Topic 6; educational policies - new right

Question 1

Chubb and Moe - AO1

Answer 1

consumer choice; they argue that the role of education is to be responsive to the needs of parents and their children but they argue that state education fails to do this - for example working class students at private schools performed 5% better than those in state education, they argued that this was because private education is more responsive to their consumers

Question 2

Chubb and Moe - AO3

Answer 2

Marxists would argue that Chubb and Moe are deterministic in terms of that all consumers will have an equal amount of choice - it is likely that middle class parents will obtain more choice than working class parents because they have more cultural and economic capital; more educated about the function of the education system and they can afford travelling costs so that their children can attend the best performing schools

Question 3

Bartlett - AO1

Answer 3

argues that league tables encourages two processes; cream skimming and silt shifting
- creaming skimming highlights that ‘good’ performing schools can be more selective of their customers and thus recruit high achieving middle class students
- silt shifting highlights that ‘good’ performing schools can avoid taking on less able pupils as this will effect their position in the league table

Question 4

Bartlett - AO2

Answer 4

this means that working class pupils are less likely to attend ‘good’ performing schools because they deviate outside the image of the ideal pupil (Becker - labelling theory) and so will attend the ‘poor’ performing schools which are more likely to fail to provide the resources for the students

Question 5

Gewirtz - AO1

Answer 5

Parental choice - he distinguished between three main types of parents;
- privileged skilled choosers; middle class parents who used their economic and cultural capital to gain educational capital for their children
- disconnected local choosers; working class parents who have their choices restricted because they lack economic and cultural capital
- semi skilled choosers; mainly working class parents but they were ambitious for their children

Question 6

Ball - AO1

Answer 6

the myth of parentocracy - marketisation reproduces social inequality by creating an ideology that all parents have an equal amount of choice; he points out that this is a myth and agrees with Gewirtz idea that middle class parents are at an advantage