History and educational changes

》 Tripartite system

Pupils took an 11+ exam, from this pupils are sorted into either:

Grammar schools - M/C acedemic pupils, the brightest pupils who pass the 11+, taught academic subjects.

Secondary modern - M/C non-academic & W/C, those who failed in the 11+, taught a mixture of vocational and academic subjects.

Technical - W/C, taught only vocational subjects.

✗ This system reproduced inequality as classes were sent to different schools

✗ Girls were more likely to go to grammar schools because they got more marks in the 11+.

✗ Teachers in grammar schools labeled and discriminated against W/C, similarly, positive labelling occurred of M/C in secondary modern.

》 The comprehensive system - 1965

11+ was abolished along with the tripartite system. The comprehensive system was inclusive, all pupils in the local area would attend the same school.

✗ Marxists argue that this reproduced inequality through the myth of meritocracy.

✓ Functionalist suggest that this system increased social integration.

✓ Ford - social integration wasn't happening due to streaming, however the comprehensive system was more meritocratic.

》 Marketisation

Education market - reduce state control and increase parental choice and competition. New Right favour this approach.

Parentocracy - league tables, specialism of schools (science, art, music), tuition fees help parents decide where to send their children.

✓ David - this will increase standards and diversity of classes, ethnicities and genders.

✗ Bartlett - good schools with good league table positions are able to cream-skim and silt-shift. Meaning they can choose the ideal pupils and shift away the W/C and ethnic minorities.

✗ Reproduces inequality and educational failure, schools lower on leader boards aren't attractive and so recurve less funding formula, resulting in further decline.

》 Parental choice - Gerwitz

Types of parent choose-yness:

Priveliged-skilled - Upper - middle class, make choices using league tables, reviews and Ofsted reports.

Disconnected local - W/C parents with no interest in where their children go and end up attending the local high school.

Semi-skilled - W/C parents who have ambition and interest in their child's education.

✗ Bull - Parentocracy is a myth as parents don't really have much of a choice in schools as the local government is usually responsible for allocating school positions.

》 New labour - 1997/2010

They aimed to decrease inequality. They introduced policies such as:

EAZ

EMA

New literacy strategy

Increase in state funding

✗ Benn - paradox - introduce EMA but increase tuition fees.

》 Coalition government - 2010/2015

Introduction if academies which were schools disconnected from local government but still receive funding directly from the government. They have control over the curriculum.

Free schools - schools funded by the state but is set up and controlled by parents, teachers, faith organisations and businesses. This gives parents more control to change what needs to be changed.

✗ Allen - 20% of Swedish schools are free schools, since their introduction, educational ranking has declined.

✗ Free schools rarely take on disadvantaged pupils e.g. Bristol free school only has 6.5% on free school meals.

》 Fragmentation - Bull

Fragmentation - Comprehensive schools were replaced by a patchwork of varying provisions which increased inequality.

Centralisation - government has control over diversity and funding, decreasing local control.

✓ Inequality was reduced through the introduction of free school meals and pupil premium.

✗ However, important schemes such as EMA, the closure of Surestart and the increase in tuition fees to £9000 (fees have been raised again to £9250), cause inequality to increase.

》 Privitisation

Education becomes a source of profit for capitalism. Businesses are becoming increasingly involved in building and funding schools through public-private partnerships. Where business may assist the government in building schools and running scholarships providing that the profit.

Globalisation of education - GCSE papers are sometimes marked abroad, global education software companies/programs shared, educational policies may be shared around the world, increasing competition e.g. Singapore maths is far superior and this creates competition between nations.

'Cola'isation - gaining money through school partnerships and business deals, e.g. coca cola placing vending machines in schools, schools buy Nike sports equipment, through vouchers - £110,000 spent in Tesco to collect enough vouchers for a free computer.

》 Policies on gender and ethnicity

Gender - GIST/WISE, abolished the 11+

Ethnicity - assimilation policies in the 60s/70s ignored the real cause of underachievement (poverty), multiculturalism in the 80s/90s aimed at improving self-esteem, social inclusion strategies like EASL programmes and heavy monitoring of ethnic minority achievement.

✗ Policies failed to tackle institutional racism.

✗ Stone - Underachievement was not due to self-esteem.

✗ Gilborne - new policies are still disadvantageous to ethnic minorities, with very little improvement.