtain a grammar school place.

What did the tripartite system legitimate, and how?

Inequality through the ideology that ability is inborn. It was thus argued that ability could be measured early in life, through the 11+. However, in reality, children’s environment greatly affects their chances of success.

When was the comprehensive system introduced?

In many areas from 1965 onwards.

What were the aims of the comprehensive school system?

To overcome the class divide of the tripartite system and make education more meritocratic.

What did the comprehensive system do?

The 11+ was to be abolished along with grammars and secondary moderns, to be replaced with comprehensive schools that all pupils within the area would attend.

In the comprehensive system, what was left to the local education authority?

To decide whether to ‘go comprehensive‘ and not all did so. As a result, the grammar-secondary modern divide still exists in many areas.

What do functionalists argue that comprehensives promote?

Social integration by bringing children of social classes together in one school. They also see it as more meritocratic because it gives pupils a longer period to develop and show their abilities, unlike the tripartite system, which sought to select the most able pupils at 11.

In contrast to functionalist belief, what did Ford find?

Little social mixing between working-class and middle-class pupils, largely because of streaming.

What do Marxists argue about comprehensives?

That they are not meritocratic. Rather, they reproduce class inequality from one generation to the next through the continuation of the practice of streaming and labelling. These continue to deny working-class children equal opportunity.

By not selecting children at 11, what do comprehensives appear to offer?

Equal chances to all. This ‘myth of meritocracy‘ legitimates class inequality by making unequal achievement seem fair and just, because failure looks like it is the fault of the individual rather than the system.