Social Policy and Education

What act does Social Policy include?

The 1944 Education Act

What are the policy features?

• Introduced compulsory state education up to the age of 14.

• Set up a tri-partite system of ‘equal status’ schools;

  • Grammar

  • Secondary Modern

  • Technical schools

• Children would sit an IQ test at 11 that measured their innate ability (the 11+)

• Those who passed the 11+ exam would go to a grammar school (approx. 20%)

What does the 1944 Education act policy aim to do?

• Post war welfare state- creating a land fit for heroes.

• Beveridge Report- 5’evils’: Ignorance

• It wanted to abolish inequalities in state education.

• The 11+ exam was seen as a fair and scientific way to measure ability that a child was ‘born with.’

1944 Education Act- Evaluation

• It provided upward social mobility for the working-class children who passed the 11+ and continues to provide a high quality education for 5% of UK children that still go to a grammar school.

• Really only two school choices as technical colleges were too expensive to build and were phased out.

• Secondary modem and technical students were labelled failures and often not allowed to sit formal qualifications as a result of labelling, wasting large swathes of working- class talent.

• Marxists were critical of the elaborate code that the 11+ was written in excluding working class children and ethnic minorities who spoke in more restricted code. Grammar schools were heavily populated by middle class students dispelling the notion of innate ability.

• Feminists were critical as there were fewer girl’s grammar schools places meaning that girls required a higher pass rate than boy to attend. It was assumed that most girls would aspire to the expressive role in the family.

What does 1965 comprehensive education act aim to do?

• Comprehensive education abolished selection at the age of 11 and aimed to educate all children in the same secondary school regardless of their class, ethnicity, gender or ability.

• The tripartite system had not succeeded in creating equality of opportunity. The Labour government were critical of a highly divisive tripartite system in that social mobility had stalled.

• It was believed that the meritocratic ideals were more likely to occur in a comprehensive system where all children are given the same opportunity.

1965 comprehensive education act Evaluation

• Recognised that children develop at different rates and could reward late bloomers in higher sets/ streams rather than selection at 11.

• More inclusive - reduced stigma of the 11+

• However, internal streaming and catchment areas still reflected class inequalities.

• Private education still exists for the wealthy (7% of the UK children)

• Inequality between schools replaced with inequality within schools.

• Not all authorities shut Grammar Schools- 5% of the students today still attend these selective schools.

• The new right were very critical of comprehensives as they lacked discipline, with students organising strike events. They claim that it led to a lack of parental choice in school.

What did the Education reform act of 1988 aim to do?

Policy features:

• Testing- SATS to judge quality of schools at age 7 and 11, GCSE’s and A-Levels. School performance can be objectively monitored.

• National curriculum- All schools teach the same things so that standard comparison can be made.

• League Tables- Schools results were published to help drive up competition and inform parents of the best schools. Also OFSTED inspections (1992/93) would ensure that parents were b eter informed about the quality of the school attended.

• Open enrolment- Parents could send their children to any ‘local’ state schools not just the nearest school.

Policy aims:

• Marketisation would increase competition between schools. Schools would have to improve or have funding cut or be closed. Thus will increase choice for parents (parentocracy).

• Local authority run schools were ‘failing’ children. There were no incentives for schools to improve individually.

Evaluation of the Education Reform Act 1988

• School results improved

• Introduced accountability and parent choice.

• Created an “education market” where middle-class parents could use cultural and economic capital (Ball&Gewirtz) to get their children into the best schools. Parents can impress the school attended interview and afford transport costs of schools out of a catchment area.

• League tables increased inequalities; schools focused on image> improvement.

• Low ability students were barred from taking exams, funneled into ‘easy’ low status qualifications

• There is still a significant gender, class and ethnicity disparity in results.

Marketisation and the new right

Marketisation is the process of introducing market forces of consumer choice and competition between suppliers into areas run by the state.

Government policy since the 1988 Education Reform Act had marketisation at the core.

