Educational policy

describe marketisation

Refers to the process of introducing market based influences of consumer choice and competition between schools. It has created an education market by:

Reducing direct state control over education.

Increasing both competition between schools and parental choice of school

It has become an essential act of educational policy and was introduced by the conservative government of Margaret thatcher

Neo liberals and the new right favour marketisation as it means that schools have to attract customers (parents) by competing with each other in the market

Describe education policy in Britain before 1988

Before the Industrial Revolution there were no state schools as education was only to a minority of the population.

Industrialisation increased the need for an educated work force and from the late 19th century the state began to become more involved in education. Reflecting the importance of education the state made education compulsory for ages 5-13 in 1880

But this type of education did little to change pupil's ascribed status.

M/c pupils were given an academic curriculum to prepare them for careers but w/c pupils were given a schooling to equip them with the basic numeracy and literacy skills needed for routine factory work

Describe the tripartite system

From 1944 education began to be influenced by the idea of meritocracy. The 1944 education act brought in the tripartite system as children were to be selected and allocated to 1 of 3 different secondary schools supposedly according to their aptitude and ability which were identified by the. 11+ exams

What were the 3 schools in the tripartite system?

Grammar schools- offered an academic curriculum and access to non manual jobs and higher education. These were for pupils with academic ability to pass the 11+. Mainly m/c

Secondary modern schools- offered a non academic, practical curriculum and access to manual work for pupils who failed the 11+ mainly w/c

The third type was technical schools but existed in a few areas only

Thus rather than promoting meritocracy it reproduced class inequality by channeling the 2 social classes into 2 different types of schools that offered unequal opportunities

It also reproduced gender inequality by requiring girls to gain higher marks than boys in the 11+ to obtain a grammar school place

It also legitmised inequakity through the ideology that ability is inborn and could be measured early in life through the 11+

Describe the comprehensive school system

Introduced in many areas from. 1965 onwards and aimed to overcome the class divide of the tripartite system and make education more meritocratic. These 11+ was to be abolished along with grammar and secondary modern schools to be replaced by comprehensive schools that all pupils within the area would attend

But it was left to the local education authority to decide whether to go comprehensive and not all did. As a result, the grammar secondary modern divide still exists in many areas

2 theories of the role of comprehensives

.Functionalists:

• See comprehensives as promoting social integration by mixing children of different social classes.

• View them as more meritocratic because pupils have longer to develop and show ability compared to the tripartite system.

• Example: Ford (1969) found little class mixing due to streaming.

• Marxists:

• Argue comprehensives reproduce class inequality through streaming and labelling, passing inequality from one generation to the next.

• The appearance of meritocracy is a myth, legitimising inequality by making it seem fair and blaming individuals for failure rather than the system.

Describe policies to promote marketisation

Publification of league labels and OFSTED inspections that rank each school according to its exam performance and give parents the info they need to choose the right school

Business sponsorship of schools

Schools having to compete to attract pupils

What is parentocracy

David describes marketised education as parentocracy as power shifts from producers eg teachers to consumers such as parents. This increases diversity among schools giving parents more choice and increasing standards

How does marketisation reproduce inequality

Despite the claimed benefits critics such as Ball and Whitty note how it reproduces inequality thirugh league tables and funding formula

How do league tables reproduce inequality?

It ensures schools that get good grades are more in demand as parents are more attracted to those schools.

Bartlett says this encourages

Cream skimming- "good" schools can be more selective, choose their own customers and recruit high achieving, mainly middle class pupils and as a result they gain an advantage.

Silt shifting- "good" schools can avoid taking less able pupils who are likely to get poor results and damage the school's standing

For schools with low standing the opposite occurs- they cannot afford to be selective and have to take less able mainly w/c pupils- so their results are poorer and remain unattractive to parents which reproduces inequality

Describe the funding formula

Schools are allocated funds by a formula based on how many pupils they attract. As a result popular schools get more funds and so can afford better quality teachers and better facilities- allowing them to be more selective and attract more able usually

m/c applicants

The opposite applies for unpopular schools

A study by the institute of public policy research found that competition orientated education systems produce more segregation between children do different social backgrounds

Describe parental choice

Gewirtz studied 14 London secondary schools and found that marketisation policies, which increase parental choice, actually benefit middle-class parents more than working-class parents due to differences in economic and cultural capital.

