educational policy and inequality

    Cards (12)

    • David
      marketisation education is a parentocracy, in an education market, power shifts away from the producers (schools and teachers) to the consumers (parents). this gives parents more choice and raises standards
    • Ball and Whitty
      marketisation policies like exam league tables and the funding formula reproduce class inequalities by creating inequalities between schools
    • Bartlett
      league tables encourage cream skimming and silt shifting. this has an effect of producing unequal schools that reproduce social class inequalities
    • Gewirtz
      in a study of London secondary schools, Gewirtz found that differences in parents' economic and cultural capital leads to class differences in how far parents can exercise choice of secondary school. she identified three main types of parents:
      • privileged skilled choosers
      • disconnected local choosers
      • semi skilled choosers
    • Ball
      marketisation gives the appearance of a parentocracy and parents having a free choice of school but this is a myth because middle class parents are better able to take advantage of the choices available. e.g., moving into the catchment area of a more desirable school
    • Benn
      sees a contradiction between Labour's policies to tackle inequality and their policies of promoting marketisation. this is what she called the 'New Labour paradox'
    • Allen
      in her research of free schools she found that free schools only benefit children from highly educated families
    • Ball
      promoting academies and free schools has led to increased fragmentation and an increased centralisation of control over educational provision
    • Pollack
      the flow of personnel and revolving door allows companies to buy insider knowledge to help win contracts from the government
    • Hall
      marxist. academies are an example of handing over public services to private capitalists. the benefit of privatisation being able to drive up standards is a myth to legitimise using education as a source of private property
    • Mirza
      sees that there has been very little genuine change in policy. she sees that educational policy takes a soft approach instead of tackling the structural causes of inequality
    • Molnar
      cola-isation of schools where schools are targeted by private companies because schools have the power to confer legitimacy on anything associated with them. this means that the private sector is penetrating education indirectly e.g., through vending machines on school property