1.4 The marketisation of education

• What years were the new right view of education?

  1979-1997
• What sort of government had the new right view of education?

  Conservative
• What are examples of marketisation policies schools have?

  *league tables and ofsted reports*business sponsorship of schools*open recruitment *specialist schools*formula funding*opportunity to academise*competing to attract pupils *introduction of tuition fees*allowing parents/others to set up free schools
• What is open recruitment?

  Allowing successful schools to recruit more pupils
• What are examples of specialist schools?

  Languages, IT etc
• What does it mean if a school academises?

  Local authorities no longer in control
• What did Ball and Whitty say about marketisation?

  Reproduced class inequalities by creating differences between schools.
• What ten things did the education reform act in 1988 do?

  *focus on accountability of schools, parental choice and testing*introduced national curriculum*drove up standards and increased parental choice*marketised education*created the national curriculum *ofsted*league tables*SATs*GCSEs*formula
• How did exams change in 1986?

  GCE and CSE were combined to form GCSEs
• What year were GCSEs formed?

  1986
• Why was the national curriculum introduced?

  To ensure pupils worked on key areas
• Who described marketised education as a parentocracy?


  Miriam David
• What did Miriam David say about marketised education?

  Described it as a parentocracy
• What is cultural capital?

  The knowledge, attitudes, values, language, tastes and abilities of the middle class which transmit to their children
• What is economic capital?


  money
• Who talked about silt shifting & cream skimming?

  Bartlett
• What was Gewirtz's (1995) study?


  The study of 14 London secondary schools
• What did Gewirtz find out?

  That differences in parents' economic & cultural capital lead to class differences in how far they can exercise choice of secondary school
• What were the 3 types of parents Gewirtz identified?

  Privileged-skilled choosers, Semi-skilled choosers & Disconnected-local choosers
• Privileged skilled choosers


  Professional middle-class parents who possess the economic and cultural capital to take full advantage of the choices available
• Disconnected-local choosers


  Working class parents whose choices were restricted by their lack of economic and cultural capital
• Semi-skilled choosers

  Working-class parents who are ambitious for their children, but still lack the cultural capital needed to make sense of the education market. Often they rely on others' opinions of schools
• What are the three criticisms of the reform act?

  Parentocracy- benefits the middle class as they can access and manipulate the information given to them (reinforces class differences)Few places in popular schools- they had very little room left meaning parents didn't have as much choice as was made outCompetition- allowed the popular/better schools to cream skim meaning schools were selective