What were the 3 types of parent choosers identified

Privileged-skilled choosers: Mainly middle-class parents who used their cultural and economic capital to their advantage. They were confident, well-educated, and understood the school system well. They had the time and money to visit schools, research options, and even move or pay travel costs to access better schools.

• Disconnected-local choosers: Mainly working-class parents who lacked both economic and cultural capital. They struggled to understand school admissions procedures, lacked confidence, and prioritised safety and proximity over academic performance. The nearest school was often their only viable option.

• Semi-skilled choosers: Also working-class, but more ambitious for their children. However, they too lacked cultural capital and relied on others' opinions. They were often confused by the school system and frustrated when they couldn't get their children into preferred schools.

Gewirtz concluded that, although the education market appears to give everyone choice, in practice, middle-class parents benefit the most. Their greater economic and cultural capital gives them more access to "good" schools, reinforcing class inequality.

This supports Ball's idea of the "myth of parentocracy"—the false belief that all parents have equal freedom to choose the best schools, when in reality, structural inequalities limit working-class choices.

Describe the myth of parentocracy

Ball believes in the myth of parentocracy that marketisation provides. That is the education system seems as if it is based in parents having free choice of schools. But Ball argues that parentocracy is a myth- it makes it appear that all parents have the same freedom to choose with school to send their children to. In reality however Gewirtz shows how m/c parents are better able to take advantage of the choices available. By disguising the fact that schooling continue to reproduce class inequality in this way, the myth of parentocracy makes inequality in education fair and inevitable.

New labour policies to reduce inequality in 1997-2010

Designating some deprived areas as Education action zones and providing ghem with additional resources

The aim higher programme to rake the aspirations of those in under represented areas in education

Education maintenance allowance- payments to students from low income backgrounds to encourage them to stay on after 16 to gain better qualifications

What is the New Labour paradox? And. Criticism of new labour policies

Critics of new labour policies such as Benn see a contradiction between labour's policies and its commitment to marketisation

New labour policies neither abolished fee paying private schools nor removed their chartitable status

Describe conservative government policies from 2010

Under the Conservative-led Coalition government (2010-2015) and the Conservative government from 2015, there was a significant shift from comprehensive schools run by local authorities to a system influenced by neoliberal and New Right ideas. These policies aimed to reduce the role of the state in education through marketisation and privatisation.

• David Cameron (PM, 2010-15) stated the focus was on "excellence, competition and innovation".

• Schools were encouraged to become academies, freeing them from the "dead hand of the state".

• Policies included the expansion of academies and free schools.

• Cuts to the education budget reflected the broader policy of reducing state spending.

Describe academies

From 2010, all schools were encouraged to leave local authority control and become academies. Funding was taken from local authority budgets and given directly to academies by central governments. They were also given control over their curriculum.

By 2017 over 68% of all secondary schools had converted to academy status. Some academies are run by private educational businesses and funded directly by the state

The coalition government by allowing any school to become an academy removed the focus of reducing inequality unlike labour's original academies

Describe free schools

Although funded by the state, free schools are set up and run by parents, teachers, faith organisations or businesses rather than the local authority

Supporters of free schools claim that they improve educational standards by taking control away from the state and giving power to parents. Free schools give parents and teachers the opportunity to create a new school if they aren't satisfied with the state schools in the area

Criticism of free schools

Allen (2010) argued that research from Sweden, where 20% of schools are free schools shows they only benefit children from highly educated families

Critics claim they are socially divisive and they lower standards

In England evidence shows that free schools take fewer disadvantaged pupils than nearby schools

Describe fragmented centralisation

Ball argues that promoting academies and free schools that it has increased fragmentations and centralisation of control over educational provision in England

What is fragmentation and centralisation

Fragmentation- the comprehensive system is being replaced by a patch work of diverse provisions much if it involving private providers, that leads to greater inequality in opportunities

Centralisation of control- central government alone has the power to allow or require schools to become academies or set up to be free schools. These schools are funded directly by central government. Their rapid growth has greatly reduced the role of elected local authorities in education

Policies to reduce inequality in coalition government

Free school meals for all children in reception, year 1,2

Pupil premium- money that schools receive for each pupil from a disadvantaged background

But OFSTED found that in many cases the pupil premium is not spent on those it is supposed to help. Only 1 in 10 headteachers said it had significantly changed how they superseded pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds

Describe the privatisation of education

Privatisation involves transferring public assets to private companies, making education a source of profit in what Ball (2007) calls the "education services industry" (ESI).

