Educational policy and inequalities

• Marketisation


  The process of introducing market forces of consumer choice and competition between suppliers into areas run by the state, such as education.
• Privatisation

  Privatisation is a process where institutions or other bodies are transferred from being owned by the state (for government) to being owned by the private companies.
• Meritocracy


  A society whereby jobs and pay are allocated based on an individual's talent and achievements rather than social status.
• Tripartite system

  Academic students would attend grammar schools, technical students would attend technical schools, practical students would attend secondary modern schools.
• Comprehensivisation


  The establishment of comprehensive schools in the 1960s which replaced the selectice tripartitse system
• Parentocracy


  Refers to the idea that the parents oversee the education system. Marketisation policies of 1988 subsequently aimed to give parents more choice over their children's education.
• Neo-liberal


  An economic philosophy rather than a sociological perspective. Makes an important contribution to debates about global development and features.
• Globalisation

  Involves interconnected changes in the economic, cultural, social and political spheres of society.
• Academisation

  Academies are state-funded schools. They are funded and controlled by the state. Academies are set up through a contract between the Education Secretary and the trust. They have legal responsibility for the staff, assets and land.
• Free school


  Micheal Gove was influenced by educational policies in Sweden where local demand from parents can lead to the establishment of free schools. Which are funded by the government
• Educational capital


  Refers to the educational goods that are converted into commodities to be bought, sold, withheld, traded, consumed and profited in the education system.
• Cultural capital


  Refers to the social assets of a person that can give them advantages in a stratified society. It includes the skills, education, norms and behaviours that a person acquires from their social group.
• Human capital


  Sum of knowledge, skills, experience and social qualities that contribute to a person's ability to perform work in a manner that produces economic value.
• Endogenous Privatisation


  The schools are privatised from within, rather than the greater role of private companies.
• Exogenous Privatisation


  Privatisation from the outside, aspects of the education system are outsourced to external providers and companies.
• Education services industry


  Education has become a source of profit for capitalists through the privatisation of education.
• Globalised economy

  The increased movement of goods and services between countries and transnational corporations
• Fordism

  Industrial engineering and manufacturing system that serves as the basis of modern social and labour-economic systems that support industrialized, standardised mass and production and mass consumption.
• Post-fordism


  A relatively durable form of economic organizations for those who believe that a stable post-fordism has already ermerged
• Covert selection


  Schools try to discourage parents from lower socioeconomic backgrounds from applying by doing such things as making school and literature difficult to understand.