Educational Social policy

Question 1

What was the first act that attempted to make basic education available to all 5-11 year old’s?

Answer 1

1870 education act (E)

Question 2

What did the act (E) lead to and what was education like prior to this?

Answer 2

The idea that the state should pay for education
Access to education was largely based on social class

Question 3

What were the 3 schools that the act made available?

Answer 3

Elementary school: working class up to 14
Fee paying grammar schools: working class boys
Expensive fee paying schools: upper class

Question 4

What act has the tripartite system?

Answer 4

1944 Butler education act (BE)

Question 5

What did the act (BE) do?

Answer 5

Created a radically altered education system and a state funded secondary sector to improve society based on academic ability through introducing a 11+ exam at the end of primary.

Question 6

What is the tripartite system?

Answer 6

Grammar schools: academic students that passed
Secondary technical: mechanical/scientific talent
Secondary modern: students who failed - vocational courses

Question 7

What are the rules of marking and amendments in 1944?

Answer 7

Girls required to take marks off. less than 8 right = a fail. Pass rate is aprox 80%

Question 8

Why was there gendered grading in the tripartite system?

Answer 8

Fewer same sex girls schools in 1944 (more boys schools) = fewer girls could go

Question 9

Why is the tripartite system problematic?

Answer 9

11+ exam seen as unfair and inaccurate, the test was clumsy as it couldn’t predict intellectual development. Disadvantaged working class kids who couldn’t afford tutoring or primary school

Question 10

What year was the comprehensive education act?

Answer 10

1965

Question 11

What did the 1965 comprehensive act do?

Answer 11

Encouraged the growth of a comprehensive school system with sure start centers and EMA’s (£30 a week)

Question 12

What are pros of the comprehensive act?

Answer 12

• Abolished the tripartite system
• Broke down social barriers
• Catered to all abilities, no one labelled as a failure
• Cheaper to fund
• Catchment area

Question 13

What was the cons of the comprehensive act?

Answer 13

• limits parental choice
• more able students held back
• accept lower standards
• catchment areas can lead to more social class division

Question 14

When was the vocational act?

Answer 14

1979

Question 15

What is the context of the vocationalism act?

Answer 15

• Declining British economy
• Rising unemployment
• Education possibly failed to produce appropriately skilled and motivated young workers
• Equality of opportunity was deemed less important than industry needs

Question 16

What did the vocational act do?

Answer 16

introduced courses that focused on practical achievement

Question 17

What are the pros of the vocational act?

Answer 17

• offered an alternative route for less academic learners
• gave hands on experience

Question 18

What are the cons of the vocational act?

Answer 18

• reproduced social class inequalities
• reproducing inequalities between different ethic groups
• reinforces gender differences for subject and jobs
• seen by Marxists as a form of exploitation for the working class

Question 19

What act caused a major change to the education system?

Answer 19

1988 education reform act

Question 20

What does the reform act do?

Answer 20

Introduce many policies to standardize and measure the success of education.
Such as:
- SATs
- The national curriculum
- League tables
- Ofsted

Question 21

What is the national curriculum?

Answer 21

Requires all schools to teach the same subject content from 7-16 and core subjects at GCSE levels. SATs and GCSEs were introduced as part of it.

Question 22

What do SATs and GCSEs do?

Answer 22

Ensure that every student and school was assessed using the same type of exam.

Question 23

What do league tables do?

Answer 23

Allow parents to compare and choose between schools in their local area with the assistance of the national curriculum to see which is best

Question 24

How are the new right relevant to league tables?

Answer 24

• Introduce school league tables (schools ranked based on exam performance in SATs, GCSEs and A levels)
• Theorized league tables would force schools to raise standards because parents wouldn’t choose a poor school.

Question 25

What is OFSTED and what's the context?

Answer 25

- Established in 1988, the government organization that inspects schools, reports are published and underachieving schools are shut if they consistently receive bad reports. - Aim: to drive up and raise standards, poor inspection could result in new management being imposed on underperforming schools

Question 26

How is marketisation relevant to social policies and education?

Answer 26

- Make schools compete with each other for government funding = turned into businesses (education market) - the better a school does the previous year the more money a school receives the following year - Schools that provide parents and pupils with what they want (eg: good exam results) will thrive - Those that don't will go out of business and will either close down or taken over by management who will run things more efficiently

Question 27

What is parentocracy in education?