• Private companies are involved in school building, teacher supply, work-based learning, and Ofsted inspections.

• Public-private partnerships (PPPs) often involve 25-year contracts, where councils pay private firms to design and manage schools.

• Ball (2007) argues these activities are highly profitable—firms can earn ten times more than from other contracts.

• Local authorities are often forced into these deals due to underfunding by central government.

Describe blurring the public/private boundary

Many senior officials in the public sector such as directors of local authorities now leave to set up or work for the private sector education business. These companies then bid for contracts to provide services to schools and local authorities

Pollack notes that this flow of personnel allows companies to buy insider knowledge to help win contracts as well as side stepping local authority democracy

Describe privatisation and the globalisation of education policy

Many private companies in the education services industry are foreign owned. These exam board Edexcel is owned by the US educational publishing and testing agency edexcel

Buckingham and Scanlon (2005) note the UK's top educational software firms are owned by global multinationals (e.g., Disney, Mattel, Vivendi).

• Contracts for educational services are often sold to foreign investment firms.

• Ball also highlights Pearson GCSE marking is outsourced to places like Sydney and Iowa.

• Some UK edu-businesses operate globally (e.g., Prospects in China, Macedonia, and Finland), exporting UK education policy abroad.

This leads to a decline in national control, as education policy becomes globalised and privatised.

What is the cola-isation of schools?

the indirect penetration of the private sector into schools, e.g. through vending machines on school premises and the development of brand loyalty through displays of goods and sponsorship. Molnar states that schools are targeted by private companies and a kind of product endorsement. But the benefits are often limited. For example Beder found that UK families spent £11000 in Tesco supermarkets in return for a single computer for schools

Describe education as a commodity

Ball concludes that a fundamental change is taking place in which privatisation is becoming the key factor shaping educational policy. Policy is increasingly focused on moving educational services out of the public sector controlled by the nation state to be provided by private companies. In this process education is being turned into a legitimate object of private profit making- a commodity to be bought and sold in an education market. Ball states that the overall effect is that- more and more areas of education are now subject to business practices and financial logics.

What is the Marxist view of conservative policies

Marxissts such as Hall sees academies as an example of handing over public services to private capitalists such as educational businesses. In the Marxist view the neo liberal claim that privatisation and competition increase standards is a myth used to legitimate the turning of education into a source of private profit .

Describe policies on gender

In the 19th century females were largely excluded from higher education but more recently, under the tripartite system, girls often had to achieve a higher mark than boys in the 11+ on order to obtain a grammar school place

Since the 1970s, however, policies such as GIST have been introduced to try to reduce gender differences in subject choices.

Describe policies on ethnicity

Policies aimed at raising the achievements of children from minority ethnic backgrounds and have gone through several phases:

Assimilation

Multicultural education

Social inclusion

Describe assimilation policy

Assimilation (1960s-70s)

• Aimed to help minority ethnic pupils assimilate into mainstream British culture, particularly by supporting those for whom English was not a first language.

• Linked with compensatory education.

• Criticism: This approach ignored that some groups (e.g. African Caribbean pupils) already spoke English and overlooked poverty and racism as root causes of underachievement.

Describe multi cultural education

Multicultural Education (MCE) (1980s-1990s)

• Sought to raise self-esteem and achievement by promoting minority cultures within the curriculum.

Criticisms of MCE:

• Maureen Stone (1981): Argued black pupils do not fail due to low self-esteem; MCE is therefore misguided.

• Critical Race Theorists: Claimed MCE is tokenistic—includes stereotypical aspects of culture without addressing institutional racism.

• The New Right: Criticised MCE for encouraging cultural divisions; believe education should promote shared national identity and assimilation.

Describe social inclusion policy

Social Inclusion (late 1990s onwards)

• Aimed at raising achievement of minority ethnic pupils.

• Key policies:

• Monitoring exam results by ethnicity.

• Amending the Race Relations Act to promote racial equality in schools.

• Voluntary Saturday schools in the black community.

• English as an Additional Language programmes.

Sociological critiques:

• Heidi Safia Mirza (2005): Argues there's little genuine change—policies avoid structural causes (poverty, racism) and instead take a 'soft' approach, focusing on culture and behaviour.

• Gillborn: Claims policies remain institutionally racist through ethnocentric curriculum, assessment, and streaming, which continue to disadvantage minority pupils.