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Marketisation of Eduction - Coggle Diagram
Marketisation of Eduction
Marketisation of education
An "education market" has been created by:
reducing direct state control over education
increasing competition between schools
increasing parental choice of school
The process of introducing market forces of consumer choice and competition between suppliers into education in order to drive up educational standards.
Marketisation Policies
Business sponsorship of schools
Specialist schools, specialising in IT, languages etc to widen parental choice
Publication of league tables and Ofsted inspection reports that rank each school according to exam performance, giving parents info needed to choose the right school
Formula funding, where schools receive the same amount of funding for each pupil
Allowing schools to opt out of LEA control and become academies
Introduction of tuition fees for higher education
Allowing parents/ teachers to set up free schools
Parentocracy
Miriam David (1993):
marketised education has created a parentocracy. Power has shifted away from the producers (teachers/ schools) to the consumers (parents).
This supposedly encourages diversity between schools and raises standards.
Parental Choice: Gerwitz
Increased
parental choice
advantages m/c parents: their economic and cultural capital puts them in a better position to choose good schools for their children.
Privileged Skilled choosers:
Professional, m/c parents, used their economic and cultural capital to gain educational capital for their children. They knew about league tables, how school admissions system worked, made time to visit schools and had skills to research options available.
Being prosperous, confident and well educated= able to take full advantage of choices available to them.
Able to move their children around the education system to get the best deal out of it due to economic capital: e.g. can afford to pay extra travel costs so child can attend better schools out of their area.
Disconnected local choosers
w/c parents, choices restricted by their lack of economic and cultural capital
Found difficulty understanding school admission procedures- less confident in dealing with schools, less aware of choices available to them and less able to manipulate system to their advantage.
many placed more importance on safety and quality of school facilities over league tables or long-term ambitions. More concerned about children gaining employment than further education.
Distance and cost of travel= major restrictions on choice of school. Funds were limited and a place at the nearest school is often the only realistic option.
Semi-skilled choosers
Parents mainly w/c, but unlike disconnected local choosers were ambitious for their children.
They still lacked cultural capital and found it difficult to make sense of the education system- relied on others' opinions on schools, didn't know how to help their children achieve.
Reproducing Inequality?
The Funding Formula
Unpopular schools lose income as they attract less pupils, find difficulty matching the teacher skills and facilities of more successful rival schools= results are not as good, remain unpopular, funding is further reduced.
Schools are allocated funds by a formula based on how many pupils they attract. Popular schools get more funds= can afford better facilities, better-qualified teachers. Popularity allows for selectivity and attracts able m/c students= school continues to thrive.
Institute for Public Policy Research (2012):
competition-oriented education systems such as Britain's produce more segregation between children from different social backgrounds.
League Tables
Success breeds success: Publication of results in league tables ensure that schools with good results are more in demand as parents are attracted to schools with good league table rankings.
Bartlett (1993):
Cream-skimming:
good schools can be more selective, choose their own customers and recruit high achieving, mainly m/c pupils (cream-skim more able pupils)
Silt-shifting
: good schools avoid taking less able pupils who are likely to get poor results and damage their league table position (silt-shift them to less successful schools)
Schools with poor league table positions cannot afford to be selective with who attends, forced to take less able, mainly w/c pupils, so their results are poorer, remain unable to attract m/c parents with children that could boost their position.
Ball (1994)
and
Whitty (1998):
marketisation policies such as exam league tables and the funding formula reproduce class inequalities and produce unequal schools.
Marketisation and Segregation
Gillborn (1997):
marketisation gives schools more scope to select pupils which allows negative stereotypes to influence decisions on admissions= creates an ethnically stratified education system
Moore and Davenport (1990)
: selection procedures lead to ethnic segregation: minority pupils don’t get into successful secondary schools due to discrimination. Primary school reports were used to screen out pupils with language difficulties and application process was made difficult for non-English speakers to understand= favoured white pupils, disadvantaged ethnic minorities
Commission for Racial Equality (1997):
Racism in school admission procedures= ethnic minority children more likely to end up in unsuccessful school
primary school reports stereotype ethnic minority pupils
racist bias in interviews for secondary school places
lack of information/ application forms in minority lanaguges
ethnic minority parents often lack cultural capital on waiting list system, importance of deadlines, application processes
Myth of Parentocracy
Ball
: marketisation gives the appearance of a parentocracy- seems as if it is based on parents having free choice of school- this is a myth. In reality m/c parents are better able to take advantage of choices available to them.
By disguising the fact that schooling reproduces class inequality, the myth of meritocracy legitimises inequality in education- makes it appear fair and inevitable.