Marketisation

• Market forces


  Chance and education
• 1988 Education Reform Act


  Made marketisation central to education policy
• 2010 coalition government


  Took it further with academies and free schools
• New Right & Neoliberals

  • Favour marketised education as schools have to compete to attract parents, and schools will give in to parents needs to enrol more students
• Marketisation


  Has increased inequalities
• Market policies like exam league tables/formula funding

  • Reproduce inequalities between schools
• League tables


  • Ensure those with good results become in demand, and will be more attracted to them
  • Encourage cream-skimming (good schools can be selective MC pupils) and silt-shifting (good schools avoid taking less able WC pupils, who damage their league table position)
• Formula funding


  • Popular schools get more funding, better resources, teachers that attracts MC pupils
  • Unpopular schools get less, poorer resources, teachers, etc that means they have to take all pupils and have their table position suffer
• Parentocracy


  Myth that marketisation gives all parents the freedom of choice in selecting schools
• Gewirtz shows parent's choice is affected by class, with the MC benefitting most
• Marketised education


  • Encourages parentocracy which gives them school choice and raises educational standards
• Policies that promote marketisation

  • Publishing league tables and Ofsted reports (helps parents choose the right school)
  • Business sponsorship of schools
  • Specialist schools- to widen parental choice
  • Open enrolment-successful schools can recruit more pupils
  • Formula funding same funding for every pupil
• New Labour from 1997-2010

  1. Made policies aiming to reduce educational inequality

  2. Education Action Zones- provided more resources to deprived areas

  3. Aim Higher programme-raise aspirations of groups who aren't represented in higher education

  4. Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA)- payments to low-income students to encourage Qualification after 16

  5. Increased funding for state education
• Benn (2012) - This is a New Labour Paradox, choosing marketisation even though it causes inequality, and then making more policies to tackle inequality
• Gewirtz (1995) parental choice


  • Marketisation benefits the MC by increasing parental choice they can use their economic and cultural capital to choose good schools
  • Privileged skilled choosers MC parents. Use cultural capital to choose the best schools, network with school admissions, etc. Use economic capital to move into catchment areas, afford travel to the best schools, etc
  • Disconnected local choosers: wC parents with restricted choices as they have no economic/cultural capital. Less knowledgeable about choices, admissions & playing the system. Closest schools (no matter the quality) were the best option due to travel cost restrictions
  • Semi-skilled choosers: WC parents with ambitions for their children (unlike local choosers), Lack economic/cultural capital and understanding the market and were frustrated that they couldn't send ther child the best school due to this
• Free schools


  A type of academy that is set up by parents, teachers, charities, or community groups and has more autonomy over its curriculum, staffing, and budget than other state schools
• Academies


  State-funded schools in England that are independent of local authority control and have more freedom over their curriculum, staffing, and budget than other state schools