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Social policy in Eduation - Coggle Diagram
Social policy in Eduation
Privatisation of Education
Ball
Education has become a source of profit for capitalists referred to as the 'Education Services Industry'. Private companies in the ESI increase activities in education. Large scale school building projects often involve PPPs where private companies provide capital to build education services and the local council pay a monthly lease and management fee to these companies. Its profitable for companies but local authorities have to engage in agreements due to a lack of funding by central gov.t
Building schools
Providing supply teachers
Work based learning
Ofsted inspection services
Has led to blurring of public/private boundaries. Ex. Disney owning pearsons
Private sector is penetrating education indirectly, through vending machines on school sights leading to development of brand loyalty. Process is called 'cola-lisation' of schools, which schools endorse certain products. This doesn't benefit schools.
Ball
concludes that policy in increasingly focused on moving educational services out of public sector control, to be provided by private companies - education is now commodity to be bought and sold in an education market. Large global corporations are exploiting schools to aid profit.
1880 Compulsory Education Act
Provided state run elementary schools for 5-13y/o. It aimed to teach basic literacy, numeracy and morality. However type of education received depended on class background.
1944 Tripartite system 'Butler Act'
Aimed to give an equal chance to develop individuals abilities. Primary - 5>11y/o, Secondary 11>15y/o. 11+ exams were introduced and students were allocated into 3 schools: Grammar (20%), Technical (5%) and Secondary Modern (75%)
EV
: 11+ is too young to determine future life. Many were unable to go into further education and secondary were seen as second rate so class divide still remains
1966 Comprehensives
Labour government sent a circular to Local Education Authorities, requesting them to reorganise education along more comprehensive lines. By 1979, 80% of secondary pupils attended comprehensives.
Pros: Socially diverse, W/c have education opportunities, gets rid of 11+ exams, same level skill of teachers
EV
: Doesn't meet individuals needs, banding/streaming, diluted grammar schools, primarily single class - recruiting from one area
1988 Reform Act (joined with New Right)
Conservative government which established a national curriculum for all state schools. Introduced GCSEs and SATs, reduced control of LEA and parents were given parental choice
These changes established the principle of marketisation favoured by New Right. Process of marketisation has been continued in New Labours 1997 and Coalition
New right view
Traditional and Conservative and want to reduce state involvement. Suggests that the only state interference is to impose a framework on schools within which they have to compete and also to transmit a shared culture - imposing national curriculum
Chubb and Moe
Believe the state education system is inefficient and that private schools are better as they are answerable to paying consumers. They propose a system in which each family is given a voucher to spend on buying education from a school of their choice. They believe this will force schools to be responsive to parents and therefore schools will have to improve standards and attract consumers.
Policies promoting marketisation in education including:
Publication of exam league tables and Ofsted inspections - informing parents of the 'best schools'
Business sponsorships of schools - involving private funding in education
Open enrolment - allowing successful schools to recruit more pupils, from outside their catchment
Formula Funding - schools receive the same amount of funding for each pupil, so therefore encouraging schools to recruit more students to increase funding
Schools being able to opt out of LEA control, gaining funding from central government and giving individual schools greater control over their budget
Introduction of tuition fees for HE
Allowing parents and others to set up free schools giving parents, charities and Churches more involvement in education
EV
of marketisation and New Right
It has increased social class inequalities. It has been argued that only m/c parents can take advantage of choice, using cultural and economical capital.
Ball
suggests marketisation reproduces and legitimates inequality - through league tables and formula funding
Good schools are allowed to be more selective and recruit high achieving, mainly m/c pupils. For bad schools, they can't afford to be selective and have to take less able, mainly w/c pupils. Their results are poorer and they remain unattractive to m/c parents.
Myth of parentocracy. Marketisation reproduces inequality but it also legitimates it by concealing its true causes. Ball suggests marketisation gives the appearance of a 'parentocracy' but that this is actually a myth as not all parents have choice. As
Gewirtz
shows, m/c parents have more economic and cultural capital, so are able to do things like being geographically mobile
Privileged skilled choosers - m/c, lots of economic and cultural capital
Disconnected local choosers - w/c, restricted by a lack of cultural and economic capital and less confident when dealing with schools
Semi-skilled choosers - mainly w/c but ambitious for their children, lack cultural capital so often frustrated by the system and not being able to get child in preferred school
Bartlett
argues marketisation leads to Cream skimming - selecting higher ability students who gain best results and cost less to teach, and Silt-shifting - Off-loading pupils with learning difficulties who are expensive to teach and get poor results
Gillborn and Youdell
argues marketisation changes explain why schools are under pressure to stream and select pupils. Schools need to be in a good league table position in order to attract pupils. Policy in publishing league tables creates and A*-C economy. This is a system in which schools ration their time, effort and resources to concentrate them on those pupils they perceive as having potential to get 5 C's at GCSE. Process was called educational triage. The A-C economy means schools categorise pupils into those who will pass anyway, those with potential and hopeless cases.
New Vocationalism
Strengths: Can get paid, reduces unemployment, motivates teens into workforce and meets societal needs
EV
: Reinforces gender stereotypes and class inequalities, benefits bourgeoisie paying less to trainees, hard to find good quality apprentices, divide between universities and apprenticeships
Being taught specific skills for specific jobs, bring education closer to the needs of the economy, supported by conservatives and New Labour
Examples: BTECs, NVQs, Tlevels, Diplomas
Globalisation of Education
Education is a multi-billion pound global market and large MNCs are seeking to gain access to these vast markets. Education exports from Britain by Independent schools, sixth forms, universities and FE colleges.
International comparisons - There's a wide range of international data available on all aspects of education, allowing global comparisons to be made, for ex. PISA league table which is based on tests in maths, sciences and reading. The data is then ranked in league tables. These have had a deep influence on educational policies in many countries. They often result in the reassessment of existing policies to see whether they are working effectively and may lead to the formation of new policies.
New Labour view
Coalition view