Neoliberalism and the New Right perspective on education

• Moe and Chubb : consumer choice 


  argue that state-run schools/education has failed due to

  1. not having equal opportunities and failing the needs of disadvantaged groups
  2. inefficient as it fails to produce pupils with the skills needed by the economy
  3. private schools delivering higher quality education as they are answerable to paying consumers

  • base their arguments on a comparison of the achievements of 60,000 pupils from low income families in 1,015 state and private schools
  • found that pupils from low-income families do about 5% better in private schools, suggesting state education is not meritocratic
  • their solution is to introduce a market system in state education by giving control to consumers (parents and local communities) via a voucher system
• neoliberalism view on education

  • has had a major impact on education policy
  • argue that the state should not provide services such as education, health and welfare
  • their ideas have influenced governments since 1979
  • neoliberalism is based on the idea that the state must not dictate to individuals how to dispose of their on property and should try to regulate a free market economy
  • they believe that governments should encourages competition, private state run businesses and deregulate markets
  • argue that the value of education lies in how well it enables the country to compete in the global marketplace
  • they claim this can only happen if schools are run more like businesses to drive up the standards
• the new right view on education

  • they incorporate neoliberal economic ideas
  • a central principle of new right thinking is the belief that the state cannot meet peoples needs and that people are best left to meet their own needs through the free market
  • the new right favour the marketisation of education
  • similar to functionalist view
  • argue that state education systems take a 'one size fits all' approach imposing uniformity and disregarding local needs
  • sees state education systems are unresponsive and inefficient
  • the new rights solution to these problems is the marketisation of education as it creates an education market
  • they believe that competition between schools will bring greater diversity, choice and efficiency to schools and increase the schools ability to meet the needs of the pupils, parents and employers
• similarities between new right and functionalist view

  • Believe some people are naturally more talented than others
  • Agree education should be run on meritocratic principles of open competition
  • Believe education should socialise pupils into shared values and provide a sense of national identity
• new roles view on the roles of the state in education

  • The state should create the framework for competition between schools (e.g. by publishing league tables of exam results and by setting a national curriculum that all schools must teach)
  • The state still has to ensure that schools transmit society's shared culture through a curriculum that emphasises a shared national identity (e.g. through the teaching of British history)
• evaluation of the new right perspective

  • Gerwitz 1995 and Ball 1994 both argue that competition between schools benefits the middle class, who can use their cultural and economic capital to get their children into more desirable schools
  • critics argue that the real cause of low educational standards is not state control but social inequality and inadequate funding of state schools
  • Marxists argue that education imposes the culture of a ruling class, not a shared culture or 'national culture' as the New Right argue