Answer 27

Parental choice directly affects the school budget, every extra pupil means extra money for the school

Question 28

How does parentocracy work?

Answer 28

Schools publish a prospectus which includes their examination and test results since 1988 and parents make a choice based on this as to which school to send their pupils to

Question 29

What are the changes from 1988 to 2000?

Answer 29

- school diversity - excellence in cities and education action zones - curriculum 2000 and EMA - OFSTED can close failing schools - Abolished grants and introduced students loans for HE

Question 30

What happened between 2010-2015?

Answer 30

Coalition government formed between the conservatives and liberal democrats

Question 31

What do main policies include?

Answer 31

- Increase in tuition fees at uni - Removal of the EMA - Intro of free schools - Encourage schools to take academy status - Introduced the pupil premium - Changes to curriculum, linear model for exams and removing opportunities for resistance

Question 32

What are the COVID policies?

Answer 32

- Covid catch up and recovery premiums - Extra funding for the national tuition programme - £200 million addition funding for summer schools in summer 2021 - Extra training and support for teacher's mental health and wellbeing

Question 33

What does the covid catch up premium consist of?

Answer 33

£650 million allocated to schools to help provide catch up lessons in 2021, including running summer schools - Amounted £80 per pupil up to year 11 inclusive, £240 for SEND pupils

Question 34

What does the covid recovery premium consist of?

Answer 34

An additional £350 million for the 2021-2022 academic year for schools delivering 'evidence based approaches' to help students catch up - Money is supposed to targeted at the economically disadvantaged and SEND pupils

Question 35

What are critiques of covid policies?

Answer 35

- £1.4 Million isn't enough > pitifully small compared to other European countries - UK: £50 a head, Netherlands: £2500 a head - Don't tackle wider inequalities that are the root of poorer pupils falling behind in the pandemic

Question 36

Who spoke about globalisation and education?

Answer 36

McLuhan wrote about the global village, the idea that through global communications we have neighbors all around the world

Question 37

What smaller policies promote marketisation?

Answer 37

- Publication of league tables and OFSTED inspection > reports to give parents the info they need to choose the right schools - Business sponsorship of schools - Formula funding > where schools receive the same amounts of funding for each pupil - Schools being able to opt out of LEA control > prevents schools having to compete with each other to attract pupils

Question 38

What did ball and whitty talk about?

Answer 38

- Marketisation reproduces and legitimates inequality through league tables and funding formula > schools with good results are in high demand, schools can be selective, middle class pupils mainly chosen = advantage: better education > lower schools cannot select, full of working class pupils - funding determines pupil numbers, popularity = more money, schools can afford to attract better qualified teachers and facilities > unpopular schools lose income and find it difficult to match teachers and facilities with rivals

Question 39

How did globalization affect the economy?

Answer 39

- Jobs were exported = large growth of the public sector, may lead to a reduction in Bowles and Gintis correspondence principle (irrelevant) - Led to expanding the education system and taking on best practices from countries globally such as free schools

Question 40

How was the economy before?

Answer 40

- Unable to compete with the vast amount of emerging manufacturing economies due to labor expenses > population needs reskilling according to the 1990 labor party: encouraged to attend HE - Consistently ranked lower than many countries = policies such as marketisation and parentocracy to compete

Question 41

What is the definition of marketisation?

Answer 41

The process of adding/applying market principles to the education system (student = consumer)

Question 42

What did the new labour introduce that helped schools in deprived areas?

Answer 42

Introduced excellence in cities and city academies which turned failing schools in inner city areas and combined them into city center academies with additional funding from private enterprise

Question 43

What changes were made to HE from 1990 to 2010?

Answer 43

- New universities built/formed in 1992 through a policy that allowed colleges and polytechnics to apply for uni status - Tuition fees - 1998: £1000 2010: £3000

Question 44

What is pupil premium?

Answer 44

Additional funds allocated to schools for students of low income families

Question 45

What did Ball say about parentocracy?

Answer 45

Parentocracy is a myth: education market only serves those with the cultural capital to negotiate it (middle class)