Educational Policy

Before 1988
1. Before 1833, the public state spent no money on public education
2. Industrialisation = state made schooling compulsory from the ages 5 - 13 in 1880
3. The type of education children received depended on their class background
4. Middle-class = academic curriculum to prepare for careers. Working-class = basic numeracy and literacy needed for routine factory work.
The Tripartite System 1994
1. Influenced by the idea of meritocracy - didn't achieve this
2. Children would be selected and allocated 1 of 3 different types of secondary school according to their aptitudes and abilities
3. Promoted inequality by channelling two different social classes into two different types of schooling and then being offered unequal opportunities.
4. 1) Grammar School 2) Secondary Modern School 3) Technical School
Comprehensive System 1965 - 1979
1. AIM: overcome class divide, make education more meritocratic
2. 11+, grammar schools and secondary modern schools would be abolished - replaced with comprehensive schools which all pupils would attend
  1. Left to local education authority to decide whether to 'go comprehensive' and not all did so.
FUNCTIONALISTS: see education as fulfilling essential functions such as a social integregation and meritocratic selection for future work roles.
1. MARXISTS: see education as serving the interests of capitalism by reproducing and legitimating class inquality
Marketisation
1. 1) Reducing direct state control over education. 2) Increasing both competition between schools and parental choice of school.
2. 1988 Education Reform Act - Conservative gov. (Thatcher)
  1. 1997 - New Labour governments of Blair and Brown followed similar policies
    1. Sociologist Miriam David (1993) describes education as 'parentocracy'. Supporters of marketisation argue that in an education market, power shifts away from producers and to consumers.
The reproduction of inequality
1. Ball (1994) and Whitty (1998) note how marketisation policies (such as league tables) reproduce class inequalities by creating them between schools.
  1. Parents are attracted to those with good league table rankings (policy to publish exam results)
    1. Will Bartlett (1993) 1) cream - skinning 2) silt - shifting
Gewirtz: parental choice
1. Study of 14 London secondary schools identified 3 types of parents: 1) Privileged - skilled choosers 2) Disconnected - local choosers 3) Semi - skilled consumers
  1. Privileged - skilled choosers: Professional middle - class who used their economic and cultural capital to gain educational capital for their children, being well - educated they were able to take full advantage of the choices open to them.
  2. Disconnected - local choosers: Working - class parents whose choices were restricted by their lack of economic and cultural capital
  3. Semi - skilled choosers: Working - class (however were ambitious for their children) unfortunately lacked cultural capital and found it difficult to make sense of the education market (rely on others opinions about school)
New Labour and reducing inequality
1. Policies include: designating some deprived areas as Education Action Zones and providing them with additional resources. EMAs. Aimer Higher Programme.
2. Benn (2012) criticises and sees a contradiction between Labour policies to tackle inequality and its commitment to marketisation e.g. introduction of EMA's however tuition fees for higher education is very expensive

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