Policy examples to support marketisation

• National curriculum

• SATS Tests, GCSE’s and A -Levels

• League tables and OFSTED reports

New Labour - Specialist Schools

• AO1- Schools that were supposedly expert in one of 10 subject areas (e.g. sport, business, maths and computing)

• AO2- The new labour government was simply continuing the market forces agenda, giving parents more choice over school with the aim to drive up standards in a parentocracy.

• AO3- The problem with these special schools, where is that quite often they weren’t specialist in that subject. In fact, the funding was given to help them get better in that subject area, giving parents a false impression.

• The additional funding did help improve the facilities of the schools, including more specialist PE and IT equipment

New labour Policy- City academies

• AO1- City academies were introduced to improve standards in deprived working-class intercity communities. The schools were provided with additional funding, super heads, and expert teachers.

• AO2- These areas often had working class and BAME communities who were underachieving. The schools were removed from failing local authority control and ran themselves independently with direct government funding.

• AO3- Behaviour policies were rigorously enforced. This helped turn the city academies from some of the least successful to most successful schools in the country. E.g. Mossbourne Community Academy. In 5 years, 85% students got A*-C grades.

• However, they weakened the power of local government. They could still shift students.

New Labour Policy- Sure start centres

• AO1- The centres offer childcare, play sessions, parenting advice and employment coaching. At their peak in 2010, there were 3,600 centres, with a budget of about 1.8 billion pounds.

• AO2- Sure start was designed to boost the educational & life chances of disadvantaged children e.g. to compensate for the 18- month learning gap between them and their middle class counterparts.

• AO3- They had a small positive impact on SATS scores at seven years old.

• However, middle class parents often hijacked these facilities as a subsidised source of childcare, intimidating working class mothers.

New labour Policy- Education Maintenance Allowance

• AO1- EMA- an education maintenance allowance that paid sixth form students between 10-30 pounds a week for coming to college, meeting their deadlines and achieving good grades.

• AO2- The aim was to boost sixth-form and university participation, especially that of working-class students i.e. drive upward social mobility for these students whom it had stalled. The Labour government wanted to increase higher education participation to 50%.

• AO3- It didn’t have to be spent on education resources.

• It would also help to meet the hidden costs of free education.

Conservative Education Policies 2010- Trebling tuition fees

• AO1- Trebling of tuition fees.

• AO2- This was a marketisation policy. The government had hoped that by charging 9000 pounds per year that university standards would increase. The weaker universities will therefore improve so they could charge 9000 a year. The less competitive universities would not be able to charge full price for a lesser product.

• AO3- The number of the 1st and 2:1 degrees awarded at university at highest ever.

• Most providers charge the full fee.

• Marxists would argue that students have been turned into commodities with the purpose of education to make a profit. Competition for university is very high in global market with British students competing with overseas students for places on competitive courses.

Conservative Education Policies 2010- Pupil premium

• AO1- people premium is additional funding, given to schools to help improve the attainment of disadvantaged groups. Eligibility is for those in care, adopted, on free school meals or income support.

• AO2- Schools are given additional funding of between 900 and 2400 for the students to help boost attainment for this for this group of disadvantaged learners because there is a link between deprivation and underperformance at school.

  • AO3- However, most schools use the additional funding to pay for everyday school expenses; It does not have to be spent on individual pupil premium students. School funding per child has fallen by 9% since 2010 and the money is often used to help pay for more teachers, TAs, equipment, etc. Parents and guardians are not very aware of the additional funding for their child and cannot hold the schools to account in a supposed parentocracy.

Conservative Education Policies- GCSE and A-Levels reform

• AO1- They have been made to be linear 2-year courses whereby most coursework has been removed or changed to controlled assessments.

• AO2- It was argued that schools and teachers were abusing assignments, helping students too much with coursework so that they could be higher on the league tables, both within schools and across schools. This was a threat to the objectivity of parentocracy- ie. That parents could trust the league tables and performance data.

• AO3- Exams were made more difficult to help us compete for skills on the international stage. GCSEs were graded 1 to 9 being the new indicator of the country’s top achievers with the equivalent of an A**

• Strain theory- If teachers pupils feel they don’t have the means to achieve the grades, they will innovate and cheat to be higher up the league tables.